Broadcasters push for new layer of intellectual monopoly at WIPO
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Government delegates are meeting this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) general assembly in Geneva to discuss the WIPO Development Agenda. The meeting will determine how developing countries must implement existing controversial intellectual property rights laws including copyrights, patents, and trademarks. They will also consider the disputed proposal for a global Treaty on the Protection of Broadcastings and Webcasting Organizations.
The Broadcastings/Webcasting Treaty proposal, pushed by traditional broadcast organizations, and lobbyists for a handful of Internet publishers, including Yahoo, is being pushed hardest by the United States government, which ironically, has never considered such legislation domestically. The treaty would create a new layer of intellectual monopoly rights for broadcasters, potentially including 'webcasters'. Broadcasters would then be able to claim rights over material they broadcast–even material that was in the public domain or licensed under creative commons or copyleft licenses.
Many developing countries including Brazil, South Africa, India, Iran, Chile, and Venezuela are asking for time to evaluate and study the proposals, and opposition to the treaty has been registered by numerous NGOs and public interest advocates. Fearing a repeat of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), when US copyright law was made more strict to conform to WIPO standards, a coalition of U.S. NGOs is currently circulating a sign on letter calling for public hearings on the implications of the Broadcaster Treaty.
In a recent Financial Times article Professor James Boyle (Law, Duke University) [1] raised objections to the Broadcasting/Webcasting Treaty, saying "intellectual property laws are created without any empirical evidence that they are necessary, or that they will help rather than hurt". He elaborated that such laws are made "as though it were just a deal brokered between industry groups," and that concerns for "public interest in competition, access, free speech, and vigorous technological markets takes a back seat." Professor Boyle fears that "communications networks are increasingly built around intellectual property rules" with harmful effects.
Sources
- "Don't Let Congress Ignore the Broadcast Treaty" — EFF, September 23, 2005
- "Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (PDF)" — WIPO, Septeember 2005
- James Boyle. "More rights are wrong for webcasters" — Financial Times, September 26 2005
- Anne Broache. "US announces global intellectual-property plan" — CNET News, September 22 2005
External links
- Petition for public hearings on WIPO Webcasting treaty
- CPTech page on Broadcast/Webcast Treaty, includes links to current drafts of treaty text
- Sign on letter text
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