Slashdot Mirror
WIPO Music Control Treaty Ratified
Greyfox writes: "Here's one that slipped through the cracks. The WIPO (You know, that unelected, unaccountable organization that lives in the Corporate back pockets) has ratified a anti-music piracy treaty which will go into effect on May 20. It apparently has anti-circumvention measures similar to the DMCA and will carry the force of law in the USA and other member countries." We had a more informative story about these two treaties a few months ago. The only new information is that the Phonograms and Performances Treaty now has enough signatures to go into effect in May.
Bush won't be pushed around by big, evil corporations!
from the referenced CNN article:
Does it have the "force of law," or does it simply mean that nations have agreed to enact laws aligned with the treaty?
Not that the intellectual "property" goons at the media empires have a prayer in the long run, anyway. They can't get away with selling bandwidth to the public on one hand and locking up content on the other. They're mutually exclusive.
(You know, that unelected, unaccountable organization that lives in the Corporate back pockets)
WIPO is a treaty. If one of the 177 countries is unhappy about being part of the WIPO treaty, they can leave. So the fact that a country is part of WIPO is indicitive of the will of the lawmaking body of the country. Furthermore, the treaty had to be ratified by each country, so it was elected. And to say that it lives in corporate back pockets indicates that you don't know much about WIPO. While it has capitalist goals, it is by no means controled by any company in any country.
My email is real.
WIPO is the World Intellectual Property Organization. I don't know exactly what it is, it just sounds evil =].
Although the treaties were adopted in 1996, they are only ratified now with the signature of Honduras. The WTTP is basically the DMCA for the rest of the world. It exists to "provide protection for companies in the cultural and information industries".
I can feel my sanity, beyond my reach and slipping...
Hopefully music will get wrapped in enough red tape to drown out Britney & Westlife
The musicians are just as guilty as the record companies and the RIAA and the rest of them. No-one forces you to sign to Sony Music or Thorn EMI.
There's so much great music out there that's not distributed by the big corps you know, you don't *HAVE* to buy stuff from them.
Let them do wtf they like with their music, who cares, let them drown in their own decadence.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The pessimist in me wants to say "bend over and kiss your ass goodbye" - the next step to a corporation-controlled digital age.
Maybe (maybe) it will get better before it gets really bad, but reality's shaping up a lot like this.
Can anybody point a link to a list of all the countries that have so far bought into this?
Anarchy$ dd if=/dev/random of=~/.signature bs=120 count=1
And he was worried that global organizations were hurting national sovereignty, if I interpreted his speech correctly. He was talking about organizations like the World Trade Organization whose agreements bind member nations to follow their policy above their own local laws, or be punished. It isn't just the national organiztaions that we must pay attention to now, but international ones like the World Intellectual Property Organizations whose treaties bind their members to follow their laws, for better or for worse.
Are you trolling?
This treaty has been SHOVED down the throats of the "177 countries" by threats of catastrophic loss of trade agreements and obscene tolls by the USA. It's a "you're either with out entertainment industry or you're against us" treaty.
The owls are not what they seem
They don't have to accept the treaty if they don't want to. The US is dependant on these foreign countries to buy our stuff. If 80% of them decided they didn't like the way things were they could change it. It would require international cooperation and some backbone.
Do you really think, that when the 800-lb. Gorilla
USA waves the boycott-flag, you have a choice not to sign the treaty?!
johnboy
But people here seem to think that Americans are being unfairly subjected to this "unelected" body, but the U.S. could easily leave if it wanted to.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Just because the treaty was ratified by 177 countries doesn't mean it was democratic. After all, what does the US do if we don't like other countries' policies? We strongarm investors to suck all their capital out of the country until they do what we tell them to. And if they go along with our policies, we reward them (or at least their corrupt leaders) with massive loans from the World Bank or IMF.
The point is that these policies are getting more universal and more severe. Take a look at the article last week about the Chinese government's firewall built by eager US corporations. We're getting to the point where the internet no longer guarantees that information will be free (like speech or beer).
