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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.
See the Union for the Public Domain. We're also working on these issues and have summaries of WIPO proceedings and an analysis of the treaty.
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.
I hereby propose the creation of WOFO -- the World Public Domain, Fair Use, Open Content and Free Software Organisation.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
*off to start broadcasting illegal copies of stuff and then re-download it as the owner of those things*
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
as long as they pay me royalty for tresspassing my property with their airwaves without my consent.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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?
Steal This Sig
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.
Sigs cause cancer.
11. When I broadcast a fart, I don't want to be legally responsible for damage it does.
Seems to me that this goes hand-in-hand with the broadcast flag.
Rob's Rule of Misgovernment: "When idiots write the law, the law will be idiotic."
Perhaps you have noticed that most broadcasters are super imposing their logos and other copyrighted images on your screen. That logo effectively stamps the film that they are broadcasting. They own the logo. You can't copy or distribute that logo without their permission. Therefore, you can't use the film in the background without their permission either.
I'd guess that the MPAA might disagree with the notion of a broadcaster acquiring ownership of a feature film, simply because he broadcast it one night.
Europe seems determined to do away with property rights altogether.
--- Bill
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.
On Apple Input Peripherals: They're okay, I guess, but I was really hoping for a one-key keyboard and a 109-button mouse
Really this isn't much different from a record company deciding to produce a CD of work so old that it is out of copyright. They would have copyright on the arrangement of bit on the CD, but not on the underlying work. This treaty seems to be an attempt to bring things into line with this, to be honest.
Or alternatively you can take a copy of a Dickens novel and reproduce the words (since they are out of copyright) but you can't simply photocopy a recently printed copy of the novel and distribute that without breaching copyright.
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.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Unfortunately, there's nothing more mind-numbing than international law, particularly regarding intellectual property rights. A cursory read of the linked articles had me praying for death. Can someone objective sum up the issues and present them here, in colloquial English. Thanks. And dear God please no more acronyms.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
Peace
Read the list. Go. Now. Look at #10.
The proposed treaty would grant broadcasters the right to stop the original creators from otherwise distributing their work!
That, mes amis, is WRONG.
That this is the first step in re-creating the old guild system of the middle ages?
The net effect of all these laws and treaties is to eliminate the public domain and force all of us into a pay-per-listen kind of license?
All under the guise of "protecting the musician".
I wonder who is stupid enough to fall for it. I mean, besides congress.
The WIPO Copyright Treaty was internationally developed back in a time when people, especially politicians, had no grasp of how digital data was an integral part of the modern world. The Internet, and copying of files, was seen as something awfully scary which threatened companies. Old white men fear change, and in 1996 the Internet looked like a pretty wild frontier. WIPO demands that digital data be treated specially, which IMHO is a big mistake. Everything we do these days relies on digital media and copying, an inherent action of computers and networks.
The WIPO was ratified in the United States to create the DMCA, which you all know and love. The similar EU laws, which are just as bent as the US's DMCA, also came from WIPO.
Now Canada is looking at bringing the WIPO, i.e. their own version of the DMCA, into Canadian copyright law. Terrible idea - visit this site if you want to learn more, and exert political pressure to stop this from happening.