This is something we should all be on the lookout for,it provides a backdoor way of extending copyright over existing work.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/fa07af4a-fadc-11da-b4d0-0000779e2340.htmlIn September last year, I wrote about a very bad proposal being debated in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The proposal was to extend the length of an existing set of intellectual property rights for broadcasters, and even apply them to webcasting. As I pointed out, there is no empirical evidence that these rights produce any social benefit. Indeed, the US has never had such a right and yet has a flourishing broadcast industry.
Extending the rights to webcasting, despite the manifest differences between the economic structure and global reach of the two media, was a jaw-dropping move with obviously bad consequences. We should be focusing on rules about conduct, not rights over content.
Now imagine creating an entirely new layer of rights over everything that is broadcast or webcast, on top of whatever copyrights already cover the work.
You find a copy of a movie in the library and manage, at great expense, to work out that it is in the public domain, or to get the copyright holder’s permission.
Perhaps the work is covered by a Creative Commons license, granting you permission to reproduce. Not so fast! Even after trudging through all the orphan works problems in copyright, you would have to prove that this copy had not been made from a broadcast or webcast.
More clearance problems! More middle-men! More empirically ungrounded state-granted monopolies! Just what we wanted. There are even some serious free speech problems.
What if only Fox or CBS has the footage of a particular public event? Do we let the broadcaster eviscerate the ideas of fair use, prohibiting other networks from showing fragments so as to comment on the events, or criticise the original coverage? The proposed treaty text allows for fair use-like exceptions but does not require them.
I think the concern is clear here folks, handing over rights that society does not have to a broadcaster is morally wrong and in many countries illegal, the work is always the property of the creator unless he has sold the righs or placed it into the public domain or the copyright expired tag applies, no new rights can be granted on this work nor should they be, a deivative work is another matter and the law adresses that aspect already.