Between laws enforcing intellectual property, technology that can monitor and censor internet traffic, and governments cracking down on terrorism and digital theft, we risk losing the promise of the internet.
International treaties like this one are as important to the slashdot community as anything Bill Gates or George Bush does.
(Now we just have to find effective ways to fight back)
Teaching, coding, coffee, revolution.
There are many organizations not appointed by the public or any election, and these are called de facto organizations. Most of the time these organizations exist because the government wants to do something that the public would never support, such as a fascist war on the citizens (DEA). These organizations have their own laws and regulate themselves, and do not have to pay attention to the opinions of us peasants.
Can this treaty realy be compared to the DMCA. As I see it the worst part about the DMCA - restricting the freedom of speech by outlawing the *construction* of circumvention devices (read programs) - is not present in this treaty. The clost they get to this seem to be Article 18 and 19 which I interpred solely as forbing the *use* of said devices/programs. Which of course is bad that too... but not as bad as the DMCA.
...forcing their will upon poor innocent countries but WTO, WIPO is just like say EU, UN, NATO or any other international organization. They are completely voluntary organizations, and they make rules for how one must act to take part. The treaties they come up with are the (weighted) sum of the laws they would want individually.
As in every other case, some viewpoints will be voted down to reach a common result, but that's the reason they bothered to come together in the first place. If everybody was to it their own way anyway, what would be the point?
Of course politicans will try to blame unpopular laws on somebody else, and an international body for which constituents don't vote is a perfect excuse. If you'll let them get off the hook by saying "we had to follow WIPO policy", you've lost already.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's bad enough that there are some great foreign films that will be probably never viewed in the United States because they are a different region (which negates travelling and legally buying the DVD and brining it back) and distributors do not consider the films worthy enough to port over to region 1. But to think that one day people might be denied exposure to music from the world's many cultures for the same reason is barbaric.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
OBDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I picked all this up from "Ally McBeal."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Is that there is nowhere to flee too. If you want a country with electricity, medical resources, and lack of local warfare then you're stuck with the vast majority of these crappy treaties.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
That's it, since most of my personal effects are music recordings, I now OWN virtually nothing.... and since I'm a musician, did I mention that any attempt to gain a wider audience will result in some huge, monolithic corporation dictating what I can play.... Just licensed to a slimy tentacle of the great machine that'll control all of us in 10 years or so...
In the meantime, I plan to move somewhere out of the way and raise sheep. Call me when it's time to mechanically tattoo the barcode on my forehead.
Since the US signed the treaty saying they would agree to it. America can walk away from it anytime our government chooses to, however. But until they do, we are obligated to fulfill the terms of the treaty.
Especially when our Constitution overrules it.
Can you show us which part of the Constitution prevents our government from signing treaties?
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
"...has ratified a anti-music piracy treaty"
;-)
I assume you meant "anti-music-piracy" or "anti music-piracy" but I like your version better.
Seems like all these damned laws are anti-music.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Sorry, but you have the right to preserve your investment by backing up media that you buy. This steps all over that by making it illegal to own or make devices capable of making legitimate backups.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
I'm not up on the WIPO treaties, but my take from the CNN article (which may be inaccurate) is that the treaties lack operative clauses. Think about it as the content provider's version of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but when push comes to shove, the Chinese whack all the dissidents they want anyway.
;)
So the WIPO treaties may recognize rights, but they don't offer significant remedies to enforce them.
I can't imagine a treaty with operative anti-circumvention provisions couldn't get through WIPO without more noise than we've heard... though I'll have to take a look at them.
Besides, if it was really bad, we would be knee-deep in indignant press releases from the EFF.
Your argument is missing some distinctions.
First, "countries" are not atomic entities. There are interest groups within them. The RIAA/MPAA + media giants have their allies within many of the signatory countries. They would like nothing more than to control content and the means of distributing content completely. They would also like to control prices, limit competition, and some guranteed income in the form of hardware taxes.
