Tuesday, May 09, 2006

WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Contains Unsupported Webcasting and “Digital Locks”

WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Contains Unsupported Webcasting and “Digital Locks”
by ROBIN GROSS
Intellectual Property Watch, publication date: 1 May 2006
"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."

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