The Return Of The Broadcast Treaty
from the zombie-that-never-dies dept
Not this again. For the better part of a decade, broadcasters have made efforts to create a "broadcast treaty" which would grant broadcasters extra special rights above and beyond copyright. Under such a rule, a broadcaster who put on public domain material could then claim a "broadcast right" to the content and lock it up. It doesn't make any sense, and thankfully, every time it's been introduced it's ended up not getting approval. Honestly, I'd thought this was one issue that had finally died... but I should never underestimate those who seek greater intellectual property rights. Apparently, folks at WIPO are once again trying for a Broadcast Treaty. Thankfully, opposition is already organizing:The advocates of a broadcasting treaty have not shown that there is an problem in the area of piracy that cannot be addressed by existing laws on copyright or theft of service. The treaty is in essence an attempt by corporate broadcasting entities to change outcomes of licensing negotiations, by giving the broadcasters a right that they would otherwise have to acquire by contract, in return for something they would give the copyright holders.
[....]
In its most aggressive formulations in terms of rights of casting entities, the treaty would provide up to 50 years or even perpetual exclusive rights in content for which the broadcaster did not create and does not own the copyright. This creates a thicket of permissions that makes it much more difficult to redistribute and reuse content.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: broadcast treaty, intellectual property, wipo
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Something where you would otherwise in no way be able to claim copyrights.
Not stuff that already is under a license
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If this goes through, I'd love to see a bunch of independent broadcasters, etc, start broadcasting EVERYTHING they can find (why not old shows by THE OTHER broadcasting companies?) and then license it freely to the entire world! :D
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Every solution that the entertainment industry comes up with for the symptom that is "piracy" is more extreme laws and more extreme enforcement. These "solutions" will never eradicate "piracy" or make "pirates" want to pay money for over-priced digital commodities.
So-called "piracy" is the consumer and the Market telling the entertainment industry that their business models are not working. The fact that "piracy" thrives long after the death of Napster (and its zombie rebirth as an RIAA-sanctioned suck-fest of a "service") and multitudes of lawsuits against Catholic schoolgirls and dead people and threats of lost internet connections indicates that more and harsher laws and enforcement are not incentive enough to make Joe Twelve-Pack forgo his high fructose corn syrupy combo pack at McDonalds or his $5 Starbucks mocha frappucalories in order to spend too much on digital downloads that makes some music middleman and his lawyer happy in their pants.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Police State
In any case, government-granted monopoly privileges are a bad thing, regardless of the morality, from an economic viewpoint. It's the economy, stupid.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That's what I fear from Google's book project:
Never underestimate greed.
"...I should never underestimate those who seek greater intellectual property rights."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: That's what I fear from Google's book project:
Google is doing what?
Are you saying that I can not freely use an item in the public domain simply because Google has scanned it?
Oh - I see, you mean after this stupid "treaty" is agreed to.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: That's what I fear from Google's book project:
Um. No. That's not what Google is doing. At all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: That's what I fear from Google's book project:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: That's what I fear from Google's book project:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1843
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: That's what I fear from Google's book project:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1843
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: That's what I fear from Google's book project:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1843
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: That's what I fear from Google's book project:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
i can solve "piracy"
The answer?
The president's book of nuclear codes..after all if every american city is a smoldering radioactive wasteland with bits and pieces of (law-abiding) citizens everywhere then no-one can pirate anything ever again!
The alternative of course (that hollywood has already begun to test out) is to make content of such appallingly low quality that no-one wants to "pirate" it even if you threw a box and label printer at them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
which leads me to
the "wasting your bandwidth" law...wherein anyone downloading anything thats basically a rehash of something released last year (or a gritty reboot) gets 15years hard labor cleaning out the cage they keep Glenn Beck inbetween shows.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Content Rip off.
Thanks,
JB
==
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Everything you learned about intellectual property is wrong
But also, interestingly, it does not increase creativity. Mostly it moves creativity into defending and obtaining patents and copyrights and away from pleasing the consumer.
See Michele Boldrin at econtalk.org on the topic
link.
Think about defeating intellectual property in general rather than this or that bad idea stemming from it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What about Beethoven?
Wow, what license to steal!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Copyright laws need major revamp
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Copyright laws need major revamp
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Well a Viacom owned station broadcasted a journalistic story about the Anonymous vs. Scientology fight. Then sent out DMCA Takedown Notices & Copyright Infringement Complaints to anyone who posted the video on their Youtube Accounts. They bitched about anyone who posted the video the time lapse video & the Anonymous Version. Since the broadcasted the video during a News story, they fought for their own imposed rights to any version of the video.
Their claim to copyright affected a few people, including the guy who originally shot, edited & uploaded the original time lapse cloud video. He had to fight with Youtube & Viacom over his rights to his own original work, which he published with a Creative Commons Copyright.
It finally got sorted out, but even without it being legal, they still fought for their imposed rights to the original work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]