These groups have the advantage of money and organization, but the disadvanatge that many of them live in democratic countries. So to get what they want, they have to do an end run around the democratic process. One way to do this is with economic treaties, which are negotiated in secret, by the very groups who will benefit most from them, and are then passed on to legislatures to be rubber stamped.
Why do the legislatures rubber stamp them? Well, for one thing, the lawmakers tend to be predisposed to favor this stuff in the first place, due to a variety of filters. For instance, in the US, to even be eligable to make a run for congress requires that you raise about $1,000,000/year from wealthy individuals. This means that our representatives are not exactly a "cross-section" of the population. So the lawmakers don't view the public as some group to be served, but as an annoying constituency which should be kept quiet and under control. I'm generalizing here, but the principle is fairly accuarate. In other countries there are other filters, of varying restrictiveness.
Moreover, the media doesn't highlight these amendments. Where was the huge public debate about the Telecommunications Act? Where was the public debate about the DMCA? Why do these agreements slip under the radar? There is little discussion of them in the media -- unless through leaks or lack of control word spreads anyways, and then there is a rush to defend them. So the Nafta debate, which was caused only because Perot -- who can buy his own air time -- forced the issue onto the airwaves. And then there was a rush by the NYTimes, Washington Post, etc. to villify him and to not present the opposing views.
Finally there is the method of bundling, by which these agreements are presented to congress without possibility to amend them, as part of a larger package, for a straight up or down vote. Threats of boycotts, higher tariffs, cutting of loans/aid are big clubs than can be used against other countries to get them to sign. But the key point is that the legislatures generally want to sign these things, and the aforementioned threats are provided as cover for them to say to their citizens -- "we had to do it."
At the end of the day, you end up paying taxes when you buy a hard drive, and the police can arrest you for reverse engineering, even if your goal is to interoperate, or just provide a lower price substitute.
I recommend reading an article about the derailed Multilateral Agreement on Investements to see this dynamic at work. In the case of the MAI, media leaks, mostly on the internet, launched a grassroots effort to oppose the provisions of the MAI. This resulted in derailing the agreement as more and more of the provisions came to light, and public hearings in several countries were called. A brief excerpt:
The [Wall Street] journal goes on to urge that it will be necessary "to drum up business support" so as to beat back the hordes [of people opposed to the MAI]. Until now, business hasn't recognized the severity of the threat. And it is severe indeed. "Veteran trade diplomats" warn that with "growing demands for greater openness and accountability," it is becoming "harder for negotiators to do deals behind closed doors and submit them for rubber-stamping by parliaments." "Instead, they face pressure to gain wider popular legitimacy for their actions by explaining and defending them in public," no easy task when the hordes are concerned about "social and economic security," and when the impact of trade agreements "on ordinary people's lives...risks stirring up popular resentment" and "sensitivities over issues such as enviromental and food safety standards." It might even become impossible "to resist demands for direct participation by lobby groups in WTO decisions, which would violate one of the body's central principles": "'This is the place where governments collude in private against their domestic pressure groups,' says a former WTO official."
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
This was lobbyed for very heavily by the IFPI and the RIAA. Jason Berman is the head of the IFPI (and the former head of the RIAA, he reccommended Hilary Rosen to replace him. He is based out out New York and has been a steady fixture at the WIPO meeting and debates. One has to ask why the head of an organization based in London, lives in New York, unless this was the plan all along. He is a former Warner Bros exec and a Senate aide. While we were watching the Hilary, Berman was expanding US copyright policy to the world. More on Berman.
Here;s the fun part. there is no EULA on cd music. I didnt see no Open here to agree, click to agree, etc... So imposing new restrictions require laws... the chances of these laws getting enforced are pretty minimal and any law that will be almost universally ignored will eventually get overturned or just create a giant underground that will tople the companies. think about that for a moment.. The record companies are creating a huge problem for themselves.. a underground is starting to grow and build that will start taking real profits away from them, not just the made up for TV stats profits lost they have been talking about.
