[Ecommerce] CNET on criticism of WIPO treaty

[Manon Ress]

Copyright treaty draws tech industry criticism
http://news.com.com/Copyright+treaty+draws+tech+industry+criticism/
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By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: September 5, 2006, 5:34 PM PDT
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ALEXANDRIA, Va.--An online culture built around user-generated
content on Web sites like YouTube and MySpace would be imperiled by a
new treaty, public interest groups and some technology companies said
Tuesday.

At issue is a treaty called "Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting
Organizations," which proponents say is necessary to ensure that TV
and cable broadcasters--and now, their Web-based counterparts--have
the tools to combat unauthorized retransmission of their signals. The
World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, a specialized arm
of the United Nations, gave the go-ahead in 2003 to begin drafting
the treaty, but a final version is still pending.

Opponents say the treaty would go far beyond targeting so-called
"signal piracy." They warn that it would give broadcasters and
Webcasters exclusive, 50-year rights to authorize rebroadcasting of
their signals, would create additional legal hoops for the average
Internet user to jump through, and could shrink existing protections
in U.S. law for public domain works and other instances of fair use.

With the latest draft of the document (click for PDF) scheduled for
consideration at a meeting in Geneva next week, the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office hosted a roundtable discussion here in Alexandria,
Va., to allow for public comment.

A loose coalition of 35 companies and organizations, which are often
at odds with each other on other topics, joined together to sign a
statement of opposition (click for PDF), which was distributed at the
two-hour event. The signatories included Dell, Hewlett-Packard,
Intel, AT&T, Verizon Communications, Sony and TiVo, as well as the
American Library Association, the Broadband Service Providers
Association, the Home Recording Rights Coalition and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.

Although their individual positions varied, the document's signers
generally argued that the broadcast and Webcast lobby--backed by
Yahoo and other members of the Digital Media Association--have not
made a strong enough case for the new treaty. If theft of signals is
truly the primary worry, they said, then existing U.S. laws likely
offer sufficient protections, or a more narrowly tailored proposal
could be drafted.

But as it stands, the proposal would trample on the legal rights
consumers currently enjoy, such as recording TV broadcasts for later
viewing and playing them back within their homes, some opponents argued.

The proposal also embraces the legality of technological protection
measures, which means there would be nothing to stop controversial
copy-prevention regimes like the broadcast flag, designed to prevent
digital TV piracy, from being implemented, said Electronic Frontier
Foundation International Affairs Director Gwen Hinze. Such mandates
"increase design costs, which are passed on to consumers, and reduce
the feature set available to consumers," Hinze said.

The proposal "would enable 'casters to gain very unprecedented
control in the home and personal network environment, which would
interfere with the rollout of broadband and home networking services
(and) new and innovative devices that allow users to use content in
new and flexible ways," said Michael Petricone, senior vice president
for government affairs for the Consumer Electronics Association.

Seth Greenstein, a partner at the Washington D.C. law office of
Constantine Cannon who serves as outside counsel to the Digital Media
Association, said that's not the intention of treaty supporters.

"What we have always intended to be the scope of coverage is Internet
Webcasting that is like broadcasting, not individual files, songs,
audio or video clips made on individual Web sites, but rather
programming that is scheduled," Greenstein said.

He said he believed that the latest U.S.-offered definition of
Netcasting (click for PDF) satisfies that aim.

Jule Sigall, the U.S. Copyright Office official who led the
roundtable, said the most recent language, released earlier this
summer, is "very much a step towards something else" and that next
week's meetings of WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related
Rights will present "a very fluid situation" in which much could change.

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

Consumer Project on Technology
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