Using a treaty to grab power


Attacking the rights of artists
I wonder why we haven't heard more about this. Emphasis added.

In its final meeting before the General Assembly votes this autumn to send the proposed Broadcasting Treaty to a Diplomatic Conference for final treaty drafting, WIPO delegates will debate a far-reaching “wish list” of new rights for large broadcasting companies.

The proposed broadcasting treaty would create entirely new global rights for broadcasting companies who have neither created nor own the programming. What’s even more alarming is the proposal from the United States that the treaty regulate the Internet transmission of audio and video entertainment.

It is dangerous and inappropriate for an unelected international treaty body to undertake the task of creating entirely new rights, which currently exist in no national law, such as webcasting rights and anti-circumvention laws related to broadcasting. A global treaty is not the place for experimentation with new rights, but rather for the harmonization of existing legal norms. WIPO treads on shaky ground by proposing to create new rights that no elected body in the world has yet agreed to.

Artists are opposed to the broadcasting treaty because it would subvert creators’ rights to the new rights granted to broadcasting companies. Under the proposal, artists would need to beg permission from broadcasting companies in order to make any use of their own performances.

The general public interest would be harmed by the treaty’s proposal to ban bypassing “digital locks” used by broadcasting companies to restrict access to programming. WIPO treaties of 1996 created similar anti-circumvention rights for copyright holders. Laws such as the controversial US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 implemented this treaty in the United States. Even after many have doubted the wisdom in creating such rights for copyright holders, no case has yet to be made why broadcasting companies should be given an additional set of rights to lock information away. The negative unintended consequences of anti-circumvention measures have been shown to be more dangerous in practice than the harm they intend to address. A refusal to weigh the social costs of anti-circumvention measures would ignore the resolution of the WIPO General Assembly for a development agenda at WIPO in line with development goals and the global public interest.

Nothing like using an end run around existing law to seize power.

Remember, you can't have a monopoly without government intervention.

So how does giving the big broadcasters exclusive control over content serve individual freedom?

Simple, it doesn't.

Hat tip to Wendy McElroy.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sat - May 6, 2006 at 04:40 PM  Tag


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