I welcome this... it will start a nice change that will redefine and redesign the world as we know it... and it will destroy the record companies and movie companies.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
- the performer shall, as regards his live aural performances or perfomances fixed in phonograms, have the right
... to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of his performances that would be prejudicial to his reputation.
So, for example, if I take a video of Eminem and pick out the more inflammatory parts, under the rules of fair use, to demonstrate his use of hate speechI/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
The MPAA is evil, with CSS... ooh! Look! A shiny new Star Trek DVD! Must.. Have.. DVD!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Here is the only language in the treaty concerning anti-circumvention measures:
A Contracting Party is a country that has signed the treaty. Note that the above language only requires countries to punish people who used a technological measure to violate a performer's rights, that is, to punish people who use technological measures to do piracy. A signer is not obliged to implement something like the DMCA; a far narrower law would suffice to comply with the treaty.
Although I largely concur with the concerns over globalization and treaties like WTTP, I think most are missing the positive other side of the coin that will be necessitated by globalization itself: Global democracy, with actual world leadership and representatives. And direct democracy movements have recently been growing stronger, esp. in Europe. It's only a matter of time before corporations will have nowhere to escape from the world's huddled masses except maybe the planet Mars.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I do see this whole temperance tripe, et al, causing one of the largest underground movements of all time in the cause of Freedom. Some will get nailed for sure but they can't put everyone in jail.
Flash Forward to 2000 or so:
86,000,000 adults in the USA admit to having used an illegal drug at some point in their life.
1 in 3 young black males are on probation or are under some sort of government supervision.
Millions of people are jailed each year because they excercised their right to choose what goes into their body.
The prison industry is booming, with new facility contstruction at all time highs. Corporation are convincing legislators to let them use prison labor at below minimum wages. Asset forfieture is commonly used to make money for police departments. Assets that are seized cannot be recovered without lengthy legal proceedings even if the person hasn't been charged with a crime.
Yep, they can't arrest everyone. They sure can profit from arresting a lot of people though.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
That's just silly. You don't see "Though Shalt Not Kill" engraved on each hand gun; do you?
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
Imagine if someone looked through your window at the wallpaper in your house, decided it was an ugly color, and then broke into your house to paint all your walls pink. Would that be cool with you??
Oh yeah? How would YOU like it if every time someone flew a white helicopter over your father's tomato farm, a rhinoceros shows up and steps on his bicycle? Yeah, would that be cool with you??
Yeah, I didn't THINK so!
what about that is propaganda?
Protect the children from phonography! Phonography is all over the internet, and the League for Moral Turpitude will stop at nothing to destroy this exploitative industry!
DOWN WITH PHONOGRAPHY!
The Constitution requires not signing of the treaty, but ratification by the Senate of the United States. I have seen no information stating that the Senate signed this treaty. OTOH I have seen no information to the contrary.
In the US, signing a treaty is meaningless until it is ratified, as Clinton found out to his dismay.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Here's an interesting little snipped from Article VI of the US Constitution that most of you probably didn't know about (emphasis mine):
This Constitution... and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.
The Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that international treaties hold the same weight as the Constitution. This means that if a WIPO treaty trumps the First Amendment, you're up a creek.
Back in the 1950's there was a bill floating around Congress known as the Bricker Amendment that would have forbade Congress from ratifying a treaty (only requires 2/3 of the Senate) that would require a constituational amendment to do otherwise (which requires 2/3 of both houses and then 2/3 of the states). It didn't pass. Do a Google for more info.
This means that a group of people who we don't have any control over for six years at a time can trump the Constitution whenever 67 of them agree to. (Yet another reason to repeal the 17th, probably.)
There's been a new interest in the Bricker Amendment in recent years from the political right and other groups, but I don't think anything's been really done about it.
BEGIN subtleHint();
Perhaps if we all wrote to our Congresscritters and Senators and bitched about the lack of such a law protecting us from abuses in WIPO and WTO something might get done about it.
END subtleHint();
You don't get to click, you agree to the copyright provisons by purchasing the album. Don't a moronic troll.
