WIPO Broadcast Treaty Conclusion Still Elusive
Talks on a broadcasting protection treaty remained stalled after a March 13-17 World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meeting, stakeholders said. Some "progress towards finding common ground" was made on several issues, according to the chair's summary, but there were no breakthroughs.
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The basis for discussion was the second revised draft text. There was "common understanding" that "any potential treaty should be narrowly focused on signal piracy," the summary noted. Administrations also agreed the object to be protected "should be limited to the transmission of programme-carrying signals and should not extend to any post-fixation activities, thus avoiding interference with the rights related to the underlying content."
Delegates "expressed various views" on whether a treaty should require a minimum level of protection for broadcasting over computer networks, the effect of introducing a fixation right, the effect of not having a term of protection, and the scope of limitations and exceptions, the summary said. The text will be revised, and the treaty put on the agenda for the next meeting, the week of Nov. 6.
Broadcasters wanted the SCCR to finalize the current text and recommend that WIPO convene a diplomatic conference. The text "generally reflects their objectives for updated international protection of broadcast signals, and covers the necessary elements to further protection of broadcasting organizations globally," the World Broadcasting Unions said.
Six trade associations and 36 civil society groups, however, pressed the U.S. to oppose the treaty based on recent additions to the text. "They are alarmed that it has been amended to include 'new, additional IP-like rights for broadcasters (e.g., the right of fixation) with no set term,'" creating "rent-seeking opportunities in perpetuity," they wrote to the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The trade groups were USTelecom, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, ACA Connects, the Consumer Technology Association, CTIA and NTCA.
The organizations said they favor a treaty narrowly focused on signal theft, which the U.S. previously backed. They wrote, however, the U.S. delegation appeared to be willing before the meeting to accept some broadly defined IP-like rights for broadcasters. Nevertheless, the U.S. position remained unchanged, emailed intellectual property attorney Jonathan Band, who handles broadcast treaty issues for CCIA. Moreover, he said, "there weren't really any negotiations; rather, many delegations had questions concerning the latest draft. My sense of the room was that there was great confusion and frustration, and a sense that no progress is being made." All the contentious issues remain and nothing was resolved, he said.
There are two key problems with the proposed treaty, said Knowledge Ecology Online, another signatory to the PTO letter. Article 7 would give broadcasters the exclusive right to authorize the fixation of the program-carrying signals, with Article 8 extending that right to the deferred transmission of stored programs: "With no term, these are perpetual rights that the streamer gets, without creating, owning, licensing or paying for content, and even if the content is in the public domain or subject to a creative commons license."