[Infowarrior] - Copyright treaty draws tech industry criticism

Tue Sep 5 21:24:03 EDT 2006

Copyright treaty draws tech industry criticism

By Anne Broache
http://news.com.com/Copyright+treaty+draws+tech+industry+criticism/2100-1028
_3-6112532.html

Story last modified Tue Sep 05 17:34:57 PDT 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--An online culture built around user-generated content on
Web sites like YouTube and MySpace would be imperiled by a new treaty,
public interest groups and some technology companies said Tuesday.

At issue is a treaty called "Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting
Organizations," which proponents say is necessary to ensure that TV and
cable broadcasters--and now, their Web-based counterparts--have the tools to
combat unauthorized retransmission of their signals. The World Intellectual
Property Organization, or WIPO, a specialized arm of the United Nations,
gave the go-ahead in 2003 to begin drafting the treaty, but a final version
is still pending.

Opponents say the treaty would go far beyond targeting so-called "signal
piracy." They warn that it would give broadcasters and Webcasters exclusive,
50-year rights to authorize rebroadcasting of their signals, would create
additional legal hoops for the average Internet user to jump through, and
could shrink existing protections in U.S. law for public domain works and
other instances of fair use.

With the latest draft of the document (click for PDF) scheduled for
consideration at a meeting in Geneva next week, the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office hosted a roundtable discussion here in Alexandria, Va., to
allow for public comment.

A loose coalition of 35 companies and organizations, which are often at odds
with each other on other topics, joined together to sign a statement of
opposition (click for PDF), which was distributed at the two-hour event. The
signatories included Dell, Hewlett Packard, Intel, AT&T, Verizon
Communications, Sony, and TiVo, as well as the American Library Association,
the Broadband Service Providers Association, the Home Recording Rights
Coalition, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Although their individual positions varied, the document's signers generally
argued that the broadcast and Webcast lobby--backed by Yahoo and other
members of the Digital Media Association--have not made a strong enough case
for the new treaty. If theft of signals is truly the primary worry, they
said, then existing U.S. laws likely offer sufficient protections, or a more
narrowly tailored proposal could be drafted.

But as it stands, the proposal would trample on the legal rights consumers
currently enjoy, such as recording TV broadcasts for later viewing and
playing them back within their homes, some opponents argued.

The proposal also embraces the legality of technological protection
measures, which means there would be nothing to stop controversial
copy-prevention regimes like the broadcast flag, designed to prevent digital
TV piracy, from being implemented, said Electronic Frontier Foundation
International Affairs Director Gwen Hinze. Such mandates "increase design
costs, which are passed on to consumers, and reduce the feature set
available to consumers," Hinze said.

The proposal "would enable 'casters to gain very unprecedented control in
the home and personal network environment, which would interfere with the
rollout of broadband and home networking services (and) new and innovative
devices that allow users to use content in new and flexible ways," said
Michael Petricone, senior vice president for government affairs for the
Consumer Electronics Association.

Seth Greenstein, a partner at the Washington D.C. law office of Constantine
Cannon who serves as outside counsel to the Digital Media Association, said
that's not the intention of treaty supporters.

"What we have always intended to be the scope of coverage is Internet
Webcasting that is like broadcasting, not individual files, songs, audio or
video clips made on individual Web sites, but rather programming that is
scheduled," Greenstein said.

He said he believed that the latest U.S.-offered definition of Netcasting
(click for PDF) satisfies that aim.

Jule Sigall, the U.S. Copyright Office official who led the roundtable, said
the most recent language, released earlier this summer, is "very much a step
towards something else" and that next week's meetings of WIPO's Standing
Committee on Copyright and Related Rights will present "a very fluid
situation" in which much could change.