WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations Page: 4 of 5
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likely to harm consumers' existing rights, and stifle technology innovation."6 Before the
creation of such rights, the stakeholders maintain that "there should be a demonstrated
need for such rights, and a clear understanding of how they will impact the public,
educators, existing copyright holders, online communications, and new Internet
technologies."
Second, according to the stakeholders, the treaty should not be "rights-based," that
is, grant exclusive rights in broadcasts similar to copyright. Rather, it should be, in their
view, "signal-based," meaning that the prevention of theft or piracy of pre-broadcast
signals should be the focus of the treaty. Third, stakeholders assert that the treaty should
not be negotiated with reference to whether it detracts or departs from the Rome
Convention, although the signers of the statement believe that strong signal protections
are consistent with the Rome Convention. The European Union in particular has
advocated that a new treaty should comply with the Rome Convention. However, some
stakeholders observed that the narrowed treaty focus on a signal-based approach is more
akin to the Brussels Convention.9 Fourth, to the extent the treaty permits rights beyond
protection against signal theft/piracy, the stakeholders claim that mandatory limitations
and exceptions similar to those under copyright laws should be included in the treaty to
ensure that the treaty does not prohibit uses of broadcast content that are lawful under
copyright law. The treaty should also, in their view, permit additional limitations and
exceptions appropriate in a digital network environment. Fifth, the stakeholders contend
that the treaty should exclude coverage of fixations, transmissions or retransmissions over
a home network or personal network.
Concerns have been raised that because the Revised Draft Basic Proposal envisions
protections for technological protections measures (TPM) and digital rights management
schemes (DRM), the beneficiary broadcasting organizations would have the ability to
control signals in a home or personal network environment. Stakeholders allege that this
would inhibit such networking services and related technology innovations. Sixth, despite
the removal of webcasting and simulcasting from the scope of the treaty, the phrase "by
any means" in various articles of the Revised Draft Basic Proposal would, in the
stakeholders' view, include control over Internet retransmissions of broadcasts and
cablecasts. Finally, to the extent that Internet transmissions may be included in the scope
of the treaty, stakeholders advocate that it should ensure that intermediate network service
6 Statement of Electronic Frontier Foundation to USPTO Roundtable on Proposed WIPO
Broadcasting Treaty, Sept. 5, 2006, [http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/broadcastingtreaty/EFFuspto
_090506.pdf] (last visited Jan. 25, 2007).
Id.
8 William New, WIPO Negotiators Try to Bear Down on Broadcasting Treaty, Intellectual
Property Watch (Jan. 18, 2007), available at [http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=
509&res=1024&print=0] (last visited Jan. 25, 2007).
9 The Convention provides for the obligation of each contracting State to take adequate measures
to prevent the unauthorized distribution on or from its territory of any program-carrying signal
transmitted by satellite. The distribution is unauthorized if it has not been authorized by the
organization - typically a broadcasting organization -that has decided what the program
consists of. The obligation applies to organizations that are nationals of a Convention party.
However, the Convention provisions are not applicable where the distribution of signals is made
from a direct broadcasting satellite.
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WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations, report, January 26, 2007; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc818106/m1/4/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.