[DMCA-Activists] Call for Public Consultation on Webcasting Treaty

[Seth Johnson]

This is a sign-on letter.  If you want to sign, send your info to
address@hidden according the instruction below.


Seth


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Sign-on letter to Congress: request public consultation
on webcasting treaty
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 12:02:13 -0400
From: Manon Ress <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden,Broadcast Discuss
<address@hidden>,a2k discuss list
<address@hidden>,Lawfuluse Public Knowledge
<address@hidden>,cc-mediareform
<address@hidden>,CNI Copyright
<address@hidden>,Seth Johnson
<address@hidden>

Sorry for cross-posting.

The following is a sign-on letter asking the leadership of the
House and Senate to block US support for a diplomatic conference
at WIPO to create a new global intellectual property right for
broadcasting and webcasting organizations, at least until the
public can comment on the proposal.

We are hoping to close out the letter by October 11. At present
the United States trade negotiators are putting enormous pressure
on WIPO to schedule the diplomatic conference by the 2nd quarter
of 2006, and to include a highly controversial new IP right for
"webcasting," which is defined extremely broadly.  The proposal
would give broadcasters and web page operators a property right
in information now in the public domain, or which would otherwise
be freely available from copyright owners. It creates a new
thicket of rights that the public would have to deal with before
they could share or reuse works.

More information about the proposed treaty can be found at:
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/wipo-casting.html.

If you can sign this letter, send your name, affiliation and the
name of the city/state you live in to:

address@hidden

by October 11, 2005.

Manon Ress, address@hidden, Tel. 1.202.332.2670

And please circulate widely.

***************************************************

October  __, 2005

Dear Senators Bill Frist, Harry Reid, Arlen Specter, Patrick J.
Leahy, and Representatives Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi, James
Sensenbrenner, Jr., and John Conyers, Jr.

RE:  Request for Public consultations regarding Webcasting treaty
proposal at WIPO

We are writing to ask that Congress insist that the United States
negotiators  block a diplomatic conference at WIPO that would
create a new Intellectual Property Right for Broadcasting and
Webcasting Organizations until a federal register notice requests
public comment on the costs and benefits of the proposal.

The treaty proposal is complex and will have far-reaching
consequences. But few US firms or members of the public are even
aware of the proposal.  Moreover, the U.S. government agencies
responsible for WIPO negotiations on the treaty have not yet
adequately analyzed even the most basic issues, including, for
example, the impact of the treaty on the Internet, or the
required changes in U.S. law.

We oppose in particular a proposal in the draft treaty that would
create a new intellectual property right affecting both the
rights of the general public and the rights of copyright holders.
Specifically, this proposal would grant to persons who make
combinations or representations of images and sounds available to
the public over broadcast networks and other networks, including
the Internet, a 50-year exclusive right to authorize or prohibit
the copying or redistribution of such information. Not only would
this right, granted to broadcasters and webcasters, allow those
who transmit content to effectively close off works in the public
domain, but it also would encumber the rights of copyright
holders (making it harder for them to license their works to
others), and would pre-empt the rights of many stakeholders,
including the general public, under our copyright law.

This new intellectual-property right is an expanded version of a
related right for broadcasting organizations that is provided for
in the Rome Convention, a treaty the United States and more than
100 other countries have never signed.  Nevertheless, the United
States is proposing to extend this controversial right to the
Internet (and other networks, including private networks).

A small number of webcasters are asking that they be given the
same intellectual property rights that the treaty would give to
broadcasters.  But many other Internet companies, including those
also involved in webcasting, "reject the idea that the Internet
needs or will benefit from the extension of these
pseudo-copyrights to so-  called 'Webcasters.'"  These companies
further argue that "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." [1]

Finally, we note that there are serious definitional problems
with the proposal's approach to webcaster rights -- it may burden
all World Wide Web content (including text and still images) with
a rights framework that was designed for broadcasting radio waves
over the air.

We ask that any decision about a diplomatic conference be
deferred until there is an opportunity for the affected parties
-- ranging from librarians and civil society groups to recording
artists, filmmakers, and publishers -- to comment on the proposal
through an appropriate federal register notice.

Sincerely,

Mark Cooper
Consumer Federation of America

Mike Godwin
Legal Director
Public Knowledge

James Packard Love
Consumer Project on Technology

Professor Jennifer M. Urban
The Law  School, University of Southern California*

Robin Gross
IP Justice

Frannie Wellings
Free Press

Jeannine Kenney
Consumers Union

Paul Hyland
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)

Wendy Seltzer
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law
School

Professor James Boyle
Duke Law School*

Gwen Hinze
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

David Tannenbaum
Union for the Public Domain (UPD)



* institution for identifying purposes only
-----
[1] http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/?f=3D20041117_open_letter.html



************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
address@hidden,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Consumer Project on Technology
1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727

Consumer Project on Technology
24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX, UK
Tel: +44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252 Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607