WIPO XCaster Treaty Attacks Fundamental Rights, Fair Use and Public Domain

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: <incom> WIPO broadcaster treaty to undermine fair use and
publicdomain
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 14:34:24 -0700
From: Sasha Costanza-Chock <[email protected]>
To: [email protected],
[email protected],[email protected],Communication Rights in
the Information Society USA <[email protected]>

Apologies for crossposts - schock

 From http://www.freepress.net/global/update.php?id=39

April 22, 2004

The proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations
may give broadcasters, including cablecasters and potentially webcasters, a
number of exclusive rights over fixation, reproduction and distribution of
the content they broadcast.

As proposed, the Treaty would apply regardless of whether the broadcaster
holds copyright of the broadcasted work, and could even apply to public
domain works. In addition, the treaty would require signatory countries to
take action to prevent consumer circumvention of broadcasters' rights.

Corante Tech News reports that "the draft treaty will be discussed June 7-9
by WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), which
will then 'decide whether to recommend to the WIPO General Assembly in 2004
that a Diplomatic Conference be convened.' A diplomatic conference can adopt
a treaty. The treaty will not go into effect, however, until a certain
number of countries have acceded to it."

The draft of the treaty is available online: Consolidated Text for a Treaty
on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations [PDF].

Consumer Project on Technology maintains a page on the WIPO Broadcasting
Treaty:

http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/wipo-casting.html
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