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Senators Smack Down WIPO Broadcast Treaty
Tighthead writes "Two influential US senators want the US to support a pared-down version of the WIPO Broadcast Treaty that is still being negotiated. In a letter sent to the US delegation, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the ranking Republican member, Arlen Specter, expressed their concerns that the Broadcast Treaty 'would needlessly create a new layer of rights that would disrupt United States copyright law.' They instructed the US delegates to work towards a treaty that is 'significantly narrower in scope, one that would provide no more protection than that necessary to protect the signals of broadcasters.' The next meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee will be in June."
Actually from reading the article, it appears that they're concerned about adding a layer of rights to the *broadcasters* not to the creators. What they're saying is that US law only recognizes the creators of content, not the distributor (which is in essence what a lot of broadcasters are). There was talk about the treaty giving broadcasters IP rights to public domain works effectively as well as very long protections on broadcasts. From the article: "The Revised Draft Broadcasting Treaty appears to grant broadcasters extensive new, exclusive rights in their transmissions for a term of at least 20 years, regardless of whether they have a right in the content they are transmitting," Those would be the rights they are concerned about adding to the mix, and in this case I can't disagree with them. No, you shouldn't have your signal stolen so that others can profit off of your labor, but similar you should not be able gain rights to something you didn't create in the first place. Imagine if that idea was applied to the Internet...that whoever was simply hosting the content gained any sort of rights to that content for their own sale and redistribution. Somewhat scary to think about there...
Anything broadcast over the public airwaves (_all_ spectra is a natural public resource, spectrum "auctions" be damned), should be considered to have been placed into the public domain (it has, quite literally, but it should apply legally, also).
That should be the price paid to the public for the licensed, exclusive use of that part of our resource by a private party. They want copyright, fine - just use some private, controlled delivery method.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law