Doctorow to live blog WIPO
p2pnet.net News:- The EFF’s Man in Europe, Cory Doctorow, will live-blog the Geneva WIPO meeting on the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) web site.
A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) committee meeting is being staged to debate the merits of the proposed "Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations."
"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will be there to urge delegates to reject aspects of the treaty that would impoverish the public domain and thwart innovation," says the foundation.
EFF European affairs coordinator Doctorow will present a letter to the committee on behalf of 20 technology companies and organizations that oppose including new webcasters’ rights in the treaty.
"This coalition shatters the illusion that there is a technology consensus on this issue," he says.
The new "pseudo-copyright" for webcasters would both curtail the public’s ability to archive news footage or re-use broadcast material that’s in the public domain; and, would also require that all media players be closed-source, proprietary, and subject to the oversight and approval of the movie studios.
EFF is joining other non-government organizations (NGOs) in proposing an alternative draft of the treaty – one that targets the problem of signal theft rather than adds these new rights, it says.
The proposed treaty would add DRM provisions for broadcasters similar to those the much-criticized US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives to copyright holders.
Doctorow will also speak about how DRM technologies hinder technological progress.
"In October, WIPO made a positive move by adopting a "development agenda" proposed by a number of developing countries and NGOs," says the EFF, adding:
"This agenda makes explicit the organization’s responsibility for considering the social and economic impact of its decisions. Doctorow will urge the organization to apply the public-interest principles outlined in the agenda to its consideration of DRM."
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See:-
merits - Public domain threat, p2pnet, November 19, 2004
DRM provisions – Doctorow on DRM: reloaded, p2pnet, October 20, 2004
