13 October 2005

Dear Senators Bill Frist, Harry Reid, Arlen Specter, Patrick J. Leahy, and Representatives Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi, James Sensenbrenner, Jr., and John Conyers, Jr.

RE: Request for Public consultations regarding Webcasting treaty proposal at WIPO

The Union for the Public Domain board has passed a resolution in support of Downhill Battle's campaign to organize screenings of the U.S. civil rights documentary, "Eyes on the Prize":

UPD BOARD RESOLUTION

Whereas, the award-winning US documentary film series "Eyes on the Prize" on the US civil rights movement -- called "the principal film account of the most important American social movement of the 20th century" by one expert -- has not been available for public viewing for the past 10 years;

It was an amazing three days at the World Intellectual Property Organisation, with a strong push at the very end for transparent procedure at WIPO. The main outcomes were:

Chile successfully added an agenda item to the next meeting of the committee, to address the rights of users to access and use knowledge.

UPD Intervention at SCCR 12

Delivered by Shyamkrishna Balganesh on November 19, 2004.

[A slightly abbreviated version of this intervention was delivered
in the interest of time.]

Notes from SCCR 12 discussions on the broadcast treaty

12th Session of the SCCR, Geneva

Election of Chair and Vice Chair

Chair: Jukka Leides

17 November, 2004

Notes by:

Thiru Balasubramaniam, thiru@cptech.org, Consumer Project on Technology
[TB]

David Tannenbaum, davidt@public-domain.org, Union for the Public Domain
[DT]

Cory Doctorow, cory@eff.org, Electronic Frontier Foundation [CD]

1) The proposed WIPO "Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organisations" threatens to encroach on the public domain for the following reasons...

WIPO: The First Day

The 11th Meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights kicked off with a discussion of a WIPO Database Treaty, and then moved on to the main event: the draft broadcast treaty.

EFF and UPD collaborated on these blow-by-blow notes, written in the same document at the same time using wi-fi, Rendezvous, and SubEthaEdit.

For more information on the Broadcast Treaty, go here. Also check out Cory Doctorow's commentary.