Note: You can also download this survey and the explanatory notes as a PDF or a text document.
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Union for the Public Domain
Survey of National Government Representatives Regarding the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty
The free exchange of knowledge and information enabled by the public domain is being threatened by proposals in many international forums, including the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). One of the major difficulties of protecting the public domain against these threats is that the positions of national representatives in these international forums are unknown, even to citizens of the country they represent. We want to change that.
This questionnaire is being used by volunteers to collect information about national positions on the proposed WIPO Broadcasting Treaty. The results you collect will be posted on the Web so that citizens in your country and around the world can act appropriately to protect the public domain.
The proposed WIPO Broadcasting Treaty expands and gives new privileges to transmitters of information. Rights that are normally granted to creators and performers would be given to organizations that merely transmit works and performances--even if those works are in the public domain, or if those works' creators wish to have the works distributed without restriction. (For more information see Ernest Miller's excellent analysis and Edward Felten's blog.) It is important that we find out how countries stand on this proposed expansion of rights.
To find out where national government officials stand you can e-mail this questionnaire to them for a written response, or you can interview the officials over the phone and record their answers. There is not yet an easy way to find out who is representing your country at WIPO. You can start the search by scouring the web, and then by calling the country's copyright or trade office. As volunteers collect contact information we will make it available so that the process is easier the next time around.
Time is of the essence, so if one method of getting answers isn't working, try another. It may take some work to find someone who is willing to answer the survey, but your persistence will pay off by strengthening our efforts to protect the public domain and the free exchange of knowledge and information.
If you are collecting information, please be sure to contact the coordinator of the survey at survey@public-domain.org, so that we can keep track of what countries we have covered. Also make sure you record the contact information of the government officials with whom you interact, and the results of your interaction, even if they were negative. This way we can be more efficient next time we administer a survey.
And if you know anyone else who would be interested in helping out, please ask them to download the survey at http://www.public-domain.org/?q=node/view/30 and to contact survey@public-domain.org.
Thank you for all of your help!
Information about person administering survey
Name:
E-mail address:
Country surveyed:
Country of residence:
Record of Interactions with Government Officials
[please duplicate this section if you have more than one interaction]
Date:
Name of official:
Office:
Position:
Contact info (phone, fax, e-mail, postal address):
Description of interaction (for example, gave all answers; gave some answers; helpful and friendly, but doesn't work on this issue, etc):
Questions for government officials
Consideration Process and Timing:
Should WIPO schedule a diplomatic conference on the proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty?
Length of Powers:
Should the proposed Treaty grant 50 years of exclusive broadcasting rights, as proposed by some, or retain the 20 year term in TRIPS and the 1961 Rome Convention covering broadcasters’ rights, as proposed by Singapore?
Scope of Powers:
Should the Treaty apply only to traditional wireless broadcasting; or should the Treaty be extended to transmissions over wired cable networks as proposed in Article 2(c)?
Should the Treaty be extended to apply to “webcasting”, meaning making accessible images and/or sounds over computer networks, as proposed in Alternative C, Article 2(g)?
If the Treaty includes a provision on webcasting, what is the appropriate definition of webcasting? Would you support an alternative definition to that proposed in Alternative C, Article 2(g)?
The current draft covers transmissions or the “making accessible” of “sounds or of images or of images and sounds or of the representations thereof” (Definitions, Article 2.) As currently drafted, do you believe that the proposed Treaty will cover all types of content that is broadcast, including text, and other data?
Would you support extending the Treaty only so far as to cover motion pictures and or sounds, but excluding text and other data?
Nature of Broadcasters’ Powers:
Should the Treaty simply provide broadcasters with the right to prohibit or authorize fixations of broadcasts (as provided in Article 13 of the Rome Convention and Article 8 of the proposed Treaty), or go further, by granting the following additional rights?
- the right to authorize or prohibit distribution to the public of original and reproductions of fixations of a broadcast, as provided under Article 10;
- the right to authorize deferred transmission of broadcasts after fixation as provided under Article 11;
- the right to authorize or prohibit the making available of broadcasts from fixations, as provided under Article 12 of the proposed Treaty?
Should the broadcast organization have the power to restrict the fixation or redistribution of broadcasts of materials that are in the public domain?
Should the Treaty allow Contracting Parties to make explicit exceptions for certain purposes, like the four purposes currently recognized under Article 14 of the Rome Convention ((a) private use; (b) use of short excerpts for reporting of current events: (c) ephemeral fixation by own facilities for use in own broadcasts; and (d) sole purpose teaching and scientific research)?
What other legitimate exceptions should the Treaty permit to preserve the existing balance between various types of holders of rights in content and users and viewers of that content? Do you support the exceptions as currently drafted in Article 15 of the proposed Treaty?
Legal Sanctions for circumventing technological protection on broadcasts:
Do you support the inclusion of the provisions in Articles 16 and 17 which require Treaty parties to ban the circumvention of technological protection measures added to signals by broadcasters, and protection for technologically protected content?
Do you support a further ban on the importation, sale or making available of devices capable of assisting to decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal, such as a satellite signal, as proposed in Alternative V, Article 16(2) of the proposed Treaty? Or do you believe existing copyright law as applied to the underlying work being broadcast under Articles 11 – 12 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Articles 18 - 19 of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty is sufficient?
