[Ecommerce] [Fwd: [Broadcast-discuss] BNA Patent, Trademark & Copyright Law Daily on treaty]

[Manon Ress]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Broadcast-discuss] BNA Patent, Trademark & Copyright Law Daily
on treaty
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:21:36 -0500
From: David Tannenbaum <davidt@public-domain.org>
To: broadcast-discuss@lists.essential.org


Tuesday, November 23, 2004


Intellectual Property
  WIPO Members Conclude Latest Talks
  On Broadcast Treaty, Mixed Outcome Cited

GENEVA--Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization
concluded their latest round of talks Nov. 19 on a new global treaty
which would update the protected rights of broadcast organizations.

While WIPO's secretariat hailed the three days of discussions within the
organizations Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR)
as making "substantial progress in narrowing differences on key issues,"
some participants said the meeting revealed continued and, in some
cases, growing differences between member governments.

The chairman of the SCCR, Jukka Liedes of Finland, wrapped up the
discussions with a promise to prepare a second revised version of the
draft treaty text and to hold a series of regional consultations with
interested governments. Liedes said the revised draft would be presented
and reviewed at the next SCCR meeting; the date for that meeting has yet
to be decided.

"Last week's progress in the SCCR session is quite promising, as member
states' positions showed increased flexibility and a will to move
forward towards the formal treaty negotiation process," he said Nov. 22.

Some of the main differences in the draft treaty concern provisions
related to the scope of the proposed treaty, in particular whether
Internet Webcasters should be covered by the treaty; the duration of
rights granted under the treaty; the right to prohibit or authorize the
fixation of broadcasts; and the obligations of member governments
regarding legal protection of signal encryption.

Solutions Will Have to Wait

WIPO Deputy Director General Rita Hayes admitted Nov. 22 that solutions
to all these issues will probably have to await a high-level diplomatic
conference to adopt a final treaty. Nevertheless, "most member states
are confident that differences on these key issues can be narrowed in
the final negotiating process," she added.

But one Latin American delegate disagreed with the rosy synopsis,
describing the SCCR meeting as "messy and very confusing."

"To say we made great progress is a distorted version of the truth," the
official said. "In fact, there are significant differences between
member governments on many fundamental issues."

WIPO officials earlier suggested that a diplomatic conference was likely
to be convened by the end of 2005 or early 2006, but that target appears
increasingly uncertain. Any decision on a date would have to be made by
WIPO's General Assembly, which will only hold its next session in the
fall of 2005; officials said that governments and the WIPO secretariat
will need at least six month's advance notice to prepare for a
diplomatic conference.

The United States has been alone among WIPO members in proposing that
rights granted under the new treaty be extended to Webcasters. The
European Union has suggested a more narrow form of protection covering
only simultaneous and unchanged webcasts ("simulcasting").

In an effort to find a solution, Liedes proposed that a WIPO working
paper be drafted outlining possible "alternative, non-mandatory
solutions" on the protection of webcasting organizations and
simulcasting. The working paper will be presented along with the revised
draft treaty text for review at the next SCCR meeting.

WIPO officials hailed the chairman's proposal as a major step forward.
"We're now talking about how to deal with webcasting outside the context
of an impending broadcast treaty," Hayes said. "It's a big issue to take
out of the text."

One possible alternative is addressing webcasting rights within the
context of a protocol to the treaty which member governments could
choose to adopt or not separate from the treaty itself. But opponents of
webcasting rights argue that the protocol option would still include
webcasting within the legal framework of the treaty, which they said was
unacceptable.

Duration of Rights

On the duration of rights, a growing divide is emerging between
countries pushing for a 50-year protection period for covered broadcasts
and those favoring a 20-year maximum protection period. Proponents for
the longer period include the United States, the European Union, Japan,
Argentina, and Egypt.

But a proposal from Singapore calling for the 20-year limit is gaining
support from other countries, most notably India and Chile, officials
said. Other countries such as Brazil, which has dated legislation
offering a 70-year protection period, are reserving their position on
the issue.

Opponents argue that 50 years of protection goes well beyond the 20-year
minimum protection currently fixed under the 1961 Rome Convention for
the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting
Organizations as well as the World Trade Organization's Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips).

"There's a little bit more support for the 20 years than before,"
admitted Hayes. "But there are also a lot of different delegations who
won't accept anything less than 50 years."

Jorgen Blomqvist, director of WIPO's Copyright Law division, noted that
only a small number of countries currently limit protection of
broadcasts to 20 years under their national laws while the great
majority of WIPO members offer protection between 25 and 50 years.

On the right of broadcasters to prohibit or authorize fixations of
broadcasts, officials said the divide was mainly between broadcast
organizations seeking a specific right allowing broadcasters to
authorize the reproduction, distribution, transmission and making
available broadcasts from fixations (on video, DVD, etc.) and content
owners seeking the right of broadcasters to prohibit such acts only. The
former would imply greater control by broadcasters over the content they
broadcast, such as films, live sports events or concerts.

EU Favors Exclusive Rights

The EU favors language granting broadcasters exclusive rights to
authorize reproductions, distribution, and the making available of fixed
broadcasts. The United States favors granting similar rights in regards
to the reproduction and distribution of unauthorized fixations but wants
additional language requiring authorizations for the deferred
transmission of fixed broadcasts

Critics complain that the language would establish new obligations not
envisaged for the treaty and possible conflicts with the rights of
content holders by essentially establishing a right for broadcasters to
license reproductions, distribution, and transmissions of their broadcasts.

Hayes said a "lot of delegations" at the SCCR meeting were "very firm"
that rights under a new broadcast treaty in this area should be limited
to the right to prohibit, not to authorize.

On obligations to provide legal means to protect signal encryption and
other technical means to secure broadcast transmissions, the United
States, the EU, Switzerland, Japan, Egypt and others have supported
language calling for governments to provide legal remedies against
circumvention of encryption technologies. Such language is already
included in WIPO's Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

But others such as Brazil and Chile want any such language to be deleted
from the treaty text. A number of non-governmental organizations have
also questioned the need for including language on technical measures in
the treaty text.

Blomqvist said the issue was another which would need to be discussed
within the context of a diplomatic conference.

  By Daniel Pruzin


_____________________________________________________________________
Contact customer relations at: customercare@bna.com or 1-800-372-1033
ISSN 1535-1610
Copyright =A9 2004, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.
Copyright FAQs | Internet Privacy Policy | BNA Accessibility Statement |
License

Reproduction or redistribution, in whole or in part, and in any form,
without express written permission, is prohibited except as permitted by
the BNA Copyright Policy,
http://www.bna.com/corp/index.html#V





_______________________________________________
Broadcast-discuss mailing list
Broadcast-discuss@lists.essential.org
http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/broadcast-discuss



--
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