[Ecommerce] More press on Broadcast treaty
Manon Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org
Tue Nov 23 16:09:01 2004
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Broadcast-discuss] AFP, Reuters and Outlaw.com on
Broadcast Treaty
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:33:18 -0800
From: Robin Gross <robin@ipjustice.org>
Reply-To: robin@ipjustice.org
Organization: IP Justice
More press from Out-Law.com:
http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=3Dbroadcastingtreaty1101117048&=
area=3Dnews
Broadcasting treaty will subvert rights of creators, say critics
22/11/2004
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) met last week to
discuss a proposed treaty on the rights of broadcasters. But critics say
the proposals will undermine public interest and subvert the rights of
creators in favour of large broadcasters.
WIPO=92s Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights met in Geneva
last week for further debate on a consolidated text of proposals for the
Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organisations.
Work on the text has been continuing since 1998 and does not yet amount
to a draft Treaty. But the proposals submitted so far have stirred
controversy.
One of the main criticisms, from civil liberties group IP Justice,
relates to proposals to prevent consumers from bypassing technology
locks that broadcasting companies place on information and entertainment.
These controversial provisions, similar to the US Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), have been shown to harm freedom of expression,
consumer rights, technological innovation, and market competition,
according to IP Justice.
The group, which participated in the meeting as an observer, says that
current proposals will grant an additional layer of rights for
broadcasters, on top of the rights of copyright holders, to prevent
consumer and scientific circumvention of technology locks on broadcasts.
If the treaty passes, argues the group, consumers will be unable to
access public domain programming that is locked-up by broadcasting
companies. Furthermore, artists will be required to seek permission from
broadcasting companies if they want to use their own performances.
Brazil and India had requested at the last committee meeting that the
draft allow for the possibility of removing these provisions, but no
option to delete the relevant sections of the treaty was included in its
latest version.
Activists are also concerned that while the treaty purports to "update"
existing laws, in reality, they say, it will create a broad range of new
rights for broadcasters that currently exist nowhere in any national law.
For example, observes IP Justice, the US has proposed that the treaty's
scope be broadened to also control webcasting =96 the broadcasting of
radio over the internet. This would allow traditional broadcasting
companies to squeeze out innovative internet companies, according to the
group.
Over a dozen Member States urged that webcasting be removed from the
scope of the treaty=92s regulation at the last meeting, but the provision,
supported only by the US, remains in the proposals, according to the
activist group.
The proposal has also been attacked for undermining the goals of the
"Development Agenda," which was adopted by the WIPO General Assembly in
October to shift WIPO's focus away from the expansion of rightsholders'
rights and towards the creation of incentives for allowing access to
knowledge.
Unfortunately, says IP Justice, WIPO's copyright committee has yet to
heed the calls from developing countries and remains focused on "special
interest" laws such as the proposed Broadcasting Treaty.
"It is not the role of the WIPO Secretariat to tell Member States what
their new laws will be, but rather to facilitate Member States'
expressed will," said IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross in a
statement to the WIPO copyright committee.
"Self-determination is an indispensable component of legitimate
democratic law-making processes. Unfortunately, it would appear that the
'tail is wagging the dog' in this case," added Gross.
=94This treaty will confer upon the transmitters of information a host of
'related' or 'pseudo' copyrights that have the potential to trump true
copyright and restrict the flow of information on the internet,=94 said an
open letter presented to the meeting by Cory Doctorow, European Affairs
Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of 20
technology companies and organisations opposed to the treaty.
The EFF, together with IP Justice, European Digital Rights and other
civil rights groups have presented the Committee with an alternative
draft of the Treaty. This sets out their version of the concepts that
should be used in any international measure covering broadcasts and
broadcasting organisations.
See:
Revised consolidated draft for a Treaty on the Protection of
Broadcasting Organisations (92-page PDF)
Text of the alternative draft of the Treaty (53-page PDF)
EFF's open letter
The Development Agenda
See also: Broadcasting rights: proposed treaty under fire, OUT-LAW News,
09/06/2004
David Tannenbaum wrote:
> http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/041122/323/f74vc.html
>
> Monday November 22, 06:00 PM
>
> WIPO sidelines US' bid to include webcasting under copyright protection
>
> GENEVA (AFX) - Member states of the World Intellectual Property
> Organisation (WIPO) have sidelined a US government proposal to extend
> copyright protection for television and radio productions to cover
> webcasting on the Internet, a WIPO official said today.
