Will the United States Oppose the WIPO Broadcaster Treaty?
What is the position of the United States government on a proposed treaty, currently before the World Intellectual Property Organization, that would create a copyright-style protection for television broadcasts?
That is the key question that observers want answers for at the public roundtable discussion that will be held today, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the Copyright Office in the Library of Congress. The proposed treaty has been rife with controversy from the beginning. One reason is that it is being promoted as an update to the 1961 Treaty of Rome, which the U.S. never ratified.
During negotiations last year at WIPO in Geneva, the U.S. was the most significant government to promote extending the broadcaster treaty to cover webcasters. But the rest of the world balked at that. Failing that modification, the U.S. expressed dissatisfaction with the end-result.
In a column on the subject last September, I quoted PTO officials as follows:
“The U.S. does not believe that [the current treaty] provides a proper basis for going to a diplomatic conference, and intervened to say as much,” PTO spokeswoman Brigid Quinn said September 15. “The U.S. has always envisioned this treaty as one to provide the necessary protections for broadcast signals in the digital age.” As a result, she said, “there is no consensus and alternatives on at least half of the issues.”
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Sanjay
