WIPO’s piracy treaty blown out of the water

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was yesterday forced to ‘postpone indefinitely’ a proposed international treaty that aimed to give international broadcasters greater protection from piracy.

The official press release says: “[WIPO has] decided that further discussions were required on various aspects of a treaty on the protection of broadcasting organisations before moving to a diplomatic conference…”

The decade-long negotiation intended to protect broadcasters from the dissemination of their content by other providers for 50 years. Key governments that backed the treaty included the United States, European countries and – surprisingly perhaps – several African nations.

But developing-country coalitions led by India, Brazil and various NGOs complained that the treaty could prevent legitimate private copying and/or circulation of the vast archive of materials currently available in the public domain.

European television companies have said they might give up pushing this treaty with WIPO, and instead pursue bilateral and regional agreements. In contrast, according to the Financial Times, the United States played down its support for the treaty because companies including Intel and Verizon “made clear their opposition to the stronger rights favoured by the majority of US broadcasters”.

Although this issue has largely been neglected by the mainstream media, the treaty had a very real potential to hinder information exchange in the digital age. Instead we have witnessed another success story for developing countries in moving towards a more open information society.

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