This past weekend WIRED published an article updating the status of WIPO's Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Broadcast Treaty Battle Rages On). I'm glad that WIRED is keeping this atrocious bit of international dreck in the news.
However, I have to take issue with a few statements in the article. For example,
The idea that broadcasters should have rights enabling them to combat signal piracy is relatively uncontentious.
Uncontentious among who? Frankly, I find the entire idea of the treaty absurd. We already have an entire category of law devoted to protecting against "piracy." It is called "copyright."
So, let's look at the example in the article of the terrible consequences of not passing this absurd treaty:
The treaty's primary importance, he said, is to give broadcasters a way of protecting against signal piracy. If a broadcaster in, say, Belize has paid for the right to broadcast the Olympics and takes its feed from NBC, it needs broadcast rights to be able to get an injunction against other stations that might copy the feed and send it out.
Well, gee, if I were to copy Belize's Olympic broadcasts and put them on the internet, could I do so without legal consequence? Would I be able to destroy Belize's fragile broadcast industry with impunity? Hmmmm ... let me think .... hell no.
And what would be the law, supported by international treaties, that would keep me from taking bread from the mouth of Belize's broadcasters? That would be copyright law. If I were to rebroadcast the Olympics on the internet, NBC's lawyers would set world records sprinting to the courthouse with lawsuits and requests for preliminary injunction.
And if Belizian broadcasters can't bring a copyright lawsuit, then maybe what we need is Belizian copyright reform and not a new international treaty.
So, explain to me again why we need this new law to protect broadcasters? I haven't figured out why it is uncontentious yet.
Teleread believes that "WIPO" stands for "WIPe Out individual rights" (Hollywood-bought broadcast treaty: No noises from 'populist' Sen. Edwards, presumably).
Read the current draft of the treaty here: Consolidated Text for a Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations [PDF].
My take here: The Broadcast Flag Treaty - Draft Available.
Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
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