[Ecommerce] SUNS: NGOs express concern over proposed WIPO broadcast treaty

[James Love]

SUNS #5457 Friday 7 November 2003
south-north dev elopment monitor SUNS [Email Edition]
twentythird year  5457  friday  7  november  2003

United Nations: NGOs express concern over proposed WIPO broadcast treaty
   (Kanaga Raja, Geneva)

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United Nations: NGOs express concern over proposed WIPO broadcast treaty

Geneva, 6 Nov (Kanaga Raja) -- A group of civil society organizations
and activists have expressed concern over a proposed treaty on the
protection of the rights of broadcasting organizations, now being
discussed by member states of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) here.

The WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright  met from 3-5 November to
consider various proposals of WIPO member states on the proposed treaty.

At a press briefing on 5 November, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF) and the Washington-based Consumer Project on Technology (CPT),
part of a coalition of NGOs following these issues, said that they were
concerned over the scope and consequences of the proposed treaty being
discussed in WIPO.

James Love, Director of CPT, said that the proposed treaty took
provisions of existing treaties on copyright such as the Rome Convention
as well as TRIPS provisions relating to broadcasting and updating those
provisions.

Love added that the treaty has proposals that would extend the 20-year
provisions in the TRIPS agreement and Rome Convention to 50 years as
well as introduce a new set of rights pertaining to the fixation,
dissemination and rental of broadcast material and extend these rights
to new technologies like the Internet.

The treaty would propose a "radically different theory of intellectual
property rights protection extending to public domain materials," he warned.

Rishab Ghosh, senior researcher at the University of Maastricht, said
that the proposed treaty created a new right that had  nothing to do
with copyright but a right of protection that would belong to those who
broadcast information that may not be copyrighted but remains in the
public domain.

The proposed treaty also looks at new forms of content other than
television or moving pictures and these include text and software. With
the danger of a broad definition being placed on the role of a
broadcaster, there is a possibility for a broadcaster to broadcast open
source software and gain control over it, Ghosh added.

Cory Doctorow, Outreach Coordinator of EFF, said that the NGOs had come
to WIPO to ask for a restoration of a 'real balance' in copyright, a
balance between the public side of the copyright bargain and the rights
holders' side of the copyright bargain.

The NGOs have been trying to get WIPO to recognize a two-day meeting on
open models for intellectual property development and alternative
mechanisms for compensating rights' holders and people who rely on
intellectual property law to protect their investments, he added.

James Love of CPT said that the WIPO member states had decided at their
meeting to have a draft broadcasting treaty drawn up for discussion in
June 2004 and there have been some who are pushing for a Diplomatic
Conference in 2005 to discuss the treaty.

Love highlighted some of the controversy surrounding the issues to be
covered in the proposed treaty. The treaty, he said, is designed to
cover all future-looking types of television like digital and radio
broadcast, multimedia, text, data and software that are delivered over
television.

Webcasting would be covered in the proposed treaty. Love singled out the
United States for including Internet webcasting in the proposed treaty
despite widespread opposition to it from delegates. Many broadcasting
companies in the US, he said, are now trying to expand coverage to
information disseminated over the Internet.

The entire issue, Love stressed, is not about copyright, since the
rights of creators protecting their works is already protected under
various copyright treaties.

"This is something that protects stuff that is not protected under
copyright and a lot of that is public domain material. This is a treaty
about taking public domain material out of the public domain," he said.

The terms of protection of 20 years under the TRIPS agreement is being
sought to be extended to 50 years and to data that is not covered under
the TRIPS agreement on broadcasting, he warned.

In contrast, Love said, if one were to invest in clinical trials on a
pharmaceutical drug in the US, they would get only 5 years exclusive rights.

Love went on to highlight the positions taken by several countries on
the proposed treaty during the WIPO meeting.

While the US has been the most aggressive demandeur for webcasting as a
component of the treaty, the European Commission's proposals have been
focussed initially on traditional broadcasting and not on Internet
re-broadcasting.

India, according to Love, said that it was opposed to a Diplomatic
Conference to discuss the treaty as well as the 50-year term of protection.

Brazil, meanwhile, thought that broadcasting performs a social function
and the proposed treaty should not undermine the public domain and
aggravate the 'digital divide'.

Love added that a number of developing countries referred to the theme
of access to information and were opposed to technological measures that
are costly to implement in order to comply with the treaty.

Moreover, Love pointed out that opposition to the treaty came from the
copyright industries themselves. There were also interventions from some
groups representing artists opposing the treaty because they saw the
treaty as an unwanted layer on top of their own existing copyrights.

The traditional broadcasters like NewsCorp or SkyTV stand to profit the
most from this treaty, Love said. In fact, Rupert Murdoch, owner of
NewsCorp, has been one of the strongest promoters of the treaty, Love added.

Love emphasized that the NGOs are opposed to a Diplomatic Conference and
that these proposals should not result in a treaty. If it proceeds to a
Conference, then there is a need to clarify what content is to be
included and what is not to be included. Also, the terms of protection
should not exceed the terms of the underlying copyright protection
already in place.

+

--
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:james.love@cptech.org
tel. +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040