Look Inside A PC-killing WIPO Treaty

mouthbeef writes "The Broadcast Treaty is a proposal from a WIPO Subcommittee that's supposedly about stopping 'signal theft.' But along the way, this proposal has turned into a huge, convoluted hairball that threatens to make the PC illegal, trash the public domain, break copyleft and put a Broadcast Flag on the Internet. The treaty negotiation process is unbelievably convoluted and hard-to-follow, and they've just wrapped up the latest round in Geneva. But for the first time, a really large group of "civil society" orgs were accredited to attend. Me and another EFF staffer and the Coordinator of the Union for the Public Domain created a heavily editorialized impressionistic transcript of the meeting (EFF mirror, UPD mirror), trying to untie the knots in the negotiation. This is the first time that a really exhaustive peek inside a WIPO treaty negotiation has ever been published -- get it while it's legal!"

Comments

Hooray for the UN!

[penginkun]

Boy, it's obvious the UN isn't in the pocket of the Big Corporations, yessiree!

Will they outlaw ink and paper next?

The world gets together to talk

[darth_MALL]

and look what they choose to do with it. *sigh*

Re:The trouble with vague legislation

[pclminion]

Never mind that this language is so broad it could be applied to almost anything with circuitry.

Just circuitry? This treaty refers to a "device or system." That's by no means limited to circuitry.

The atmosphere is a system, a physical one, which provides sustenance to humans and allows them to remain alive so they can decrypt signals. Hence, this treaty outlaws the atmosphere.

A human is a system, a biological one, which is capable of decrypting signals. Hence, this treaty outlaws humans.

The universe is a system, the ultimate system, in which the pesky humans and their decrypting computers exist. Were it not for the universe, nobody would be able to break their precious signals. Hence, this treaty outlaws the universe.

Jeez, if you're going to hold people to the letter of the law, you better make damn sure your law doesn't accidentally outlaw the universe.

Re:That else are the gonna do?

[Planesdragon]

After all... the fact that George W Bush is President proves that we do not have a democracy.

Not at all.

The fact that Gore aquiesced and neither Gore's nor Bush's supporters rebelled due to the court's decision and the Senate's failure to act is proof that we DO have a democracy.

The fact that the Senate didn't do their job and debate the Florida results in Congress, which essentially gave Bush the presidency, is proof that each left-wing Senator elected before 2000 is a pansy and a pushover who should resign.

Re:Relax, it's only a treaty.

[Alsee]

You have it BACKWARDS. The US and corporations are pushing *for* this treaty. The purpose is to shut down the pesky public and pesky innovators with things like VCRs and the internet and PVRs and opensorce software that can allow a computer to be or do anything with 'content'.

Corporations especially want to eliminate that pesky 'fair use' nonsense.

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