Doesn't the constitution specify that no treaty
is effective or binding unless ratified by Congress?
Now I know that much of the Constitution is
an irrelevant theoretic excercise, since Roosevelt
established an autocratic presidency by threatening
to pack the supreme court in order to get the
grotesquely unconstitutional ruling of washburn
in 1942, but surely this core element of the
document is still in force!
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
from Article 2: Definitions...
(b) "phonogram" means the fixation of the sounds of a performance or of other sounds, or of a representation of sounds other than in the form of a fixation incorporated in a cinematographic or other audiovisual work;
(c) "fixation" means the embodiment of sounds, or of the representations thereof, from which they can be perceived, reproduced or communicated through a device;
(d) "producer of a phonogram" means the person, or the legal entity, who or which takes the initiative and has the responsibility for the first fixation of the sounds of a performance or other sounds, or the representations of sounds;
If would appear that if a musician were to make a cassette recording of a song before going into the studio, their producer would in fact not have intellectual property rights to it.
IF this is the case, then the WIPO just managed to shoot themselves in the foot.
Article 21
Reservations
Subject to the provisions of Article 15(3), no reservations to this Treaty shall be permitted.
It would also appear, juding from article 21, that if any section of the treaty conflicts with national law and is struck down, that the entire treaty is rendered null and void. OR (depending on how you read it) that the treaty in fact overrides any national law (DMCA) and in agreeing to this treaty, the nationality agrees to either reform or abolish any law that conflicts with it.
Article 28
Signature of the Treaty
This Treaty shall be open for signature until December 31, 1997, by any Member State of WIPO and by the European Community.
Also going on to Article 28, did the treaty get the required 30 signatures before December 31, 1997?
If not then it would appear that the entire teaty is null and our lawmakers have been wasting our money and time
(like this is anything new).
----------
"Since when does a law outside the United States apply to us? Especially when our Constitution overrules it."
Take a REAL close look at Article VI. Then look up the Supreme Court decision Missouri v. Holland and look at the ramifications there.
The Constitution doesn't overrule international treaties, it's the other way around.
That's just silly. You don't see "Though Shalt Not Kill" engraved on each hand gun; do you?
Hmm. If they can put on cans of insecticide and air freshener, "Do not point at people", why don't they put it on handguns?
The artists are hooked on the RIAA, and us consumers (well, not me), are hooked on this weird notion that we just MUST have whatever our favorite artists happen to produce. Everyone's in it together.
You KNOW that the artists aren't going to get clean- they've got too much at stake. The question is, when are the consumers ever going to get clean?
It seems to me that the author of the cited article as well as the referenced publication are missing a few salient facts.
1). In the US anyway all treaties must be ratified by Congress. It's specified as such in the US Constitution. Anything WIPO does cannot have force of law in the US without ratification by the US Congress. The last time I looked the US Congress was both accountable and elected.
2). The article clearly states that the WIPO treaty does not override national laws.
The whole idea of having different branches of government is for accountability and potential abuse of power. Its called checks and balances. Other governments besides the American one state that the police and FBI may only enforce laws only! Not make laws. And the legislative branch may only write laws but NOT enforce them. This protects governments from dictators.
But is there any branch of government that the wipo can be checked and balanced from? The EU also scares me. The officials are not elected but appointed and have no checks or balances either. They could write a dmca equalivant and it WILL NEVER BE APPEALED. Globalization in this style could be disaster. But the scariest of this whole mess is I am conservative and not one of the anti globalization zealots. I hate government interaction but it seems that extreme corporatism is making the governments move so far to the right that they began to resemble the left. Ask any political science professor about this. Politics is like a clock. Someone who is extremely left or right may actually resemble each other more then someone near the center.
As a republican I will proudly support McCain during the next presidential primaries. We need to take our government back from corporate extremists on the far right and left of both parties and end totalitarian globalization now before we lose all our rights!
http://saveie6.com/
Note the language here: Everything is forbidden unless the government or the "content" provider grants express permission.
