'Webcaster's Right' in WIPO Treaty

An anonymous reader writes "Andy Oram examines the new concept of a 'webcaster's right' that major Web portals are trying to introduce through a World Intellectual Property Organization treaty. The treaty would allow Web sites to control the dissemination of content they put up. Using the failed database protection laws as an example, and in the context of the carrier's desire to create a tiered Internet, Andy analyzes this new threat to the public domain."

Comments

2 Tiered internet

[Freaky Spook]

This sounds great!! All of the useless images & content will be copyrighted in one tier, leaving the public domain once again empty for geeks to share their star trek fan scripts with each other.

We are going to have a geek Renaissance. I think i should move back into my mum's basement.

Executive summary?

[Qrlx]

Please, someone who understans the WIPO layer of the ISO/OSI model, boil this down for me:

Does this mean I have to start paying for pr0n?

We're using lawyers and the police

[crovira]

just like the Taliban used bands of roving youths in trucks and violence to enforce the anti-music fatwah. (If it brought anybody any pleasure, mullah Omar would issue a fatwah against it in a second...)

They were more effective. Afghanistan was a much quieter place than before or since.

If you're going to repress something, use the appropriate mechanism.

We need roving bands of Amish youth going around the country terrorising all users of technology.