Update On Ten-Year Campaign To Give Copyright Industry Another Monopoly: WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty

from the too-much-is-never-enough dept

Say what you will about the copyright industry, but it certainly doesn't give up. No matter how many times a bad idea is fought off, sooner or later, it comes back again. The best example of this is probably WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty, which Techdirt has been covereing for a decade: in 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2013. This campaign to give broadcasters yet more monopoly rights -- as if they didn't have enough already -- is still underway, and the EFF provides us with a timely update on the current state of play:

The latest draft of the treaty also attempts to control post-fixation uses of broadcast signals -- in other words, to provide broadcasters with rights to control uses of content that has been recorded from a broadcast.

Here's why that would be awful from many viewpoints:

Since these post-fixation rules would apply regardless of whether the content was in the public domain or whether a "fair use" argument applies, it could impact the work of journalists, archivists, and creators who could otherwise legally gain access to source content through broadcasts.

And that's not all:

The draft also includes worrisome protections that would prohibit DRM on broadcasts from being circumvented, which could outlaw the use of open source video software such as VLC and MythTV to watch or time-shift televisions broadcasts, and would restrict future technological innovation. These provisions would effectively nullify the effect of any exceptions and limitations to the exclusive rights of broadcasters that the treaty may end up adopting.

As this shows, while pushing for new bad ideas, the copyright industry is always happy to re-use some of its old bad ideas -- even more reason to fight the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty yet again.

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Filed Under: broadcast treaty, broadcasters, broadcasting treaty, monopolies, wipo

Broadcast Treaty Is Baaaaaack: Plan To Create Yet Another Copyright-Like Right For Hollywood

from the and-here-we-go-again dept

Every few years the proposal for a "broadcast treaty" comes up again. The idea is to give a new copyright-like right to broadcasters. So, for example, should NBC broadcast a public domain film, like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, it could then effectively claim a copyright-like control over it, so that you couldn't record it and make use of it yourself. If that seems like a really dumb idea to you, welcome to the club. You're not alone. Basically, everyone who isn't tied to a broadcaster thinks it's a terrible idea. Even Mr. Mythbuster Adam Savage spoke out against the idea two years ago when it last came around.

Indeed, it does seem to come around every few years like clockwork, as Hollywood pushes WIPO to put together a treaty creating broadcast rights. For a brief while, driven by some more enlightened folks within the Obama administration, the US government had pushed back against such a treaty, but nearly all of those people have long since left the administration, replaced by longterm entertainment industry folks and copyright maximalists. So it was little surprise last year when the US suddenly announced that it now supported a broadcast treaty. That announcement came from Shira Perlmutter, a former entertainment industry lobbyist, now 'Director of International Affairs' at the USPTO.

For that reason, the broadcast treaty, after years of going nowhere, should be watched quite carefully. Negotiations at WIPO have just gotten underway, and the entertainment industry has a "large presence" at the negotiations, while there is just one group, KEI, representing consumer interests directly (CCIA is also there representing the tech industry, and has a strong history of pushing back against bogus expansions of IP law, including the broadcast treaty). However, as Jamie Love, from KEI has noted, no one on the other side seems willing to explain why a broadcast treaty is even needed in the first place:

This is a frustrating negotiation for all sorts of reasons, but I'll start with the most basic concerns. It has been extremely difficult to get broadcaster treaty supporters to explain why a treaty is needed, in a world where content is already protected under several copyright and related rights treaties. At the last two SCCR meetings KEI was unable to get a single lobbyist for the broadcast treaty to make a public video interview setting out the case for the treaty, or even to answer basic questions about their objectives. We don't know if the rationale is related to piracy or to create a set of new economic rights for people who broadcast (and do not create) content. And, we don't understand why copyright does not already provide mechanisms to address piracy, when it occurs.

There are alleged gaps in copyright protection for works, but other than vague assertions that sporting events are not protected in some countries (which ones?) and some poorly articulated claims that broadcast owners don't have standing to litigate piracy, the "gaps" argument is hard to follow -- even though people are genuinely open minded, and would consider fixes to problems if they could be explained.

