[DMCA-Activists] WIPO Deliberations on XCasting Treaty

[Seth Johnson]

(Forwarded from CPTech Random Bits list)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Random-bits] WIPO deliberations on "casting" treaty
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 02:47:05 -0500
From: James Love <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden

Monday's meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related 
Rights (SCCR).

James Love <address@hidden> +41.79.566.0475

I am in Geneva attending 3 days of meetings at WIPO, mostly focused on  the
proposed treaty on Broad/cable/web/casting.   The treaty seeks to  expand
and extend a "related right" for casting organizations, that  would exist
independent of copyright, and extend to areas where is there  no copyright
in the underlying information, or where the casting  organization did not
have authorization from copyright owners to manage  or restrict access to
information created by others.  (see 
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/wipo-casting.html).

I am part of a very large delegation from the Civil Society Coalition 
(CSC), which registered a dozen members for the meeting, of whom eleven  are
here in Geneva.

The day began with an informational session on the problems facing the 
blind, and in particular, the proposals by organizations for the  visually
impaired to have global exceptions to copyrights in order to  reverse
engineer work, and create products such as Braille, large type,  or audio
performances of works, and to have the ability to export such  works across
borders, including via the Internet.   The publishers  opposed these
efforts.

At 1 pm the South Centre held a briefing for several developing country 
WIPO delegates on the importance of new open collaborative efforts to 
create public goods.  CPTech worked with the South Centre on the event.   
The speakers included Sir John Sulton, last year's winner of the Nobel 
prize for Medicine (the Human Genome Project and open life sciences), 
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (Free Libre Open Source Software), Darius Cuplinskas 
from the Open Society Institute (Open Access Journals) and Cory Doctorow 
(Importance of open standards for the Internet and for innovation).


At 3 pm, the SCCR meeting formally began, with a discussion of the  proposed
treaty on broadcasting, cablecasting and webcasting.  The chair  began with
a review of the history of discussions, which began in 1997.    The treaty
was described as an "updating" of the TRIPS and Rome  Convention provisions
on broadcasting, but it clearly was going much  further, extending the term
of protection from 20 to 50 years, expanding  the covered platforms
(including in some proposals all computer  networks), and creating a host of
new rights and national enforcement  obligations.

The meeting began with a number of comments by national governments,  many
urging the SCCR to find a way to move forward to a diplomatic  convention in
2005.  The majority of delegations who spoke did not want  webcasting
included in the new treaty.  The US clearly did.

Senegal asked that a committee be set up to draft a proposed treaty.

The US said that it was trying to balance the needs of right owners, and 
the legitimate interests of consumers, while providing new protections 
against "misappropriation."  In the discussion on the scope of covered 
material, the US made a surprising and welcome (by CPTech and other CSC 
NGOs) intervention, saying that the definition of the scope of material  was
possibly too broad, and that this should be worked on, to make sure  that it
did not cover materials on ordinary web pages.

Russia was one of several countries supporting a wide array of new 
commercial rights for "casting" organization.

Australia was one of several countries opposing the extension of the  treaty
to the Internet, referring to some Internet webcasters as a  "motley lot."  
More importantly, apparently in Australia, courts have  recently held that a
"single frame" constitutes a broadcast,  illustrating how difficult it will
be to limit the scope of covered  materials.

Canada called for a scaling back of the treaty to deal mostly with 
anti-piracy of broadcasting, and avoiding new content management rights  for
broadcasting organizations.

China expressed concern over webcasting provisions, saying the  technology
was not mature enough for inclusion in this treaty, and  proposing a
separate regulation be considered at a later date.  I  believe that China
made a comment about the rights extending to groups  who were not the
original right owners, and comparing casting  organizations to "users," but
I'm not confident my notes are correct on  this.

Kenya proposed a long list of technical changes in the proposed treaty, 
including a proposal that the 50 year term of protection would begin  after
the last (rather than the first) broadcast.  Kenya also proposed 
elimination of formalities, making this an "accidental" rights such as 
copyright (term coined by James Boyle and others), where rights are 
automatic, creating burdens on the public to secure rights, even when no 
right was ever desired in the first place.

Today NGOs may be allowed to speak.  There are dozens of industry and 
right-owners NGOs, plus one library NGO and the CSC.  If given the 
opportunity, I  will talk about the inappropriate use of a 50 year term  of
protection for a right based up investment, the scope of content  covered
(to exclude coverage of text, data, software and more generally  public
domain materials),  and the dangers of applying this right to the  Internet.

-- 

James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:address@hidden
tel. +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040

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