[A2k] Ian Brown's blog on WIPO

[Manon Ress]

http://dooooooom.blogspot.com/2006/09/understanding-wipo.html

Friday, September 08, 2006
Understanding WIPO
Attendees at the 6th World Law Congress in Edinburgh just got a real
insight into why WIPO produces such problematic international law.

Nic Garnett, ex-head of recording industry lobby group IFPI and chief
strategist for Digital Rights Management firm Media Rights
Technologies, had the tough task of following a great presentation
from Prof Michael Geist. Garnett was supposed to address the (some
might say impossible) task of reconciling legal protection for DRM
digital locks with the copyright exceptions that protect groups such
as the visually impaired. He recently authored a report for WIPO on
this subject. Instead, he provided the strongest demonstration I have
yet seen that WIPO must openly tender for the production of reports,
rather than commissioning ex-lobbyists who just happen to have spent
decades in the marbled palace that is WIPO's Geneva headquarters.

Garnett's presentation was quite remarkable for its total ignorance
of the technology it was supposed to describe. He told us that "DRM
technology is basically sorted out." Computer security gurus like Ed
Felten, Bruce Schneier, Ross Anderson (and Microsoft researchers)
disagree. Garnett told us that the "so-called" Sony-BMG rootkit
fiasco had been overblown. US Department of Homeland Security
assistant secretary Stewart Baker, the Texas Attorney-General and
many others disagree. Garnett also told us his firm was developing
technology that would stop audio being ripped (good luck getting rid
of the world's microphones), and that his old firm Intertrust had
patented the idea of delivering encrypted content and the necessary
decryption key separately. If true, that patent is surely a prime
target for EFF's patent busting project.

If this is the quality of advice that WIPO is receiving, no wonder we
have ended up with the WIPO Internet treaties and the flawed process
that is railroading the world into a new Broadcasting Treaty without
any evidence that such a thing is required.

UPDATE: Andrew Adams wasn't impressed either.

************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
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