A VERY SPECIAL DAY?

The Accra Mail (Ghana) reports that Saturday 23 April 2005 is World Book and Copyright Day. Designated by UNESCO as an annual worldwide celebration, the event is meant to encourage and assist young people to discover the pleasure of reading books and the need to protect copyright and general knowledge of the literary industry. The programme, which would be held under the theme "Knowledge is Power" will also include a football Gala, which will involve six second cycle schools competing for a giant trophy. A special quiz competition with attractive prizes will also be organised. This event is targeted at basic and second cycle schools and is aimed at strengthening their interest and skills in obtaining information from books, the Internet and related media. Prizes set aside for participants in the quiz competition include free membership of the French Information Centre in Accra, internet access and scholarships for French language courses.

Citizens of Accra take to their boats in an attempt
to flee "World Book and Copyright Day"

In competition with UNESCO, the WIPO website says that Tuesday 26 April is WIPO's World Intellectual Property Day. A list of "suggested activities" is furnished for those who might otherwise just be sitting at home, reading the French Information they won from the French Information Centre in Accra ...

In case you missed it, 7 April was the World Health Organization's World Health Day. Presumably this was not a call to the nations of the world to firebomb the proprietary pharmaceutical companies and liberate medicines for mass production by the Indian generics industry. Nor did the WHO call for a renewal of the boycott of IP-rich Nestle for pushing its milk formula brands into societies that don't yet have access to clean water for preparing their products (click here for comments by Nestle, Baby Milk Action and then Nestle again).

Is the IPKat alone in thinking that the idea of copyright days and IP days is a little pathetic? Particularly if, for most people, one IP day a year leaves 364 days for making unauthorised copies, P2P file-sharing, plagiarising essays and school assignments and so on. Comments, please.