[Ecommerce] Report on WIPO Broadcasting Treaty

[Thirukumaran Balasubramaniam]

Manon asked me to post this on the list.  You can download this document
on this url: http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/Oxfordcasting.doc

Thiru


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REPORT ON THE DRAFT WIPO BROADCASTING TREATY By Shyamkrishna Balganesh,
Dev Gangjee,
Tatyana Nikiforova, Tina Piper (Graduate students in the Faculty of Law,
University of Oxford)


QUOTE: The report deals with four key areas.  First, it argues that the
over-propertization of broadcast rights through the treaty may lead to a
tragedy of the anticommons,
or the under-use of the resources in question.  Second, the report shows
that contrary to the impression created by the Draft Treaty, many of the
proposals for the new treaty are in fact significant changes from the
existing treaty regime.  Of particular concern is the extension of term
to 50 years, a period that is hardly justifiable as necessary for
broadcasters in order to recoup their investment.  Third, the report
argues by analogy to the struggles to create a workable database right
that close consideration must be given to proposals to extend the scope
and term of rights broadcast rights that are protected by other regimes.
Finally, the report interrogates the strategy of using WIPO as the forum
for the negotiation of this treaty given its constitutional mandate to
promote intellectual property, its funding structure and its limited
means for engaging broader stakeholders in policy development.END OF QUOTE

Feel free to circulate and send comment to Tina Piper
Note in part C very useful tables comparing rights and terms in
existing  treaty. Manon