> 'There had been the proposal by the United States to have webcast
> included in the process of updating the broadcast treaty. There was no
> support for it,' said WIPO Deputy Director General Rita Hayes.
> The proposal has been opposed by developing countries in the 180-nation
> global patent and copyright protection body, and campaigners defending
> the notion of a copyright-free public domain on the Internet.
> It was effectively put aside last week during long-running talks on
> revising the 1961 Rome Convention, which protects intellectual property
> rights of performers, record producers, television and radio broadcasters=
.
> 'Even though it was difficult for the US delegation to accept that,
> they were willing to look at different flexibilities,' Hayes told
> journalists.
> The talks, which have been underway since 1997, could turn to an
> optional protocol on the issue instead of the proposal for a universally
> binding clause in the Convention, officials said.
> An updated treaty is aimed partly at tackling pirated rebroadcasting of
> TV or radio to developing countries.
> Developing countries feared that the US proposal would be too costly
> and complex to implement. They could avoid signing up to it under the
> alternative proposals.
> A group of Internet freedom of information campaigners, the Union for
> the Public Domain, said the treaty could still represent a threat.
> 'If there's any language in the treaty which mentions webcasting, it
> will set an international norm which could endanger the public domain,'
> said UPD coordinator David Tannenbaum.
>
> =3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=
=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D
> http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=3Dstory&u=3D/nm/20041122/media_nm/media_t=
reaty_dc_3
>
>
> New Broadcasting Treaty Makes Progress at WIPO
>
> GENEVA (Reuters) - Negotiators have made progress toward agreeing a new
> international treaty on broadcasting, helped by a U.S. concession that
> webcasting need not necessarily be included, U.N. officials said on Monda=
y.
>
> Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are
> seeking to update the 1961 Rome Convention on the Protection of
> Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations,
> which has been under discussion at the United Nations (news - web
> sites)' body since 1997.
>
> But many developing countries had been resisting pressure from the
> United States, and to a lesser extent the European Union (news - web
> sites), to include at least aspects of webcasting in any pact.
>
> "It was a big move to take it (webcasting) out," said Rita Hayes,
> deputy WIPO director-general, who is overseeing the work on the new treat=
y.
>
> At the latest closed-door talks, which concluded last Friday, states
> agreed to hold regional meetings ahead of the next round of treaty
> negotiations scheduled for mid-2005, officials said.
>
> "We have made progress," Hayes told a news conference.
>
> But she added it was not certain that one more negotiating session
> would be enough for states to call a diplomatic conference, the final
> step in the treaty-making process.
>
> In any case, such a conference appeared unlikely before 2006 at the
> earliest because the decision to call one would have to be approved by
> WIPO's next general assembly, which will not be held before next autumn,
> diplomats noted.
>
> The need to update the existing treaty, which pre-dates much of modern
> television technology, has been made more acute by a growing
> signal-piracy problem in many parts of the world.
>
> Signal piracy, a problem particularly affecting developing countries,
> was growing at between 11 and 14 percent a year in Asia, leading to
> significant loss of income for broadcasters, Hayes said.
>
> Piracy is one thing on which states agree on the need to act, with some
> developing countries, led by Brazil, Argentina, India and Egypt, seeking
> to limit the scope of the treaty largely to that issue.
>
> Their stance is backed by many activist organizations, which question
> whether the broadcasters need any further protection than that already
> given them by international copyright and other existing forms of
> intellectual property protection.
>
> The scope of a future treaty, as well as the duration of any protection
> granted, are two of the issues still outstanding, U.N. officials said.
>
> Some countries want the period of protection limited to 20 years, while
> others are pushing for 50.
>
> Copyright =A9 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication o=
r
> redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the
> prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any
> errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
> thereon.
