Council of Europe looks to revive stalled broadcast IP talks

While all eyes were on the Canadian government this week and whether it would actually table new copyright legislation, which is likely to include ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization's copyright treaty, a group of European nations contemplated renewing talks on a portion of the stalled WIPO broadcast treaty in an effort to combat signal piracy. Intellectual Property Watch, a Geneva-based newsletter, reported earlier this week that The Council of Europe, which predates the European Union and includes 47 member states, is deliberating whether to negotiate a convention to protect broadcasting and neighbouring rights. At issue, in particular, the retransmission of over-the-air signals by a cable operator from across a border. Copyright owners have long complained about the practice, saying their content is being distributed in a market where no licence has been negotiated.Even if the Council receives approval by its committee of ministers to proceed, agreeing on a convention will be difficult. WIPO unsuccessfully negotiated for more than eight years on a treaty to boost the rights of broadcasters and cablecasters. Last June in Geneva, , WIPO's 184 member states failed to agree on the basic text of the ‘non-paper' version of a broadcast treaty and had to cancel a high-level negation that had been scheduled for November. In its submission in June, Canada noted that it was "quite concerned that should the treaty contain an exclusive right of retransmission, there could well be additional costs to retransmitting over-the-air television that might at least in part be passed on to consumers. In addition, in the event that there are such increased consumer costs, consumer spending may be diverted from optional cablecasts and specialty satellite services." Concern on some part of the WIPO treaty in its current state seemed to come from all sides, but the Council of Europe may have more success considering it has less than a third the number of member states to reach a consensus. However, those 47 members range from the United Kingdom, France and Germany to Turkey, Azerbaijan and Russia, so the unique concerns of each member could slow talks. An obvious roadblock would be concerns about fair access and freedom of information for developing countries. While action by the Council on broadcasting rights was requested by the European Broadcasting Union because of the stalled WIPO talks, a spokesperson for the Council told IP Watch that its member states would be happy to revert to WIPO negotiations if the current deadlock was overcome.

Council of Europe looks to revive stalled broadcast IP talks

Broadcast | December 14, 2007

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