CSC on Xcasting at WIPO General Assembly

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Random-bits] WIPO -- CSC Statement at General Assembly
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 03:21:03 -0400
From: James Love <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]


Yesterday was the second day of the WIPO General Assembly.  Some
NGOs were permitted to speak yesterday.  The Civil Society
Coalition, which includes CPTech and 27 other groups, was allowed
to make the statement below, which I presented. EFF, CEIL (who
were both very effective) and a hand full of right-owner groups
spoke, including for example the broadcasters, the recording
industry, film makers and musicians.  The Webcasters have adopted
a very low profile at this meeting.  Jamie Boyle's article in
yesterday's FT was widely circulated and read, and it had a big
impact.  We should know today if a diplomatic conference will be
scheduled for next year, maybe in an hour or so.   Jamie

CSC Intervention to the WIPO General Assembly

Geneva, September 27, 2005

Thank you Ambassador. As this is the first time the Civil Society
Coalition is taking the floor, we congratulate you on your
election to the Chair.

The Civil Society Coalition (CSC) represents twenty-eight non-
governmental organizations from at least twelve countries, in the
North and South. Our members are concerned with a wide range of
issues that are relevant to WIPO, including access to medicines,
access to knowledge, and better mechanisms to support creativity
activity.

We are strongly supportive of the proposals by the Friends of
Development for the WIPO Development Agenda.  We urge this
specialized UN body to take more seriously its role in supporting
development, and protecting the public interest.  The measures
included in the WIPO Development Agenda include a proposal to
create a treaty on access to knowledge.   We strongly support
this, and call upon WIPO to discuss the treaty on access on
knowledge in the standing committees on Copyright and Patents.

We also agree that WIPO should address the control of
anticompetitive practices, including problems of monopoly in
software markets.  WIPO needs to discuss the implementation of
Article 40 of the TRIPS agreement, on the control of
anticompetitive practices.

WIPO should also address the issues of access to medicine, and in
particular, to work with WHO and other relevant bodies to provide
assistance to LDC’s in implementation of paragraph 7 of the Doha
Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.

We are opposed to the convening of a diplomatic conference on a
proposed treaty for broadcasting, cablecasting and webcasting
organizations.

The process for consideration of this treaty are flawed.  The
views of consumers have not been respected, and WIPO has yet to
engage the technology community on the radical and restrictive
webcasting proposal.  There has been no economic analysis of the
impact of the treaties on consumers, or on copyright owners.

There is also a large issue of deceptive packaging.  It is being
sold to the uninformed, including many delegates, as something
that is necessary to address piracy.  But the treaty has little
to do with piracy, which is already illegal everywhere for
copyrighted works, but much to do with the intellectual property
right it gives for transmitting information.   It is deceptive to
talk about the treaty protecting only a signal, but then provide
for extensive commercial rights, lasting 50 years, to make
reproductions and redistribute the works.

We are deeply troubled in the nature of the proposed property
right. It is not based upon creativity.  It is not based upon
invention.  It is a claim that the investment in transmitting
information should create a 50 year exclusive right to in
content, far longer than the term of protection for databases in
Europe, and more than 10 times the term of protection for test
data for pharmaceutical clinical trials in the United States. 
This right is on top of the copyright in copyrighted work, and
applies even to works in the public domain under copyright laws.

We don’t give book publishers a layer of rights on top of
copyright. We don’t give the post office a layer of rights for
delivering mail. We don’t give taxi cab drivers a right to
control the use of documents that are transported by passengers
in their cars.  Why do we decide to give broadcasters a right of
50 years?

If this is extended to the web, it will harm access to knowledge.
The web is quite different from radio and TV.  People who receive
information on the web also publish.  The same works are often
accessible from many different web pages.  This helps disseminate
information, and increases access to knowledge.  Creating rights
in information simply for transmitting or making the information
available to the public is the wrong paradigm for access to
knowledge.  It harms copyright owners.  It harms consumers.  It
will harm innovation.

The ongoing demands to extend rights obtained by one group to
another group are predictable.  The broadcasters want the rights
now given to producers of phonograms.  The webcasters now ask for
rights the broadcasters have or will have under the new treaty. 
The rationale for protecting audio-visual productions is now
being extended to all text and data from ordinary web pages. 
Makers of databases also will want a treaty, and will point to
the protections the broadcasters and webcasters will request.

Where does this end?  We are now giving multiple rights on the
same works.   A broadcasters right on top of a copyright, for
example.

It ends with no public domain, curtailing the free movement of
information, higher prices for information, and less access to
knowledge.  It ends with a less informed and less equal society.

The costs and risks of this proposal are very large.  The
benefits, if any, are very small.  WIPO should also reconsider
the process of setting priorities that puts such a poor proposal
at such a high priority, when WIPO has yet to respond to requests
by consumers to address the control of anticompetitive practices,
consumer problems from TPM and DRM measures, the need for minimum
limitations and exceptions for the blind, education and
libraries, and the proposal for a treaty on access to knowledge. 
WIPO must find a way to address consumer interests, and to
rebalance the management of intellectual property rights in ways
that better protect access to knowledge. Thank you Mr. Chair.

---------------------------------
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org /
mailto:[email protected] /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040

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