[A2k] "by any means" -- WIPO poised to impose new fees on Internet transmissions of TV programs

[James Love]

--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
I have just added this update to the blog entry... Jamie
----
Update. Late last evening the US Delegation proposed language in the
negotiations to ensure that the new right "Does not give rise to any
rights against the copyright owner of the program being transmitted
or any entity acting with the permission of the copyright owner." If
this helpful provision stays in, it will address the issue of
broadcasters seeking rights from works licensed under creative
commons licenses, as well as some other important cases.


On Jun 21, 2007, at 3:39 AM, James Love wrote:

> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/by-any-means-wipo-
> po_b_53109.html
> James Love
> The Huffington Post
> June 21, 2007
>
> "by any means" -- WIPO poised to impose new fees on Internet
> transmissions of TV programs
>
> I'm in Geneva at a meeting of World Intellectual Property
> Organization (WIPO), where negotiators have one final day to finish a
> draft text for a new treaty on "broadcasting." The main demanders of
> the treaty are the owners of television stations, such as the U.S.
> based National Broadcasters Association (NBA) and the Association of
> Commercial Television in Europe (ACT), and their counterparts in
> Asia, Latin America and Africa. There is also a strong push for the
> treaty by companies like Time Warner, News Corp, Disney, and Vivendi,
> which aggregate programs into "channels." (See a partial list here).
>
> The proposed treaty, which is opposed by a coalition of civil society
> NGOs and library groups, seeks to impose broad new intellectual
> property rights to companies that broadcast third party content over
> wireless or cable television networks.
>
> Last evening, the United States delegation told negotiators that the
> new rights be must be extended to deferred broadcasts to the public,
> "by any means." This wording is specifically intended to impose new
> liabilities on the reuse of program on the Internet.
>
> Big losers in this negotiation so far are the growing number of web
> sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, etc, that feature access to
> clips from television programs, including political content such as
> presidential debates or news shows, that are recorded from television
> (including cable or satellite) and shown, often as excerpts, on the
> Internet.
>
> The new intellectual property right is given to the companies that
> broadcast the content, not the owners of the copyright in the
> programs themselves. The broadcaster's new exclusive rights are
> modeled after (but expanded from) the 1961 Rome Convention's
> broadcaster's right - a treaty the United States never signed. The
> owners of the TV or cable systems, or even the cable channels, like
> HBO, FX, TBS, the Discovery Channel, or Spike TV, can assert the
> right, and demand injunctions or fees when works are used on the
> Internet, even when the copyright owner itself does not take any
> action against the Internet use of the work, or the work is in the
> public domain under copyright law.
>
> The US delegation is taking positions that are contrary to U.S. law,
> opposed by many leading U.S, technology firms, like Intel, Dell
> Computers, A&T and Verizon, library and consumer rights groups (see
> details here and here) but also the positions of Senators Leahy and
> Specter, who have called on the U.S. negotiators to oppose the
> treaty, if it provided intellectual property rights to the
> broadcasters, for merely transmitting works.
>
> Making matters worse, the U.S. government and the European Commission
> are taking a hard line against various proposes to include
> protections for measures that protect use for education, the need to
> promote access to knowledge and information and national educational
> and scientific objectives, or which give governments more flexibility
> to "curb anti-competitive practices, and to promote the public
> interest in sectors of vital importance to its socio-economic,
> scientific and technological development." The US government is also
> opposing language acknowledging the right of governments to protect
> "cultural diversity."
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> James Packard Love
> Knowledge Ecology International
> mailto:james.love@keionline.org
> tel. +1.202.332.2670 / U.S. mobile+1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile
> +41.76.413.6584
>
> "If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." Bill Walton"
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> A2k mailing list
> A2k@lists.essential.org
> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
>

----------------------------------------------
James Packard Love
Knowledge Ecology International
mailto:james.love@keionline.org
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / U.S. mobile+1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile
+41.76.413.6584

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." Bill Walton"