[DMCA-Activists] Broadcasters Try to Steal More of the Public Domain, this week at WIPO

[Seth Johnson]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Random-bits] Broadcasters Try to Steal More of the
Public Domain, this week atWIPO
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 07:00:05 -0500
From: James Love <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [upd-announce] Broadcasters Try to Steal More of the
Public 
Domain, this week at WIPO
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 05:53:55 -0500 (EST)
From: address@hidden
To: address@hidden

Many of you will remember the broadcasting industry's efforts to
push a power-grabbing treaty through the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO). If the broadcasters have their way,
the treaty will:

* Give broadcasters copyright privileges over material they did
not create, but merely broadcast, including control over public
domain material. They would get these powers for up to 50 years.

* Make it illegal to circumvent technology locks that enforce
broadcasters' control over what users can do with broadcasts.

And if a small group of webcasters gets their way, they'll get
these powers too.

In the last session the pro-treaty forces were pushing to move to
the final stages of negotiation, while the developing countries
in opposition were trying to slow down the process to get rid of
the most odious positions.

The round of negotiations this week is more of the same, except
that now there are even more civil society NGOs in attendance and
WIPO recently welcomed a "Development Agenda" that explicitly
acknowledges the need for these treaties to promote access to the
public domain, not inhibit it. On the other side, the webcasters
are making an extra hard push, and there still isn't a great deal
of transparency and media coverage to keep the dogs at bay.

Stay tuned. Union for the Public Domain has two people here to
make the arguments for the public domain, and we'll be posting
daily updates to the UPD site (http://public-domain.org),
including detailed notes on everything that happens in the
assembly hall. In the meantime, don't hesitate to contact your
country's copyright office to urge them to take a stand against
this treaty.

- David Tannenbaum, Coordinator, UPD

P.S. For more details on the treaty, see:
http://www.public-domain.org/node/view/47
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-- 
James Love | Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org | mailto:address@hidden
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 200036
voice +1.202.387.8030 | fax +1.202.234.5176
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