Consumers International Statement on Broadcast/Webcast Treaty proposals
WIPO SCCR
23 November 2005
Geneva, Switzerland
The CI statement delivered orally at WIPO today on the broadcast and
webcast proposals was based upon these six points:
- CI notes the comments of several other groups who have
questioned the wisdom of using WIPO as a global parliament to go
beyond harmonizing IP laws, and create new and untested IPR regimes
that no one has yet tried. The EU and the USA trade negotiators,
which are pushing for webcasting at this meeting, should talk
to their own parliament and Congress about such a regime, and see if
they can enact such a regime, and what the impact will be, before
they promote it for the whole world.
- CI notes the concern at this meeting over piracy. We all are
alarmed at dishonest behaviour, stealing and crime in general. CI is
among the NGOs that have supported an approach to the treaty that
protects signals against unauthorized access. We note also that
these endless piracy stories are typically directed at materials that
are protected by copyright, an area already subject to extensive
legal measures, and it is unclear how much of the push for the
treaties is about piracy, and how much is due to the effort to obtain
new economic rights in information that is transmitted by
broadcasters or web pages.
- CI does not condone a grab for new economic rights that are
granted simply for transmitting information. We oppose the piracy of
the knowledge commons. We do not condone stealing from the public
domain, restricting access to creative commons works, or creating
thickets of unneeded rights and new intermediaries that will
predictably result in more orphaned works.
- We do note, however, the issue of sport broadcasting is a
serious issue, and we note the comments by ACT on this topic. We
suggest WIPO consider a separate protocol for sports broadcasting
that would address the special problems facing this sector. Why
design a huge treaty and apply it to the entire contents of the
Internet if you are really concerned about a handful of football,
cricket and other sports matches? Why not take care of sports in a
serious way, for countries that seek to address this issue, without
mixing it with the other issues that have little in common.
- In any type of regulation there are untended consequences, and
problems of regulatory capture. WIPO should be modest in its goals
in this area, and conservative when it proposes changes that would
regulate the Internet. What do we really know about the growing
practice of podcasting, or the future of webcasting activity in
general? The definitions of the treaty are maddening and
unnecessarily vague. If text or data are included or not included,
the treaty language should be clear. We are living in a digital age,
designing a treaty for digital works, and these older definitions
just don’t explain very much about what is covered and what is not
covered.
- What is the precedent we are setting here? As noted by
Nigeria, if you start with simulcasting, you find a logic in
webcasting. But if you include webcasting, you find a logic in
giving the new economic rights to all web pages. And if you find a
logic in protecting web pages, you find a logic in protecting
printing presses or booksellers. This clearly is precedent also for
the protection of unoriginal databases. Where does this end? But
this is crazy logic, or flawed logic. There is no sense in extending
protections from one sector to the next simply to be consistent, if
the extension of a regime in one area has much different consequences
in the next sector, or if the regime was never needed in the first
place. There are more than 100 countries, including the United
States, that have never signed the Rome Convention, but they all have
a robust broadcast industry. There is no evidence that any of these
sectors needs an economic right purely for disseminating information.
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love[_at_]cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040
Received on Thu Nov 24 2005 - 01:30:00 GMT