WIPO Broadcast Treaty Creates New Legal Rights for Broadcasters

An anonymous reader writes "WIPO (The World Intellectual Property Organization) created by the UN is now creating a new copyright for 'broadcast transmissions' giving broadcasters ownership of the content that they broadcast (even if the program being broadcast is in the public domain). IP Justice has created a Top 10 List of reasons to reject this proposal and has published a detailed report that dissects the proposal from a civil liberties and freedom of expression point of view." See our previous story for more information.

Comments

The "perfect enemy"

[swb]

I keep wondering how long it will be until we have the completely formed "perfect enemy" -- that combination of totalitarianism and corporatism all rolled together.

WPDO

[leandrod]

I hereby propose the creation of WOFO -- the World Public Domain, Fair Use, Open Content and Free Software Organisation.

Fuzzy

[z0ink]

Of course I didn't RTFA, but would this mean if I broadcasted the latest RIAA single I would own the rights to a recording of that broadcast? Even if I never owned the rights to the actual songs in the broadcast?

Distributing freely?

[SIGALRM]

This proposal by the UN can, and has been used to define web content distribution.

Seems to indicate that in the case of public domain content, such as a government-created documentary or a very old movie or audio recording--you would not be able to freely store and redistribute that content.

Hand-in-Hand with Broadcast Flag

[william_lorenz]

Seems to me that this goes hand-in-hand with the broadcast flag.

I get it now

[jlaxson]

This is how copyright holders are shoving the First Ammendment up our collective asses. Many of the articles in this treaty are patently unconstitutional. However, international treaty is held to supersede the constitution, thus conveniently bypassing any constitutional protections in place.

Re:So I wonder how they define a "broadcast".

[Anne Thwacks]

Yes - here in the UK, playing music loudly into the street is considered "broadcasting", and requires the payment of royalties. But then, in the UK, signalling to neighbours across the street by opening your curtains is considered to be "transmitting by the modulation of electromagnetic radiation" and requires a licence, or it certainly used to.

Dose this mean?

[Felinoid]

If I brodcast something the IP rights transfer to me?
While UPN owns Star Trek WB dose not own Yugioh. Most brodcasters don't own any of the content they brodcast but liccens it from the actual creators.
As IP law is now the act of creation itself gives you the rights so this dosen't matter if the brodcaster and creater are the same entity but when they are diffrent entitys this could mean a liccens to broudcast becomes a transfer of ownership.

On a side note it's the UNs job to foster peace through out the world. Ecconomic matters such as IP law shouldn't be part of the UN agenda.
Some nations may be cought between the rock of UN IP law that would basicly make there exports illegal and the hard place of the only aternitive of making wepons also banned by the UN.
If the only choice they had was to drop out of the UN I don't believe such a nation would have any market for the peaceful export.

No more TV!

[alficles]

I don't claim to understand all of this, but it seems to either do nothing or do way to much.

(f) "fixation" means the embodiment of sounds or of images or of images and sounds or of the representations thereof, from which they can be perceived, reproduced or communicated through a device;

Ok, one view says that you are not fixing the signal, you are fixing the "interpretation" of the signal. The signal itself is modulated EMR.

However, the bad physics aside, this seems to prohibit (or allow Broadcasting Organizations (BOs) to prohibit) (nearly?) all recording. No more VCRs. No more time- or space-shifting. As written, this might even apply to a person with a very good memory! If I watch TV on my PC (not common around here, but definately possible), the image gets stored in RAM. Worse yet, it might be swapped onto the hard drive. This would make that illegal. Modern TVs have chips and RAM in them. There is no limitation on how long a fixation has to stick around to be illegal.

There are more examples, but that is more than enough. This is a bad plan and the writers should be brought up on drug charges.