>
> =3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=
=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D
>
> http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=3Dbroadcastingtreaty110111704=
8&area=3Dnews
>
>
> News Broadcasting treaty will subvert rights of creators, say critics
>
> 22/11/2004
>
> The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) met last week to
> discuss a proposed treaty on the rights of broadcasters. But critics say
> the proposals will undermine public interest and subvert the rights of
> creators in favour of large broadcasters.
>
> WIPO=92s Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights met in Genev=
a
> last week for further debate on a consolidated text of proposals for the
> Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organisations.
>
> Work on the text has been continuing since 1998 and does not yet amount
> to a draft Treaty. But the proposals submitted so far have stirred
> controversy.
>
> One of the main criticisms, from civil liberties group IP Justice,
> relates to proposals to prevent consumers from bypassing technology
> locks that broadcasting companies place on information and entertainment.
>
> These controversial provisions, similar to the US Digital Millennium
> Copyright Act (DMCA), have been shown to harm freedom of expression,
> consumer rights, technological innovation, and market competition,
> according to IP Justice.
>
> The group, which participated in the meeting as an observer, says that
> current proposals will grant an additional layer of rights for
> broadcasters, on top of the rights of copyright holders, to prevent
> consumer and scientific circumvention of technology locks on broadcasts.
>
> If the treaty passes, argues the group, consumers will be unable to
> access public domain programming that is locked-up by broadcasting
> companies. Furthermore, artists will be required to seek permission from
> broadcasting companies if they want to use their own performances.
>
> Brazil and India had requested at the last committee meeting that the
> draft allow for the possibility of removing these provisions, but no
> option to delete the relevant sections of the treaty was included in its
> latest version.
>
> Activists are also concerned that while the treaty purports to "update"
> existing laws, in reality, they say, it will create a broad range of new
> rights for broadcasters that currently exist nowhere in any national law.
>
> For example, observes IP Justice, the US has proposed that the treaty's
> scope be broadened to also control webcasting =96 the broadcasting of
> radio over the internet. This would allow traditional broadcasting
> companies to squeeze out innovative internet companies, according to the
> group.
>
> Over a dozen Member States urged that webcasting be removed from the
> scope of the treaty=92s regulation at the last meeting, but the provision=
,
> supported only by the US, remains in the proposals, according to the
> activist group.
>
> The proposal has also been attacked for undermining the goals of the
> "Development Agenda," which was adopted by the WIPO General Assembly in
> October to shift WIPO's focus away from the expansion of rightsholders'
> rights and towards the creation of incentives for allowing access to
> knowledge.
>
> Unfortunately, says IP Justice, WIPO's copyright committee has yet to
> heed the calls from developing countries and remains focused on "special
> interest" laws such as the proposed Broadcasting Treaty.
>
> "It is not the role of the WIPO Secretariat to tell Member States what
> their new laws will be, but rather to facilitate Member States'
> expressed will," said IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross in a
> statement to the WIPO copyright committee.
>
> "Self-determination is an indispensable component of legitimate
> democratic law-making processes. Unfortunately, it would appear that the
> 'tail is wagging the dog' in this case," added Gross.
>
> =94This treaty will confer upon the transmitters of information a host of
> 'related' or 'pseudo' copyrights that have the potential to trump true
> copyright and restrict the flow of information on the internet,=94 said a=
n
> open letter presented to the meeting by Cory Doctorow, European Affairs
> Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of 20
> technology companies and organisations opposed to the treaty.
>
> The EFF, together with IP Justice, European Digital Rights and other
> civil rights groups have presented the Committee with an alternative
> draft of the Treaty. This sets out their version of the concepts that
> should be used in any international measure covering broadcasts and
> broadcasting organisations.
>
> See:
>
> Revised consolidated draft for a Treaty on the Protection of
> Broadcasting Organisations (92-page PDF)
>
> Text of the alternative draft of the Treaty (53-page PDF)
>
> EFF's open letter
>
> The Development Agenda
>
> See also: Broadcasting rights: proposed treaty under fire, OUT-LAW News,
> 09/06/2004
> _______________________________________________
> Broadcast-discuss mailing list
> Broadcast-discuss@lists.essential.org
> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/broadcast-discuss
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--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel.: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176
Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva
1 Route des Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727