Rights of broadcasters in US and other countries regarding material they transmit but do not create

As many members of this listserve know, WIPO is considering a proposal for a new treaty for broadcasting, cablecasting and webcasting organizations. There are many dimensions of the debate over the proposed treaty. (See: http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/wipo-casting.html) One issue concerns the degree to which the treaty will give broadcasting organizations rights that they do not currently have.

On the one hand, the broadcasters imply the treaty will not change anything. But they also insist that the treaty is badly needed. The treaty will plainly give the broadcasters an exclusive right to authorize the redistribution of materials they do not otherwise own, including works copyrighted by others, or materials not copyrighted by anyone, such as works that are no longer copyrighted, or which cannot be copyrighted. This is justified by the claim that 50 years of exclusive rights is need to protect "investments," including the investments in broadcasting public domain works.

There is considerable public interest NGO opposition to the treaty, on the grounds the treaty is an unwarranted and unwise restriction on access to knowledge (a2k). (Copyright owners are also opposed to the treaty on the grounds that broadcasters will use the new right to compete with copyright owners in expoiting works).

Many of us are trying to fully understand the consequences of this new "layer" of rights, which goes beyond that of the TRIPS Agreement or the Rome Treaty (not signed by the US). This is also important because Yahoo is financing a large lobbying campaign to extend the new right to materials "webcast" over the Internet, under the "level playing" field argument.

We are looking for concrete examples of materials that are now broadcast or webcast that are considered to be in the public domain, or at least not protected by TRIPS. This apparently varies from country to country.

   Jamie Love

-- 
James Love, Director, CPTech, http://www.cptech.org

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