[Ecommerce] [A2k] Sign-on letter to Congress: request public consultation on webcasting treaty

[Manon Ress]

Sorry for cross-posting.

The following is a sign-on letter asking the leadership of the House
and Senate to block US support for a diplomatic conference at WIPO to
create a new global intellectual property right for broadcasting and
webcasting organizations, at least until the public can comment on
the proposal.

We are hoping to close out the letter by October 11.   At present the
United States trade negotiators are putting enormous pressure on WIPO
to schedule the diplomatic conference by the 2nd quarter of 2006, and
to include a highly controversial new IP right for "webcasting,"
which is defined extremely broadly.  The proposal would give
broadcasters and web page operators a property right in information
now in the public domain, or which would otherwise be freely
available from copyright owners.   It creates a new thicket of rights
that the public would have to deal with before they could share or
reuse works.

More information about the proposed treaty can be found at:
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/wipo-casting.html.

If you can sign this letter, send your name, affiliation and the name
of the city/state you live in to:

broadcast-signon@cptech.org

by October 11, 2005.

Manon Ress, manon.ress@cptech.org, Tel. 1.202.332.2670

And please circulate widely.

***************************************************

October  __, 2005

Dear Senators Bill Frist, Harry Reid, Arlen Specter, Patrick J.
Leahy, and Representatives Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi, James
Sensenbrenner, Jr., and John Conyers, Jr.

RE:  Request for Public consultations regarding Webcasting treaty
proposal at WIPO

We are writing to ask that Congress insist that the United States
negotiators  block a diplomatic conference at WIPO that would create
a new Intellectual Property Right for Broadcasting and Webcasting
Organizations until a federal register notice requests public comment
on the costs and benefits of the proposal.

The treaty proposal is complex and will have far-reaching
consequences. But few US firms or members of the public are even
aware of the proposal.  Moreover, the U.S. government agencies
responsible for WIPO negotiations on the treaty have not yet
adequately analyzed even the most basic issues, including, for
example, the impact of the treaty on the Internet, or the required
changes in U.S. law.

We oppose in particular a proposal in the draft treaty that would
create a new intellectual property right affecting both the rights of
the general public and the rights of copyright holders.
Specifically, this proposal would grant to persons who make
combinations or representations of images and sounds available to the
public over broadcast networks and other networks, including the
Internet, a 50-year exclusive right to authorize or prohibit the
copying or redistribution of such information. Not only would this
right, granted to broadcasters and webcasters, allow those who
transmit content to effectively close off works in the public domain,
but it also would encumber the rights of copyright holders (making it
harder for them to license their works to others), and would pre-empt
the rights of many stakeholders, including the general public, under
our copyright law.

This new intellectual-property right is an expanded version of a
related right for broadcasting organizations that is provided for in
the Rome Convention, a treaty the United States and more than 100
other countries have never signed.  Nevertheless, the United States
is proposing to extend this controversial right to the Internet (and
other networks, including private networks).

A small number of webcasters are asking that they be given the same
intellectual property rights that the treaty would give to
broadcasters.  But many other Internet companies, including those
also involved in webcasting, "reject the idea that the Internet needs
or will benefit from the extension of these pseudo-copyrights to so-
called 'Webcasters.'"  These companies further argue that "Adding a
new layer of intermediaries, over and above copyright holders, for
the re-use of information on the Internet benefits no one -- save
those intermediaries.  If an Internet company has the rights to a
work, or need not secure the rights to a work due to a limitation in
copyright, or because the work is in the public domain, there is no
rational reason to require that the company also seek the permission
of a further intermediary whose sole creative contribution to the
work is in making it available." [1]

Finally, we note that there are serious definitional problems with
the proposal's approach to webcaster rights -- it may burden all
World Wide Web content (including text and still images) with a
rights framework that was designed for broadcasting radio waves over
the air.

We ask that any decision about a diplomatic conference be deferred
until there is an opportunity for the affected parties -- ranging
from librarians and civil society groups to recording artists,
filmmakers, and publishers -- to comment on the proposal through an
appropriate federal register notice.

Sincerely,

Mark Cooper
Consumer Federation of America

Mike Godwin
Legal Director
Public Knowledge

James Packard Love
Consumer Project on Technology

Professor Jennifer M. Urban
The Law  School, University of Southern California*

Robin Gross
IP Justice

Frannie Wellings
Free Press

Jeannine Kenney
Consumers Union

Paul Hyland
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)

Wendy Seltzer
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School

Professor James Boyle
Duke Law School*

Gwen Hinze
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

David Tannenbaum
Union for the Public Domain (UPD)



* institution for identifying purposes only
-----
[1] http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/?f=3D20041117_open_letter.html



************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Consumer Project on Technology
1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727

Consumer Project on Technology
24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX, UK
Tel: +44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252 Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607




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