This document also available in Word .doc format Top 10 Reasons to Reject the WIPO Basic Draft Proposal for a Broadcasting Treaty May 2006 1. Eliminates the public domain for audio and video programming. The WIPO copyright committee’s Basic Draft Proposal for a Broadcasting Treaty endangers the public domain for copyrighted materials. It permits broadcasting corporations to “copyright” and control the public’s use of programming that is already in the public domain (i.e., legally belongs to the public). This creates a devastating effect on education and development, particularly in countries that can afford it the least. 2. Creates obligations for countries that drastically exceed current international standards. The Basic Draft Proposal requires nations to amend their domestic laws to create greater restrictions over broadcast media than current international treaty obligations require of countries. For example, the Rome Convention permits countries to grant rights to broadcasting organizations -- but only for 20 years. Article 13 of the Basic Draft Proposal would require all countries to create such rights for broadcasting companies for a minimum of 50 years, more than double the current international standard, and outliving the economic life span of a broadcast and the time required to recoup any economic investment in the programming. 3. Chills freedom of expression by outlawing the circumvention of technological restrictions similarly to U.S. Digital [...]

IP JUSTICE STATEMENT Regarding a Proposal for a Broadcasting Treaty at the 14th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights 1-5 May 2006 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I speak on behalf IP Justice, an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law.  Based in San Francisco, IP Justice also maintains representatives in Switzerland and Italy. Mr. Chairman, IP Justice submits that this treaty proposal is no where near ready for a Diplomatic Conference.  There remain too many disagreements among Member States regarding the treaty’s basic provisions.  If the current Basic Draft were proposed today, IP Justice would have to recommend to Member States that it reject the treaty entirely. IP Justice is particularly concerned with the proposal to include the regulation of Internet transmissions within the scope of this treaty, whether mandatory or optional.   At previous SCCR meetings, the vast majority of Member States expressed discomfort with any type of proposal to extend the treaty’s scope to include webcasting, so its difficult to understand how it could remain a part of this treaty, even as an “optional appendix”. IP Justice is concerned that broadening the scope of this treaty to include Internet transmissions of media threatens the growth and development of the Internet.  As it would apply to thousands, if not millions, of individual [...]