Global Cyber Copyright Treaty In Force Today

Guinnessy writes: "The Financial Times has a short story on a global copyright treaty that comes into force today, despite controversy over whether it will help or hinder creativity on the internet. You can find an actual copy of the treaty at the World Intellectual Property Organisation."

Comments

Short article

[Perdo]

And obviously biased. Everyone but the few hundred music/movie executives that stand to profit from this are biased. We have passed the DMCA and will ratify this treaty for benifit of a few hundred people.

There are 6 billion people on the planet and hardship caused to less than a thousand does not warrant an international treaty.

If it impacted a million people adversly, it would not warrent a treaty.

CSS ratified and PVR/VCRs criminalized

[4/3PI*R^3]

Read Article 8

Well, this gives the MPAA and the RIAA one more lobbying tool to get their way.
Copyright holders get to choose where and when you get to see their IP.

The good thing about this, is that I'm going to start copyrighting my phone calls. And then I can just use the agreed statment on article 8 that "the mere provision of physical facilities for enabling or making a communication does not in itself amount to communication" as an excuse for not answering my phone.

Article 11 slipped right through without a peep.

[jdclucidly]

"Article 11

Obligations concerning Technological Measures

Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law."

I wonder how many RIAA and MPAA dollars went it to that one? This gives all contries the mandate to implement SSSCA- and DCMA-like laws. I, for one, am very dissapointed in the WIPO.

The DMCA was written in support of this treaty

[WinPimp2K]

As the article not so clearly states. The treaty came first, then the same fine folks who wrote the treaty for WIPO wrote the DMCA for the US. Don't worry, once the bugs are worked out, they will run "DMCA v2.0" through babelfish and then trot the "localized versions" off to be rubberstamped by all the other WIPO members.

Please remember that the purpose of the treaty, and the WIPO international patent system is not to stifle creativity. The purpose is to facilitate the commerce of ideas by having a simple single point of reference to check for ownership of all intellectual property. Everyone is still just as free to create as they were before, but if your creation builds on the IP of others, then they will be protected from being damaged by the dissemination of your obviously derivative works.

That this new IP "clearinghouse" might turn out to be biased in favor of the organizations that pay its bills is completely irrelevant.And so is the fact that whenever I see WIPO I think of it as a "professional" version of the IOC, and the sort of organization that ICANN wishes it were.