[A2k] E-Commerce Times: Pact Writers Sidetrack 'Threat' to Internet

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/QH9bXxLbiaybg0/Pact-Writers-Sidetrack-Threat-to-Internet.xhtml


  Pact Writers Sidetrack 'Threat' to Internet



By John P. Mello Jr.
E-Commerce Times
05/09/06 7:57 AM PT

Yahoo, headed by former Hollywood executive Terry Semel, sees itself as
a competitor to broadcasters and wants the same rights they do,
according to James Love, director of the Consumer Project On Technology.
"It wants the same deal that the TV and radio guys get, whatever it is,"
he said. "It doesn't care if they get thin rights or fat rights or this
right or that right, it is all about parity for them."

Provisions in a proposed international treaty that civil liberties
groups, developing nations and technology organizations claim will
threaten the free flow of information on the Internet have been
sidetracked by the pact's writers in Geneva.

The U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Standing
Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, which is fashioning a new
international treaty on broadcast rights, agreed on Friday to remove
from its draft of the pact provisions that would give distributors of
webcast content control over that content through a new class of
intellectual property rights.

"This is a layer of intellectual property rights for the people that
transmit the information," James Love, director of the Consumer Project
On Technology in Washington, D.C. told the E-Commerce Times.


    Owners Who Would Be King

"The guys who own the information don't like that because they want to
be king," he contended.

Moreover, the new right would allow some information transmitters to
cash in on content they obtain for free. "Radio stations, for example,
have access to content without paying anything," Love asserted.

He said that the move to extend the new IP rights to the Web, which is
supported by the U.S. delegation to WIPO, is backed by the Digital Media
Association (DiMA) and Yahoo <http://www.yahoo.com> (Nasdaq: YHOO)


    Bid for Parity

Yahoo, headed by former Hollywood executive Terry Semel, sees itself as
a competitor to broadcasters and wants the same rights they do,
according to Love.

"It wants the same deal that the TV and radio guys get, whatever it is,"
he said. "It doesn't care if they get thin rights or fat rights or this
right or that right, it is all about parity for them."

By persuading WIPO to carve webcasting
<http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/QH9bXxLbiaybg0/Pact-Writers-Sidetrack-Threat-to-Internet.xhtml#>
from the treaty draft, he continued, "we shattered the idea that parity
is a good idea."

Attempts by the E-Commerce Times to reach DiMA and Yahoo for comment
were unavailing.


    Complicated Clearances

Gwen Hinze, International Affairs Director for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation <http://www.eff.org> Latest News about Electronic Frontier
Foundation
<http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/search.pl?query=%22Electronic%20Frontier%20Foundation%22&scope=network>
in San Francisco explained that the proposed webcasting provisions would
complicate the permission process for content.

"Any time a technologist wants to innovate, they'll have to get two sets
of rights clearances at a minimum," she told the E-Commerce Times.
"They'll have to get clearance from the copyright holders and they'll
have to get clearance from this nebulous group of transmitters, anyone
upstream from them that transmits content through a Web server
<http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/QH9bXxLbiaybg0/Pact-Writers-Sidetrack-Threat-to-Internet.xhtml#>."

What's more, the provisions will create a worldwide framework for
technology mandates imposed by broadcasters, she argued.

"The U.S. is pushing to extend that framework to the Internet," she
continued. "We don't think that's a good idea. We don't want to see
Internet technology devices being beholden to a technology mandate law
that tells manufacturers how to design their devices."


    Retransmissions Still Covered

She contended that the breadth of the proposed rights also has dire
implications for freedom of speech on the Internet. "They could have
unintended consequences on a very large number of people who currently
interchange ideas and exchange information on the Internet," she said.

Although provisions mentioning webcasting have been removed from the
main proposal, there remains cause for concern, according to Robin D.
Gross, executive director of IP Justice in San Francisco.

"The treaty still contains a retransmission right that includes
retransmission by any means, including over computer networks," she told
the E-Commerce Times. "So it's still the case that Internet
retransmissions of broadcasts will be covered by this treaty."


    Locking Public Domain

It also contains provisions allowing broadcasters to protect their new
rights with "technical protection measures." That can be a problem for
material that's in the public domain, maintained Gross.

"There's a lot of material in the public domain that broadcasters could
simply put technological restrictions on, and it would be illegal to
bypass those," she observed. "That's a problem for librarians, students
and the general public interested in having access to public domain works."

Gross noted that another draft of the treaty will be aired in August. A
meeting will be held in September to discuss that draft. At that time a
vote will be taken to determine whether or not an international
diplomatic conference should be held in 2007 to draft a final version of
the treaty.

"However, the U.S. made a threat at the meeting [last week] that if a
diplomatic conference isn't held next year, it will consider webcasting
to be back in the overall package," she added.