Donna Wentworth, at Copyfight, blogged that a United States Government proposal to extend copyright protection for television and radio productions to cover webcasting has been put on halt. The proposal was made to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which helps determine world intellectual property rights and laws. The U.S.proposed a revampment of the 1961 Rome Convention, which protects intellectual property rights of performers, record producers, television and radio broadcasters. Talks of changing the Convention have been ongoing since 1997, but this marked a hiatus to possible changes in the world law. Wentworth reports, "this coalition shatters the illusion that there is a technology consensus on this issue."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) voiced its disapproval of the changes in a letter sent to the WIPO. The letter listed rejected the Webcasting Provision for two major reasons:
1. The Internet depends on permission-free access. This is reflected in the exemptions in many countries' copyright laws for online and internet service providers. When authors or rights-holders' permission has been required for fixation, copying, retransmission or decoding in other situations, the negotiation of licenses from creators and copyright rights-holders have provided ample protection for all parties. Adding a new layer of intermediaries, over and above copyright holders, for the re-use of information on the Internet benefits no one -- save those intermediaries. If an Internet company has the rights to a work, or need not secure the rights to a work due to a limitation in copyright, or because the work is in the public domain, there is no rational reason to require that the company also seek the permission of a further intermediary whose sole creative contribution to the work is in making it available.
2. There is no demonstrable problem. Internet businesses are famously, legendarily well-capitalized from angels, venture capitalists, public markets, private investors, governments and every other source of capital imaginable. Proponents of webcasting rights have offered no credible evidence that the lack of legal protection for webcasting rights has precluded the establishment of any new Internet businesses. Indeed, the businesses most volubly calling for Webcasting protection are among the best-capitalized in the history of the world. There is no certainty of benefit here, but it *is* certain that the creation of a new psuedo-copyright will slow down adoption and innovation in Internet markets by requiring all content-related businesses to negotiate yet another layer of license agreements before they can offer new products or services to the public. The most likely result of introducing these new rights will be to skew the market; in practice it will provide financial assistance to incumbents who will be able to assure investors of their right to exclude their competitors and new entrants from the market. At the same time, it is likely to constrain, not increase, the creation of more information products for the public.
The WIPO apparently agreed with EFF as it struck down the proposed changes. The EFF letter focused on the need or lack of need to give further protection and the lack of benefits from the plan. There has been no showing that webcast owners are not protected by the current standards or that there has been any abuse or threats of future abuse of these rights.
Apparently the updated treaty was aimed partly at tackling pirated re-broadcasting of TV or radio to developing countries. There have been many copyright issues concerning applications, especially those of Microsoft, and this looks like a United States plan to curb a potential problem before it starts. However, the rest of the world didn’t go along with the U.S. and alternative reforms will have to be developed if the U.S. wants to curb this potential problem. Apparently, the rest of the world is more concerned with the distribution of knowledge, instead of the price tag you can put on that knowledge.
Some are still concenred that the proposal can still pose a threat, but as for now the webcasters are safe and many are happy. As Wentworth stated "I love it when a negotiation process like this actually works, 100 per cent against the odds."
It will be important to see how talks in WIPO progress as it appears world IP issues will be on the table for quite a while. Much of the changes in the United States copyright laws will depend on how the rest of the world enforces these changes. If there isn’t world support for protecting copyrights, then much of the efforts done in the United States itself will be essentially futile. Stopping 250 million people from violating copyrights is great, but that is nothing if there are still another 5 billion out there not following the rules.
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