[A2k] xCasting Treaty and Sports

Tue May 2 13:41:01 2006

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Hi John,

I'm not an expert on copyright, but I'm pretty sure that there is little if
any protection on a public-interest basis for sports events in Latin
America. There have been instances of Football National Team's official
matches being shown in pay-per-view or cable.

Eduardo

On 5/1/06, John Howkins <john@johnhowkins.com> wrote:
>
> A live event is not itself copyrightable unless there are performing
> rights
> which most (professional) sports people sign away in their contract to
> their
> club, league, etc.  There may be some music performing rights which the
> club
> will also sign away.  It's mostly contract not copyright.  The contracts
> usually revolve around access to the ground (camera sites, access to the
> touchline etc) rather than copyright.
> The broadcasters then broadcast the event but they protect their ownership
> of the signal through exclusive access and incidental material (music,
> etc)
> rather than the ownership of the game itself.
> The broadcasters would like stronger protection, I guess, but I'm not
> aware
> of many examples of signal piracy.
> Do the developing countries want the same level of protection as European
> and US broadcasters, or something different?
> Europe also has a strong public interest exemption for events of a
> national
> interest ('listed events' in the UK) which must be shown on free-to-air TV
> not pay-TV.
>
>
>
> On 29/4/06 11:27 PM, "James Love" <james.love@cptech.org> wrote:
>
> > I have been suggesting to a number of persons that people consider a
> > push to shrink the xCasting treaty into something for sports.   Most
> > of the testimony in support of the treaty from developing countries
> > focused on the issue of sports broadcasts, which outside of the US
> > are often not protected by copyright.  There is a lot of money in
> > sports broadcasting, and we would be happy to see a sports
> > broadcasting protocol come out of WIPO, if it means we don't do the
> > larger treaty.  The broadcasters would get something that was
> > actually valuable, and probably more interesting to them than a
> > signal piracy treaty (which they claim they need but they don't
> > really need, given all of the other legal mechanisms including
> > copyright that can address most piracy issues), and which would
> > address the one legitimate issue I have seen raised by the broadcasters.
> >
> > A treaty only about sports is likely to have a more focused consumer
> > constituency too, which would be useful too.
> >
> > jamie
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
> > tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040
> >
> > "If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton
> >
> >
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