Boing Boing: UN cooking podcast-killing treaty
The UN's World Intellectual Property Organization has reconvened to discuss a treaty to kill innovative Internet audio/video offerings -- like podcasting, YouTube, Google Video, and Democracy Player -- in order to protect the business models of a few entrenched broadcasters. This is the Broadcast Treaty, and the process -- never pretty -- got uglier than ever today.The Chairman of this treaty committee has colluded with the US to bring this treaty to the Web, and to be sure that it contains a clause that will give DRM even more mandatory protection than it enjoys today. As the committee reconvened today, the Chairman revealed that he'd gone even further in giving the US what it wants, at the expense of the will of the rest of the world, particularly developing nations like Brazil.
The copyfight never ends.
WIPO is playing lapdog to corporate interests, but very few powerful parties are interested in protecting the commons. That's unfortunate, because the commons—from the public domain to liberally licensed content—is the seedcorn for innovation in media and technology.
The Broadcast/Webcast Treaty wants to give signatory countries the option of granting x-casters (broadcasters, cablecasters, webcasters) a 50 year copyright protection for their 'casts, supported by mandated DRM to enforce those exclusive rights. This expanded right applies even when the 'cast contains material in the commons. For webcasters, that means that the author isn't in control of their copyright, the host is.
This is absurd.
If I author some material and release it under a Creative Commons license or into the public domain, then I damn well want it to be free. If I want some middleman to exercise some control over my work, I'll write up a contract.
Granting expanded webacast copyright is the "optional" part, but you can be sure that, once the US excercises the option (and they will), other countries will follow suit under the guise of "harmonizing" their intellectual property laws with their most important trading partner.
