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WIPO Talks May Portend Sweeping Broacast-Based Copyright
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the nasty 'Broadcast Treaty' is rearing its head again in the WIPO talks. This would give a new copyright to what is uncopyrighted or out of copyright material to anyone who broadcasts the material. It essentially re-ups the copyright — not to the original copyright holder, but to the broadcaster, without any contract to the original holder."
Copyright is to protect the privileges of the distributor, never the creator...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I was trying to think of a situation in which this makes sense but couldn't.
Scenario:
Download "With The Marines At Tarawa" from the Internet Archive.
Broadcast or stream over the internet. Gain broadcast rights so no-one else can do it.
How does this promote any art or science?
What am I missing?
The Singularity is closer than you think
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Can we at least proofread the headlines? I've gotten used to seeing silly typos like this on mainstream news sites like CNN and the Chicago Tribune, but c'mon Slashdot, you can do better than that! ;-)
I drifted through the various referenced links and don't really see where they came to that conclusion. The links appear to be mostly self referential to other TechDirt articles. I did scan through what I took to be the relevant WIPO section but I didn't get what they got out of it, admittedly I didn't get much out of it at all.
I certainly agree with the point that this would be a Bad Thing(TM).
Now I can own hundreds of formerly public domain properties, like Disney.
And in conjunction with perpetual copyright extension this should get rid of that nasty public domain once and for all!
Out-of-copyright work was given to Google to scan and in return the BL accepted that Google would have exclusive commercial rights to the scans for a while. It's not quite the same as giving over the copyright on the original works - in theory another organisation arrange a deal with the BL to have physical possession of the works for a while at no cost to make their own copies. Good luck with that, non-profits.
Incidentally, the BL estimated the cost of the work for them would have been £6 million, which is not very much by the standards of this sort of work and certainly not a figure on the publications' cultural value. This is just another government gift to a large corporation - indeed, previous meetings and announcements suggest Cameron has a bit of a hard-on for Google.
No law or treaty is being designed to help someone, all of them are being designed by special interest groups and bought by lobbyists to help some massive money mongering corporate machine.
First of all, Google acquired a copyright to the scans, not the work itself. Second, the fact that Google even acquired that is the fault of European copyright law. Europe could adopt laws under which 2D reproductions of 2D originals do not acquire a separate copyright.
As for the British library, it only has itself to blame for not letting other people scan its content. Don't try to turn the arrogance and possessiveness of the British library into Google's fault.
Followed quickly by the Constitution of the United States, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the Bible, the table of logarithms, and "Fanny Hill."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The profitable privileges of the distributor have always conflicted with the free speech/press rights of the people. The US Constitution's original power to Congress to create something like copyright (a temporary monopoly "to promote progress in science and the useful arts") was a 1700s compromise with our rights that never really worked, like any compromise with rights. But it was the best our predecessors came up with in the generations when the publishing business was mostly defined by manufacturing and producing heavy physical products dressed up with the copyrighted content.
Since the 1900s, broadcasting has decreased the dependency on processing and moving matter for sale with content copied on it to make profits. We're far past the point where copyright is necessary for even the original 17 years. In 17 years a generation's new pop culture book becomes folk culture from the previous generation. But that takes only maybe 10 years for a TV show, 5 years for a movie, 3 years for a song, a couple years for a digital game. The profit curves match those pop->folk expirations, so the profits that promote science and the "useful" arts as incentive to create by those who'd do something else if profits didn't incent them also expire pretty quickly. The profits from the folk phase, the "long tail", are a bonus too small to justify to any realistic capitalist financier the initial creation, and are the product of as much work by the audience perpetuating the content as work by the creator or distributor. And of course most artists and inventors create their work not for the profits, but by the compulsion to create, which is typically what drives the creators of the best content - the content created solely for profits, especially large expected profits with no competition - is typically the least valuable creation, and most dependent on an artificial government monopoly to protect income.
In the 2000s, copyright for even the extended periods bought by the copyright industry from successive 1900s Congresses overall interferes with progress in science and the useful arts. It always conflicted with our speech/press rights. There is no justification for extending it beyond the original 17 years except simple corruption: the regulators are captured by the copyright industry, and violate the people's rights to press/speech as well as the progress in science and the useful arts that we need. The copyright changes that can trade progress for compromise of our rights would cut sharply the length of the monopoly, and release the content from control after the time the content has its shot at repaying the investment in creating it.
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make install -not war
There is no justification for extending it beyond the original 17 years except simple corruption
Rolling back the copyright term substantially would require pulling out of the WTO, as the WTO treaties include TRIPS, which includes the Berne Convention, which requires life plus 50 years as the minimum term for copyright. If the United States were to pull out of WTO, other countries would likely increase tariffs on products imported from the United States, which would hurt even those industries that don't rely on copyright.
How do you get a network bigger than the Internet itself?
FCC licensing, that's how. I'm under the impression that more people in the United States can receive over-the-air broadcasts than Internet streaming video.
Amusingly, as copyright terms under Berne are set on author's life plus a period that varies by jurisdiction (95 years in the US), and as the bible claims to have been either directly dictated by or derived from inspiration of God... if the bible's account of itsself is true, then it's still copyrighted. Conveniently for the believers though, it includes in the new testament an effective licence to copy and distribute. There's even a little bit right at the end of Revelation that prohibits unauthorised modification.
Shades of Rick Astley Batman ! Ho
The bible is a collection of individual books collected together by early church conventions. Where in the bible does it say that any particular book was dictated or even inspired by God?
