[A2k] WIPO and the global consolidation of rights in audiovisual works

[James Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/wipo-and-the-global-
conso_b_39057.html

WIPO and the global consolidation of rights in audiovisual works
James Love
January 19, 2007

Geneva: This is the third and last day of a World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and
Related Rights (SCCR) meeting, where negotiations are taking place of
a new global treaty for broadcasting and cable-casting organizations.

As described yesterday and in some previous Huffpo articles (Nov05,
May06 Aug06),
this UN agency is proposing a new global legal regime that would give
companies that distribute information exclusive rights to prevent
people from re-using it, even when the information is in the public
domain, or owned by someone else. This would be a "related" right,
and co-exist with other rights that might exist, such as copyright.
It would be an additional permission that one would have to obtain
before information could be copied, republished, remixed or re-used
in other ways. In some versions of the treaty, the distributor would
also obtain some rights to republish the works in competition with
the original copyright owner (post fixation re-distribution rights),
plus many other rights in the uses and re-uses of the content.

The debate over the treaty has been going on for years, but there is
a big push to have a diplomatic conference later this year, maybe in
November or December, and produce a final treaty.

The critics of the treaty, including our group are appalled at the
treaty proposals and the way the negotiations are being conducted.

What's wrong with the treaty?

The most obvious issue is that the treaty calls for a new thicket of
rights that make it hard to use or reuse information, or even to
freely distribute your own works. You not only have to deal with the
"owner" of the copyright in works, but also the "owner" of the
broadcaster or cablecaster right, if you obtained your copy from
them. This makes it more difficult, risky and expensive to copy,
republish, remix or reuse works, for any purpose. This is a bad idea
in general, but an insane idea at the very moment when we are
witnessing such an explosion of new ways of creating, using, sharing
and re-purposing information. No one even understands what the next
technologies can do, or how social communities or new business models
will change things.

The next most important aspect concerns the way the treaty will
consolidate intellectual property rights in content, globally.
Everything in this treaty is in theory based upon sections of the
1961 Rome Convention concerning the protection of broadcasting
organizations. That treaty created some of these types of rights, for
television and radio stations. About 80 countries have joined the
Rome. The United States and about 80 other countries have not. Until
recently, no one much paid attention to the treaty, in part because
people were not copying much content from over the air analogue radio
and television, and the US never even signed the treaty. For
countries that did sign the treaty, it was something that gave some
more money to local broadcasters, which under most national laws,
could not be foreign owned.

The new treaty seeks to expand the treaty to at least all cable,
satellite and multichannel digital television and radio broadcasts,
and there are proposals to include Internet broadcasting platforms
also. The treaty also would give the new rights not to the company
that simply transmits information to a home, such as local cable
providers, but to the firm that assembles and schedules the content.
What this means in practice is that the treaty gives the new property
rights to the companies that own "channels." It turns out that this
is a highly concentrated market -- a handful of giant corporations
own and control most of the channels that you find on today's new
cable and satellite television networks, and will likely also
dominate the new over the air digital television offerings.

Under the treaty, the big winners in the treaty will be companies
like Paramount-CBS, Viacom, Comcast, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann
AG, General Electric, Time-Warner, the Walt Disney Company, News
Corp., Liberty Media, Viacom, who own dozens and dozens of leading
"channels" of video programming.

Most of the negotiations on the treaty have been held in secret. Now
we are drawing to an end, and there are big differences in the views
of delegates, and lots of reasons to be worried about the process
issues. The WIPO Secretariat clearly wants the Finnish Chair Jukka
Liedes to control as much of the drafting between now the next
meeting. Most of what was "decided" here this week, is not on record
anywhere, but will emerge later, probably too late for many country
negotiators or the public to have much time to study and evaluate.

Some other blogs on this here , here, here, and here.
Some channels that will benefit from the treaty's cablecasting right

Bertelsmann AG

     RTL Television, Super RTL, VOX or N-TV in Germany, M6 in France,
Five in Great Britain, Antena 3 in Spain, RTL 4 in the Netherlands,
RTL TVI in Belgium, and RTL Klub in Hungary

CBS Corporation

     Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix, Showtime Too, Showcase,
Showtime Extreme, Showtime Beyond, Showtime Next, Showtime Women,
Showtime Family Zone, TMC Xtra, Showtime HD, The Movie Channel HD,
Showtime on Demand, The Movie Channel on Demand, Sundance Channel

Comcast

     TV One, E!, The Golf Channel, Outdoor Life Network, G4techTV and
regional sports networks

Disney

     The Disney Channel, A&E, ABC Family, SOAPnet, Jetix, ESPN, Lifetime

General Electric

     13eme Rue (France), 13th Street (Germany), A&E, Bravo, Calle 13
(Spain), CNBC (coowned with Dow Jones), CNBC Asia, CNBC Europe, CNBC
World (co-owned with Dow Jones), History Channel International,
Military History Channel, MSNBC (co-owned with Microsoft), mun2, NBC
WeatherPlus, Sci Fi Channel, ShopNBC, Sleuth, Studio Universal
(Germany and Italy), Telemundo, The Biography Channel, The History
Channel en Espa=F1ol, The History Channel, The Sundance Channel, Trio,
Universal HD, Universal Channel (Latin America), USA Network

Liberty Media is the largest single shareholder of News Corp, and
owns channels like

     Discovery, Animal Planet, QVC, Starz, and Encore

News Corp

     Fox News Channel, Fox Movie Channel, Fox College Sports, Fox
Sport Enterprises, Fox Sports En Espanol, Fox Sports Net, Fox Soccer
Channel, Fox Reality, FUEL TV, FX, National Geographic Channel (US
and Worldwide), SPEED

Time Warner

     Boomerang, Cartoon Network, Cartoon Network Asia Pacific,
Cartoon Network Europe, Cartoon Network Latin America, Cinemax, Court
TV, CNN/US, CNN Airport Network, CNN en Espanol, CNN Headline News,
CNN Headline News in Latin America, CNN Headline News in Asia
Pacific, CNN International, CNN Pipelinem, HBO, TBS, TCM Asia
Pacific, TCM Canada, TCM Europe, TCM Classic Hollywood in Latin
America, TNT HD, Turner Classic Movies

Viacom

     BET, CMT, Comedy Central, LOGO, MTV Networks International, MTV,
MTV2, mtvU, Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, Noggin, Spike TV, TV Land, VH1

Vivendi Universal

     Canal +, i>TELE, CINECINEMA (6 channels), Plan=E8te, Jimmy,
Seasons, Com=E9die !, Cuisine.TV, SPORT+, NBA+, Canal + Cinema, Canal +
Sport, Canal + Decale, Canal + Hi-Tech, Canalsat, NC NUM=C9RIC=C2BLE,
Media Overseas

---------------------------------
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"