In the Observer (UK), John Naughton criticizes the WIPO broadcast treaty proposals: A law unto themselves
The [WIPO] meeting was assembled to discuss a draft treaty to ‘protect’ broadcasters and broadcasting signals.
For ‘protect’ read ‘unprecedented, restrictive and anti-social powers’. If enacted, this treaty would require countries to change their laws to grant broadcasters astonishing freedoms. These include: ‘the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the fixation [copying/recording] of their broadcasts’; ‘the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the direct or indirect reproduction, in any manner or form, of fixations of their broadcasts’; ‘the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the retransmission, by wire or wireless means, whether simultaneous or based on fixations, of their broadcasts’; and other rights, including control of exhibition and distribution of recordings of broadcasts.
Previously: WIPO considers broadcast flag
