[A2k] The politics of group B and the WIPO Broadcasting treaty

[James Love]

http://www.keionline.org/index.php?option=3Dcom_jd-wp&Itemid=3D39&p=3D73

WIPO Casting Treaty
The politics of group B and the WIPO Broadcasting treaty
June 23rd, 2007 by James Love

While some of the news reports have focused on north/south disputes
over limitations and exceptions to rights in the WIPO Broadcasting
treaty, there is a also a growing divide between North America (US
and Canada) on the one hand, and Europe and Japan, on the other, over
the nature of the rights in the treaty. The EU position (followed by
Japan), which is being pushed by the very non-neutral Finish chair,
is for Rome+ rights, to reward investment, not creativity. The US,
which has not signed the Rome Convention and which never adopted a
sui generis database right, does not normally reward investment with
an intellectual property right (except in areas of test data for
medicines or agricultural products). While treaty proponents claim
they are concerned about stopping piracy, the EU or Japan will not in
fact settle for a =93Brussels plus=94 treaty that would provide focus on
protection against signal piracy. The EU and Japan are demanding more
expansive exclusive rights for broadcasters, the extension of these
rights to cable companies, and the application of these rights in
retransmissions of broadcasts on the Internet.

If the United States had agreed with the EU on the core issue of the
exclusive rights for broadcasters, the treaty would have likely gone
to diplomatic conference, given the pressure on developing countries
from their own broadcasters and from the WIPO Secretariat.

What is interesting is the role of Michael Keplinger, who was put in
the top WIPO copyright job by the United States. Keplinger is pushing
for Rome type rights, for broadcasters and webcasters. He is not
following the current US government line, but his own pro-rights-for-
investment views, which are contrary to US legal traditions.

An interesting question is this. Will the broadcasting industry be
best served by rent-seeking related rights regimes, like those pushed
by Keplinger, Jukka Liedes, the EC and Japan, or by the less
regulated and more free platform that is emerging on the Internet?
The tech sector sector seems to think the traditional broadcasters
are short sighted, and are missing the strategies and platforms that
create the most value. Can WIPO find a way to actually think about
this sector in a new way? Maybe WIPO should start hiring a few people
that are more geeky, and actually know something about the new
information technologies.

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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"