Protection of Broadcasts and Broadcasting Organizations Treaty

The WIPO Protection of Broadcasts and Broadcasting Organizations Treaty or the Broadcast Treaty is a treaty designed to afford broadcasters some control and copyright-like control over the content of their broadcasts.

Overview

According to the US Government:

Because existing international agreements relevant to broadcasting protections do not cover advancements in broadcasting technology that were not envisioned when they were concluded, in 1998 the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) decided to proceed with efforts to negotiate and draft a new treaty that would extend protection to new methods of broadcasting, but has yet to achieve consensus on a text. In recent years, a growing signal piracy problem has increased the urgency of concluding a new treaty, resulting in a decision to restrict the focus to signal-based protections for traditional broadcasting organizations and cablecasting. Consideration of controversial issues of protections for webcasting (advocated by the United States) and simulcasting will be postponed. However, considerable work remains to achieve a final proposed text as the basis for formal negotiations to conclude a treaty by the end of 2007, as projected. A concluded treaty would not take effect for the United States unless Congress enacts implementing legislation and the United States ratifies the treaty with the advice and consent of the Senate. Noting that the United States is not a party to the 1961 Rome Convention, various stakeholders have argued that a new broadcasting treaty is not needed, that any new treaty should not inhibit technological innovation or consumer use, and that Congress should exercise greater oversight over U.S. participation in the negotiations.

Note that this was in 2007 and in November/2008 the US re-open talks about the Treaty and the internet.

Reception

Positive

According to the EFF, '"Proponents say they need this treaty to prevent" the unauthorized reception of signals.'

Negative

Podcasters - like the ones represented by UK Podcasters Association - don't like that the treaty "would require signatory countries to provide legal protection for technological protection measures (TPM) and is likely to lead to technology mandate laws controlling the design of broadcast-receiving devices." Podcasters and the EFF also worries that the Treaty will hurt innovation in podcasting and internet distribution technologies.

Intel, AT&T, Sony, CTIA - The Wireless Association, the US Public Interest Research Group, and the American Association of Law Libraries says that "Creating broad new... rights in order to protect broadcast signals is misguided and unnecessary, and risks serious unintended negative consequences" and "We note with concern that treaty proponents have not clearly identified the particular problems that the treaty would ostensibly solve, and we question whether there are in fact significant problems that are not addressed adequately under existing law".

See also

Related laws

• DMCA
• Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
• Free Trade Area of the Americas
• Bill C-61
• Copyright

Related technologies

• Web television
• Content delivery network
• Internet television
• P2PTV
• Peer-to-peer
• Podcasting
• YouTube
• Internet

Other

• WIPO
• User-generated content
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Creative Commons

External links

• The text of the treaty
• An statement from several companies, groups, organisations and interested parties
• EFF, Podcasters Announce Opposition to Proposed WIPO Treaty - Podcasting News