Some broadcasters say they don't care about the creation of new economic rights, with others clearly do. But what are these rights, and who gets them? There are proposals to create rights for giant corporations that own "channels" of content, like HBO, ESPN, the Disney Channel, etc, and these new rights would divert revenue from copyright owners to distributors. Since the ownership of distribution of video is much more concentrated than is ownership of video content, this would have distributional impacts that are not well understood. Also, there is likely to be redistribution of incomes out of some countries to a handful of large content distributors, and the impact of this cross country redistribution is not well understood.

As is unfortunately typical for WIPO, the negotiations are being led by faith-based reasoning that this is "needed," but without any data or factual basis to back it up.

WIPO could try to sort our these empirical and policy issues so people could better evaluate the proposals, but so far there has been zero economic analysis, and lots of talking about non-issues, such the interventions that seem to suggest that infringement of copyrighted material that is broadcast is somehow not an infringement without the treaty (Really, where?)

We've discussed many times how ridiculous it is that these kinds of things are "created" in these kinds of negotiations, and then foisted upon various country governments. There is absolutely no reason to create this new treaty other than to give yet another unnecessary gift to broadcasters, and to take away from the public and the public domain.

Filed Under: broadcast treaty, broadcasts, copyright, public domain, wipo

US Now Supporting Ridiculous Broadcast Treaty; Suggests It Could Cover The Internet Too

from the more-ridiculousness dept

Every few years, news of a ridiculous "broadcast treaty" pops up. This is a treaty that would effectively create a brand new copyright-like right for broadcasters. So, for example, if NBC broadcast some public domain content, it could then lock that up because of its "broadcasting rights" over it, even though the content is in the public domain. Yeah. This isn't needed in any way, shape, or form. It's just a handout to the broadcasters at the expense of the public. There is no actual reason to support it. Usually these talks go nowhere. Last year, the idea popped up again, but basically everyone who wasn't a broadcaster came out against it, and it went nowhere. The US government has gone back and forth on this issue, but was generally seen as not being supportive of it... until now.

Jamie Love has been reporting from the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meeting that the US has surprised some by shifting its policy to now support a broadcast treaty. Even more ridiculous? Shira Perlmutter, the USPTO's Administrator for Policy and External Affairs (and a known IP maximalist and former entertainment industry lobbyist) is suggesting that it should apply to the internet too. This makes absolutely no sense, no matter how you look at it. Copyright already exists for nearly all content being broadcast. Those copyright laws apply on the internet as well. Granting an additional new copyright-like right for broadcasters also is only going to make things even messier with even more content being locked up for no reason whatsoever. It'll also make it that much more difficult to actually do something (legally) with content, because you're now adding the number of permission slips you need to get signed (and the number of players you have to pay off). Why anyone would support it is beyond me.

You would hope that after SOPA and ACTA, that the US government would hold back on overreaches in IP expansionism, but apparently that's too much to ask for.

Filed Under: broadcast treaty, copyright, culture, internet, locking up, public domain, us

Pretty Much Everyone Who's Not A Broadcaster Comes Out Against Broadcast Treaty

from the make-it-go-away dept

Last week, we wrote about the return of the Broadcast Treaty, a ridiculous and unnecessary treaty being debated (for the nth time) at WIPO, which would allow broadcasters to claim rights as middlemen, over things they have no claim to, including public domain works, just for broadcasting them. That story got a lot of attention this past weekend (thank you Slashdot, Reddit and Instapundit, who all mentioned our story). It even got Mythbusters' Adam Savage to weigh in and declare that he hated the idea. He's not alone.

While WIPO and the Broadcast Treaty supporters continue to pretend that there's broad support for such a treaty, reality says otherwise. A rather broad coalition of organizations that would be severely impacted by this have come out against the Broadcast Treaty. You can see the full document below, but among those who signed on are the American Television Alliance, the American Cable Association, Creative Commons, the Consumer Electronics Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, CTIA, EFF, Public Knowledge, TiVo, the Library Copyright Alliance and even Time Warner Cable (among many others). Basically, anyone and everyone who is not a broadcaster is against this. So why is it even on the table again?

Filed Under: broadcast treaty, intellectual property, wipo

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.

Filed Under: broadcast treaty, intellectual property, wipo