Well, maybe it will if it is "sufficiently transformed," but exerts removing or undoing the "transformation" will still be declared outside the scope of the "new" copyright.
A faithful re-broadcast of a film or soundtrack is no more tansformative than a photograph of a two-dimensional work, which does not generate a new copyright.
Enhancing an existing work, such as overlaying ads or commentary, colorizing a film that was originally shot in black and white using a human editor to make difficult color choices (as opposed to a purely-mechanical 100%-computer-generated colorization), and the like is more akin to performing a musical work from a written score or taking a photograph of a 3-dimensional work.
Expect US courts to rule that a new copyright can only exist if there is a new creative work: A work that is not purely the result of a "mechanical" (step-by-step, no creativity required) process or a process in which the "creative elements" are trivial in nature.
Bottom line:
Replaying a 1922 movie verbatim on TV should not generate a new copyright. Replaying it with MST3K-style commentary overlaid on top of it would, because it is a new creative work. Someone recording the MST3K-esque new work and stripping out the added-on material would be free to republish what he had because it consisted only of work that was in the public domain already.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Paint the fence once paid for a lifetime.
15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
So, the first guy to broadcast something which has either had its copyright expire (or was never copyrighted) now owns it? That's fucking obscene.
Wow, I can see this being a wonderful mechanism by which broadcasters can pretty much steal works just by broadcasting them. Just find something someone else did that is scheduled to become unprotected, sneak in and broadcast, and suddenly you own it for the next 75 years or whatever copyright is at now.
I'm afraid that copyright has gotten completely out of control, and no longer serves the purpose it was created for. This is basically squatting, but made legal through copyright law.
I feel very sad for future generations living in a climate where the corporations control every last thing, and have all of the laws on their side. I think lawmakers voting for this need to be boiled in oil -- more maybe something more evil.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
When are we going to stand up to those corporate thieves. Not only do they want to possess all our money, now they want sole ownership of our culture. Fuck em!
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We, as a people, really have to stand up and fight against copyright if we want any kind of future for society.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Copyrights were created to give artists incentives to create art, specifically writing books. Now it has been warped and twisted into this giant cow that corporate pigs suckle at getting fatter every day. The artists are still starving. Artists are starting to complain about copyright getting in the way of art. They need shorter duration and greater fair use. Our culture is slowly being strangled by excessive copyright and DRM will ensure our art is forgotten.
Uh, no. The Bible comes from the Apostles and various other sources, none directly written by God. Just because I describe something you did in my book, it's still my copyright not yours. To the degree that there's direct quotes of Jesus that he could claim copyright on, well he died around 35 AD so 95 years after his death would be long ago. And finally if God claims he spoke through Jesus to the disciples from Heaven, well then Heaven hasn't signed the WIPO treaty so we don't recognize his copyright. Besides he'd have to recruit from downstairs to find a copyright lawyer for his case.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And the distributor has to have permission from the creator... How can they extend or re-grant themselves the copyright under the new terms without proper licensing from the creator?
How did the stink get so powerful?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Unfortunately for your argument, the bible was written long before 1920 and as such is firmly in the place of the public domain - in theory.
... what a surprise.
We can't have Jews doing manual labour, can we! Let's just keep working our asses off to keep these parasites living in luxury...
Cue the magic words: "Anti-semite", cry the brainwashed sheep, while their children's country is being destroyed by millions of third worlders, thanks to your Jewish masters...
uh, no not the "new bible" by the apostles, the old one, by G-d.
It's traditionally a given in Judaism that the Torah was written by Moses and revealed by God (if not dictated), but AFAIK it doesn't actually say anywhere in the text that this is so.
One branch of Judaism believes the Torah actually existed before the creation, so they would necessarily conclude that it was written by God!
if you write in your book "this book was written with direction from the EFF and is owned by them" that's pretty solid.
So if you write "this book was written with the direction of God and is owned by him", isnt it the same thing?
Mostly, except EFF probably won't ask you to collect the royalties for them.
2 Timothy 3:16. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:"
I troll religious forums. I know the bible better than most Christians.
Well, if there's a God who created the world, then pretty much everything ever written was inspired by Him, huh?
It's like when creationists offer the complexity of life and the universe as evidence of God. But then He must have created the simple things too. Without a yardstick to measure how complex a thing must be to require God's intervention, it's all pretty much a wash.
All things dull and ugly, and all that.
The religious argument is that God put the contents of the books in the heads of the people who wrote them down. It's basically the same as someone dictating to their secretary. That would make God the copyright owner, not the actual "authors" - it's considered the actual word of God.
Nietzsche reported that God was dead in 1882, so the copyright should be expired by now.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
But that's a superfluous argument, because if God is the omniscient, omnipotent creator of all, he put the contents of every book in the heads of the people who wrote them down!
Ah, but then you're getting into free will territory, which is a big mess all by itself. Churches have schismed over stuff like that.
The divine inspiration of scripture is different than the whole "God made everything and knows everything" argument. Most churches believe in it, and some, like the Catholics, believe it applies to later church doctrine as well. I don't buy it myself, but both of my senators do.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
So you're saying that Tom Clancy doesn't own the copyrights to the books he's had his staff write in his name? I think you'll find the law disagrees with you.
Yes, the problem goes deeper than just "are the books inspired," and is inspiration received only because they prayed for it? The question remains, did the writers have the freedom to NOT write, or to NOT ask for divine guidance, and is that what God wanted?
It seems pretty risky to place your plan for the deliverance of mankind into the hands of someone who might say 'no'!