Copyrighting the air: WIPO roundup.

AuthorWalker, Jesse
PositionCitings - World Intellectual Property Organization - Brief Article

IN NOVEMBER the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) met in Geneva to negotiate a new broadcasting treaty. The old agreement, known as the Rome Convention, had been around since 1961; there had been a lot of technological changes in the ensuing four decades, so there was plenty to incorporate into the new accords. Most participating countries wanted the document to address the issue of "signal piracy"--the illicit interception of coded transmissions, a practice that often crosses borders. But Europe and America had a larger agenda.

Under their pressure, WIPO proposed a treaty that would award broadcasters a copyright in the signals they transmit, even when the transmission's contents are in the public domain.

In fact, the new rules would give the broadcasters more rights over the content than its creators have. They would also require countries to pass laws similar to America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans "circumvention" of technological barriers to copying. One portion of the proposal, called Alternative V...

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