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."

Comments

Re:I am confused

[denzacar]

What am I missing?

Billions of dollars and thousands of lobbyists?

Re:I am confused

[Nursie]

Sorry, your broadcast wasn't on a major network so it doesn't count. Silly citizen thinking this law would apply to you!

No, you are the target, your actions make you a target for a lawsuit when one of the real people picks up the copyright.

Yeah, I can't think of a way this law makes any sense either, but then that's been true of a lot of laws in the last decade or so.

Re:What it's always been about

[mfnickster]

Not originally, at least in the US. The justification for copyrights and patents in the Constitution was "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

The authors and inventors may also be the distributors, but that's certainly not a requirement. Notice it doesn't say "publishers and marketers."