[A2k] Los Angeles Times: Proposed Treaty on TV Signals Spurs Criticism

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

<SNIP>

The coalition boasts major companies such as AT&T Inc., Verizon
Communications Inc., Intel Corp. and Dell Inc. Verizon acknowledged that
the treaty could be a help as it rolls out cable TV service, but it
worries that the company's larger business of Internet access could
suffer because of potential liability for illegal retransmissions.

"The reason why they want this right =85 is they can get additional money
out of players they haven't been able to charge before," Sarah Deutsch,
Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel, said of
traditional broadcasters. "The whole concept of giving an intellectual
property right to a signal is ridiculous."

<SNIP>


The proposed treaty has been progressing quietly, but opposition has
been building in recent months. This spring, a study prepared for
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, concluded that the proposed treaty "could prevent or
restrict" the flow of news broadcasts and other information considered
in the public domain.

<SNIP>

"Thou shalt not steal is something we appreciate and think a treaty
could be based on that," said Jeff Lawrence, director of global content
policy for Intel. "We're just uncomfortable with starting to create
whole new categories of intellectual property rights to potentially
protect particular business models."

<SNIP>


"It shows an old-fashioned way to look at technology and innovation,"
said Manon Ress of the Consumer Project on Technology, an international
organization that focuses on the flow of information.

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nutreaty13sep13,1,6505400.story?coll=
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<http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nutreaty13sep13,1,6505400.story?coll=
=3Dla-mininav-business&ctrack=3D1&cset=3Dtrue>


  Proposed Treaty on TV Signals Spurs Criticism

By Jim Puzzanghera
Times Staff Writer

September 13, 2006

WASHINGTON =97 The proposal sounds modest enough: Broadcasters want to
stop international pirates from hijacking American TV signals and
re-transmitting them over the Internet.

But the high-tech industry and digital rights advocates see something
more sinister in the fine print of a proposed international treaty being
negotiated this week in Geneva. They fear it will end up restricting how
people can use legally recorded shows stashed on their TiVos or computer
hard drives.

"When I look at the language of the treaty, I begin to get frightened,"
said Jim Burger, an attorney who specializes in intellectual property
issues and represents high-tech companies, including TiVo Inc.



Pushed by U.S. and European TV networks, the treaty being considered by
a World Intellectual Property Organization committee would prohibit the
theft of their signals, as well as those from cable and satellite
broadcasters. TV broadcasters said they were not targeting average
viewers recording their favorite shows, just large-scale thieves
stealing their business.

"If you send our signal =85 to 100,000 people so it ruins our ability to
market our signals, we ought to be able to prohibit that," said Ben
Ivins, senior associate general counsel for the National Assn. of
Broadcasters, which has been pressing for the treaty for several years.

But in what is shaping up as the next major battle in the fight over
digital content, a coalition of phone companies, information technology
firms and digital rights advocates warn the proposed treaty could do
much more and is working to derail it.

The treaty's broad language would create an expansive new copyright on
TV signals that could lead to higher prices and more restrictions on
home recording. Watching shows on a digital video recorder, transmitting
a football game to a laptop via services such as SlingBox or simply
moving video from one device to another in a home network would
technically be considered a retransmission that requires the
broadcaster's OK.

Critics say it's another desperate attempt by the broadcast industry to
use legislation to restrict technological innovation and keep a dying
business model on life support. The pattern, they say, stretches all the
way back to the battle over the first Betamax video recorders when the
industry fought new technology with legislation and lawsuits.

The entertainment industry has sought legislative intervention in the
face of other technological advances. The advent of the VCR led to a
suit over time shifting that it ultimately lost before the Supreme Court
in 1984.

More recently, the creation of digital TV led broadcasters to press
Congress to require anti-copying technology, called the broadcast flag,
be embedded in the signal. Congress has resisted. It's also failed to
take up a push by movie studios for legislation to plug a technological
hole that allows people to bypass copy protection on DVDs.

Treaty foes said broadcasters could use the new copyright as leverage to
strike more favorable licensing deals with manufacturers or to force
them to build in blocking technology, such as preventing a recorded show
from being burned to a DVD.

"Many believe that the broadcasters see this exclusive right as a way to
protect an industry that is rapidly being eclipsed by technological
development," said Matthew Schruers, senior counsel for litigation and
legislative affairs at the Computer & Communications Industry Assn., an
industry trade group. "There is a fear that right could prevent the use
of cool new devices because people can't license them or because the
broadcasters don't want to license them."

The coalition boasts major companies such as AT&T Inc., Verizon
Communications Inc., Intel Corp. and Dell Inc. Verizon acknowledged that
the treaty could be a help as it rolls out cable TV service, but it
worries that the company's larger business of Internet access could
suffer because of potential liability for illegal retransmissions.

"The reason why they want this right =85 is they can get additional money
out of players they haven't been able to charge before," Sarah Deutsch,
Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel, said of
traditional broadcasters. "The whole concept of giving an intellectual
property right to a signal is ridiculous."

Under the proposed treaty, the broadcaster of a TV signal =97 over the air
or via satellite or cable =97 would get a 50-year copyright. The right
would be in addition to the copyright already given to a program's creator.

The retransmission of TV signals is illegal under U.S. law. But many
countries give stronger protection to broadcast signals under a 1961
treaty that the U.S. never joined. The World Intellectual Property
Organization, an agency of the United Nations based in Geneva, has been
trying to update that treaty for the digital age.

Broadcasters said technological advances had made it easier to steal
signals, and the Internet is a ready-made distribution network. They
point to a Canadian company, ICraveTV.com, that hijacked signals from
four Buffalo, N.Y., stations in 1999 and shipped them to their users. A
U.S. judge shut down the site for infringing the copyrights on the
programming.

Broadcasters complain that there's no similar right covering the
signals, and they're losing advertising revenue because of pirates in
the Caribbean, Mexico and China. There are no precise dollar figures for
TV signal piracy in the U.S. But this summer, Envisional Ltd., a British
Internet monitoring company, estimated each episode of the most popular
TV shows is downloaded about a million times.

The proposed treaty has been progressing quietly, but opposition has
been building in recent months. This spring, a study prepared for
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, concluded that the proposed treaty "could prevent or
restrict" the flow of news broadcasts and other information considered
in the public domain.

Opponents of the treaty said broadcasters could accomplish their
anti-piracy goals with a narrow international pact that simply prohibits
the theft of TV signals. Their push for more expansive copyright
protection arouses suspicions.

"Thou shalt not steal is something we appreciate and think a treaty
could be based on that," said Jeff Lawrence, director of global content
policy for Intel. "We're just uncomfortable with starting to create
whole new categories of intellectual property rights to potentially
protect particular business models."

But broadcasters said they needed the ability not only to stop piracy
but also to license it to bring in more money abroad.

The U.S. delegation has been pushing for the treaty, along with its
European counterparts. If the World Intellectual Property Organization
approves a treaty, it will be effective only in countries that pass
separate implementing legislation. Broadcasters said Congress could
limit the treaty's scope in the U.S., adding traditional protections for
personal use of copyrighted materials, known as fair use.

But treaty opponents said it might be hard to stop the treaty's momentum
once it was approved internationally. And the ultimate victims may be
average viewers who find their ability to record TV programs limited or
more costly because of broadcasters' efforts.

"It shows an old-fashioned way to look at technology and innovation,"
said Manon Ress of the Consumer Project on Technology, an international
organization that focuses on the flow of information.