The WIPO Broadcast Treaty meeting is back underway — this is a treaty to birth a new kind of copyright that goes to broadcasters, web-hosters, and other people who don’t create, only distribute. Under the rules proposed by WIPO, it wouldn’t matter if copyright lets you make use of some material (because of fair use, Creative Commons, public domain, etc) — you’d also need permission from the company that hosted or distributed the material.
Slashdot has picked up the story and has some great, vigorous discussion about it.
If YouTube, et al have done anything, it’s show that a different business model can work: the value is not in production of the material, it’s in delivering it.
Previously, if I had wanted lame videos of punk skateboarders doing tricks, angsty teenagers venting their mixed-up feelings, middle-age housewives body-popping, etc. I would have had to spend countless hours trolling the murky depths and dark recesses of the Internet to find them. Thanks to YouTube, I have a single, convenient place to satisfy my disgusting and perverse needs.
Seriously though, can we please stop trying to create artificial scarcity? We don’t really need it; TV shows, movies, and music worth paying for are already scarce enough.
See also:
Massive victory at WIPO!
WIPO wants to give webcasters the right to steal from public domain, Creative Commons and GPL
European podcasters to WIPO: Stay away from us!
WIPO meets to screw up podcasting, Barcelona, June 21
Secret WIPO memo: rich countries to kill Broadcast Treaty, Development Agenda
WIPO pulls out dirty tricks to kill participation from consumer groups
How the US is boning the developing world at WIPO
WIPO Broadcast Treaty: consolidated three-day notes
Copyright treaty laid bare: watch your governments make sausage!
Tech companies tell WIPO: we don’t want your “protection”
WIPO playing dirty tricks to keep public interest groups out