A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel begins co...

a new treaty updating broadcast rights for the Digital Age. Broadcasters have been pushing for global protection for electronic signals carrying radio and TV programs in order to stop piracy of the signals and to maintain territorial exclusivity. What has engendered debate, however, is the issue of whether Webcasting signals should be included in such a treaty. In May, the U.S. submitted a revised proposal that, among other things, would let broadcasters, cablecasters and Webcasters authorize and prohibit the rebroadcast of their programs or their retransmission via computer, or defer transmission for public reception. The U.S. proposal also would declare that signatories provide “adequate and effective” legal remedies against the circumvention of technological measures. Late last week, Consumer Project on Technology (CPT) Dir. James Love asked U.S. delegates to the committee to “clarify both the U.S. govt. objectives in the treaty negotiations and explain how key features of the proposed treaty would work.” CPT has 2 main questions, Love said: (1) Whether it’s in the public interest to “shrink the public domain” by extending broadcasters’ rights from the 20 years required by the Trade- Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement to a new 50-year term. (2) Whether the U.S. definition of Webcasting will be limited to a subset of special TV or radio-like activities taking place on the Internet or will create a new right that can be “used to extend to more general operations of listserves, downloadable Web pages” and other online activities. “If the proposed treaty embraces a broad definition of Internet activities, it would effectively create a new mechanism to assign exclusive rights to materials now in the public domain?” Love wrote. “This would be a bad outcome.”