News: Treaty casts shadow on Webcast rights:
"A United Nations committee on Wednesday approved the world's first Webcasting treaty, which has drawn criticism that it limits the use of works that are in the public domain. "

At a meeting in Geneva, the World Intellectual Property Organization's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights agreed to prepare a draft of the treaty by April 1, 2004. A second meeting is scheduled for June, followed by an expected diplomatic conference during which nations that are members of WIPO--a U.N. agency--could sign the final treaty.

The treaty--which was proposed by the Bush administration and is backed by Yahoo, the Washington-based Digital Media Association and other U.S. Webcasters--generally seeks to extend to Webcasters the same level of international intellectual property protection that TV and radio broadcasters currently enjoy. The Webcasting sections are part of a broader proposal titled "Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations."

Jamie Love, who works for the Ralph Nader-affiliated Consumer Project on Technology, says the treaty is worrisome because it creates an additional legal protection for works in the public domain that are Webcast.

"Say there's a film that's out of copyright and in the public domain, but it's in the vault of some movie studio," Love said. "If you got it from the broadcast, you're not allowed to make a copy. You have to go to the original source."

In other words, anyone viewing a Webcast of material that falls outside of copyright--such as a government-created documentary or a very old movie or audio recording--may not be able to freely store and redistribute that content.…

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5103456.html