This default configuration setting is incorrect, because it is socially oppressive. It is the setting used by totalitarian regimes, both public and private; republican and monarchical. It is an evolutionary dead-end.
The correct configuration setting would be that all uses and actions are permitted unless expressly forbidden by law, or by a contract signed by both parties (none of this shrinkwrap/clickwrap horsesh*t). This setting makes it hard to oppress the populace, which is what you want.
...Unless you're a greedy, power-mongering, little tinpot dictator.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
S'right. Greed & fame make terrible masters.
"I want to be a pop star" seems an overwhelming dream for the attention starved nobodies.
I've worked in the music business and to my mind talented people are ten a penny. Music is a relatively easy discipline. Sure, touring can be hard work but it's not in the same league as coal mining or sewing Nike trainers together. Most of the crap pumped through the big boy channels is just pretty young things acting as clothes hangers to people like Pete Waterman and Nigel Whatsit (the guy behind Westlife & co).
The TV stations pump it up, hyping away at their new puppets so they can fill their airtime. Cosy deals between the big distributors of content put up invisible trade barriers. Mindless soporific pap to brainwash the nation into thinking that factory work is okay because as least I can fantasize about fucking Kylie when I wtach the Brit Awards tonight.
As you can tell it just doesn't sit happily with me. Bitter? yeah, pint please and a bag of nuts.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Pretty much everything you've said relates to the flaws in the US lawmaking process
...
Yes:) I am an American. The little I know of the situation in the EU is that there are similar filters. There they take the form of a more class(and so wealth) based beauracracy which is so byzantine that no one can police it, and removed from popular influence by ever-increasing administrative layers. In the third world, with exceptions, politics are much more violent and dealing with popular pressures is not so much of an issue.
That's 1/177 down. The parent's post is still accurate: WIPO resolutions, like those of all other international bodies, require ratification by member-states before they have force of law. Think of WIPO et al like you would the W3C
Here in California, we have some direct democracy in the form of propositions each election cycle. We're routinely blitzed by commercials from groups such as "Concerned Citizens for Environmental Responsibility". If you read the bylaws of these groups, they claim to be just that -- a grassroots campaign to educate the public about environmental issues. But it's easy to see that the above group, say, is actually a front for oil companies who want to enable off shore drilling. It only exists to pass/derail some resolution and has a membership which you can count on your hand. Now, you can argue that if we democratically elect members to this group of concerned citizens, that the organization might be reformed and would then serve some useful purpose. I just have no idea why anyone would want to do that (see end of rant).
This is pretty much the case with WIPO. Statements like "the US is only 1/177 of WIPO" " and "Corporations influence it only to the extent that they influence the member states" are only true in the actual WIPO bylaws, and --possibly -- some political science articles.
In reality the US must be atleast 2/3 of WIPO (in terms of influence) and Europe maybe 1/3 -- the rest of the world, including China, constitutes a rounding error. And in terms of corporate influence, it's not only that the actual proposals are negotiated/written by corporate attorneys, many of whom don't even bother to take on govt. jobs, but most top governmental officials are unaware of what these lawyers agree to. This includes congressional chairs of foreign trade, although I imagine that the Bush Administration's top trade executive is occasionally briefed on the matter.
In fact, the very existence of an orginization called "WIPO" already prejudices the situation, since the natural course of all developed countries has been to ignore (foreign) IP laws entirely -- except possibly limited rights of attribution. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that the US began to pay lip service to any foreign IP rights at all. And not until after WWI, when we confiscated many patents from Germany, did we even begin to take foreign IP rights seriously. Currently, even in the more developed countries, foreign IP rights were (and are) ignored on a selective basis. And so just the desire to codify and enforce IP laws worldwide is already a huge slap in the face of development efforts going on in the third world, and has no popular support in those countries.
This is not like W3C or the UN; and it's difficult to imagine what a "democratic" world wide IP regime might be, other than some statement to the effect of "There should not be a worldwide IP regime".
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Does anyone know why the WIPO Phonograms and Performances Treaty is called WTTP?