Economic policy and intellectual property

I have one theory (that I have just discovered that the Indian scholar Lawrence Liang has written a lot about): I think I see a pattern in IP regulation, and that it resemble how the rich countries always have told the poor countries; Do what we say, not what we do. For example, South-Korea build themselves up by NOT doing what the World Bank told them, while Africa has been practically runned by the world bank and IMF since 1960. Bill Gates build himself up in a regime WITHOUT software patents, but he insist that his followers should follow the new rules. I think free and open standards/software/culture can play the same role for Africa in the knowledge society as tariff protection, subsidies and government support played for South-Korea in the industrialized society?

Look at this article for example: " These data are used to investigate the welfare effects of widespread infringement of foreign works on American publishers, writers, and the public. The results suggest that the United States benefited from piracy and that the choice of copyright regime was endogenous to the level of economic development."
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=495776

Lawrence Liang has some very good points:
"..and the latest allegation is that pirated music and software helps fund terrorist
organizations such as the Al Qaida."
http://www.sarai.net/research/knowledge-culture/critical-public-legal-resources/copyrightculturalproductionandopencontentlicenses.pdf

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/09/11/funds-for-us-state-dept-global-ip-enforcement-training/
http://www.ifad.org/events/op/2009/wipo.htm
http://www.gov2summit.com/
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/09/01/un-climate-report-envisions-modified-trips-as-governments-seek-progress/
http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/the-global-politics-of-pharmaceutical-monopoly-power-by-ellen-t-hoen/
http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/intellectual_property_20090714/en/index.html

This blogpost by Stephen Gowan is very good:

http://maravi.blogspot.com/2009/07/stephen-gowans-obamas-africa-speech.html