BROADCASTERS SEEK UPDATE ON SIGNAL PROTECTION RIGHTS

Specifically, broadcasters want protection for electronic signals carrying radio and TV programs, Ivins said, to stop signal piracy and to maintain territorial exclusivity of those signals. Need to control extent and distribution of signals has become “huge challenge,” he said, after Canadian companies iCraveTV and JumpTV began taking signals from U.S. and Canadian stations and streaming them on Internet.

No speaker on broadcasting and Webcasting issues disagreed with need for international accord on broadcast rights. However, RIAA Senior Vp-Business Affairs Steven Marks said that while recording industry supported as general principle right of creators to protect their works, broadcasters hadn’t always done that because they didn’t pay royalties for performance of sound recordings. At very least, Marks said, broadcasters shouldn’t get any rights in WIPO treaty beyond those of performers of copyrighted sound recordings. Broadcasters continue to fight paying for retransmissions of signals over Internet, he said -- same transmissions for which they now want international protection.

Copyright Office has said it believes fact that broadcasters have free use of sound recordings is anomaly that should be corrected, Gen. Counsel David Carson said. Notion that broadcasters should have compulsory licenses for digitally broadcast sound recordings is good one, he said, because Webcasters must get them.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with having compulsory licenses for Internet retransmissions, said attorney Seth Greenstein, who represents Digital Media Assn. (DiMA). Problems, he said, are how to create viable business model and protect content. If those problems can be solved, he said, why not have such model. Concept of territoriality “is history,” Greenstein said. There are more compelling technologies available now, he said, and there shouldn’t be regulatory barriers to their use. Carson disagreed, saying his office opposed the expansion of compulsory licenses and that Greenstein was envisioning situation where compulsory licenses no longer were exception -- major shift from current copyright law. Notion that because compulsory licenses have been applied to cable and satellite transmissions -- which are closed paths -- they also should be applied to Internet is significant shift, Ivins said.

Technology means almost anyone can become Internet broadcaster, Greenstein said, but most can’t afford compulsory license. But Ivins said that in context of what broadcasters were looking for in WIPO treaty, calling Webcam set up in someone’s bedroom broadcast was wrong. At best it’s “narrowcast,” he said, and while it does have copyright protection, no case has been made for protecting signal. Greenstein countered that AOL, Yahoo and others were doing what appeared to be real broadcasts and said Ivins wanted signals to be protected based on who -- not what -- particular service was doing. In response, Ivins said WIPO traditionally required someone to “show us your pain” before it developed remedy. Fact that someone down line might pirate Webcast hasn’t been shown, he said. Broadcasters have been waiting 10 years for this treaty, he said. If WIPO now has to spend time trying to define what Webcast signal is, Ivins said, broadcasters will have to wait even longer.

WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright & Related Rights meets May 13-17 in Geneva to consider broadcasting rights. Ten countries, including European Commission (but not U.S.), have floated treaty proposals, WIPO Asst. Dir. Gen.-Copyright Sector Geoffrey Yu told us. Earlier this month, WIPO panel released its own technical background paper on protection of broadcast rights.