Nefarious WIPO Plot Defeated

Basically, the question is about rebroadcast of over the air and cable signals on the Internet across international boundaries.

The broadcasters were trying to use this as a way to generate additional, and undeserved, profits, by creating a new "right".

WIPO broadcast treaty defeated by web activists
By OUT-LAW.COM
Published Monday 2nd July 2007 09:57 GMT

A controversial new intellectual property right due to be created by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has been successfully opposed by a coalition of web activists and the technology industry.

WIPO has spent nearly 10 years gathering international agreement over a new deal for broadcasters which would give them intellectual property rights over broadcasts which would exist in addition to existing copyright laws.

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At the end of the meeting, though, there was not enough agreement between member nations about the proposal and the committee recommended that the proposal not be forwarded to a diplomatic conference for adoption.

Gwen Hinze is the international affairs director for the EFF. She told weekly technology law podcast OUT-LAW Radio about the opposition to the plans.

"If you create a new layer of rights that sit on top of copyright from a consumer's point of view that raises questions about access to information, so information that might otherwise be in the public domain as a matter of copyright law, the exceptions and limitations wouldn't apply and that raises some concerns about access to knowledge," said Hinze.

Podcasters were worried that the new right would affect material they produced and their ability to disseminate it on their own terms. One and a half thousand of them signed an EFF open letter to WIPO protesting against the move.

Consumer electronics companies also protested because the plan contained technological protection measures which they feared could give broadcasters control over television recording equipment, such as TiVO boxes.

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Opponents agree that television signal piracy is a problem that must be solved, but say that it can be solved with a 'signals based approach' rather than by creating an entire new intellectual property right.

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As always, I do not agree to the term intellectual property. It does not exists. There is simply a limited exclusive license in order to promote the useful arts and sciences.