WIPO Director General Against Draconian Anti-Piracy Punishment... But For The Wrong Reasons

from the not-quite-there-yet dept

We were a bit surprised, recently, to hear at a WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) meeting that they actually appeared to be taking more of an evidence-based approach to copyright, rather than just assuming that "more is better." And now, the Director General of WIPO, Francis Gurry, gave an interview where he explained why he thought that high fines and jailtime weren't the answer to piracy. He's exactly right, which is a bit surprising. But as you read the details, it sounds like he might be right for the wrong reasons -- which isn't all that surprising.

It's not that he thinks that the better approach is for companies and content creators to adjust their business models -- but that he's afraid the draconian punishment schemes are basically a PR nightmare for WIPO's continuing fruitless effort to convince people that infringement is evil:

"I don't believe we are going to win this, (to) find the solution by putting teenagers in jail," Gurry said in an interview on a visit to India. "I think that is not going to win public sympathy."

"Part of the battle here is to sensitise the public to the fact that there is a real issue involved. It is not simply a victimless crime...."

Amusingly, the whole reason the RIAA kicked off its lawsuit strategy was based on similar thinking: that it was an "education" campaign that would convince people that there was "harm" done from file sharing. Of course, it didn't work. At all. And no education campaign is going to work, because it's just the basic nature of economics. If the technology has made the product infinite, it's not a moral issue or a legal issue: it's a business model issue. The answer is to change business models, not hope and pray that you can somehow convince people that it's "bad" to do something that obviously can be done quite easily.

So, yes, Gurry is correct that draconian punishment has created a massive PR backlash that has helped make things even worse, but an education campaign isn't going to make a difference. Only a business model change can fix a business model situation -- and we're already seeing that happen just fine in many parts of the world. It's not an education campaign that will help the content industry. It's smarter business models.

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WIPO Once Again Sides With Trademark Holder Over Common Sense

from the ta-ta-wipo dept

The phrase "ta ta" is a well known way of saying goodbye. So, it was a cute idea for an Indian online travel site to use the domain name OkTaTaByeBye.com. Except... of course, one of the biggest companies in India happens to be called Tata. So, of course, the Tata corporation went to WIPO complaining of trademark infringement. And WIPO, as it almost always seems to do, sided with the big company, and said that the domain name infringes (thanks, stat_insig). The travel site is planning to appeal, and hopefully whoever hears the appeal will recognize that the site is pretty clearly not associated with Tata. Still, it's yet another example of a big company thinking that its rights extend quite far.

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Do We Need A World Court For Intellectual Property?

from the well,-we-may-have-one-anyway dept

A bunch of folks have sent in various versions of the story that the G20 has agreed to some sort of "world court for intellectual property." Of course, the details still aren't entirely clear (and it sounds like there's still a bunch of horse trading going on), but it would be an extension of WIPO, which has been in charge of enforcing various international treaties. The details are key, but it still does make you wonder why we need a world IP court. Such courts in the past have been shown to not be very effective in dealing with IP issues, because they tend to become dominated by those who believe that "more IP is better" despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So these courts tend to just be the enforcers of industries built on the regulatory monopolies commonly called intellectual property. Well no wonder so many people were sending it in: it was an April Fool's joke. Well done... though, in retrospect the bit about France demanding that the language of the court be French if it were in China should have been a dead give away.

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Broadcasting Treaty Back From The Dead (Again)

from the it-just-won't-die dept

While the negotiations on the awful ACTA treaty are getting more attention these days, another awful treaty seems to be coming back from the dead. WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty has been out there for years. The idea is to add more new copyrights for content that's "broadcast," even though it's usually already covered by copyright. The end result would actually do significant harm to the public domain, because a broadcaster who broadcasts public domain content could then claim a "broadcast right" over that content -- basically reclaiming it from the public domain. The entire treaty is based on the faulty idea that ownership of content is somehow socially beneficial, when there's little evidence that this is true.

Some powerful entertainment industry folks have been trying to push this treaty through, as a way to force various governments to pass new laws that grant them these new copyrights, that will really be useful in keeping competitors from broadcasting certain content. So far, the treaty has repeatedly stalled out. Last year, we were encouraged when the Senate Judiciary Committee admitted that it was greatly troubled by the proposed treaty, noting that it would significantly harm consumers' rights. Soon after that, the treaty died, though we warned that certain interests would keep on pushing it.

And, indeed, that's exactly what's happening. At a recent WIPO meeting, it appears that the Broadcasting Treaty is back on the table, and doesn't appear to be going away any time soon. There are considerable disagreements over what it should include, so it might not move forward, but it's disheartening that it appears the US representatives at WIPO seem to have reversed their earlier position, and are now saying that webcast content should get this totally unnecessary and damaging "broadcast right" as well as content broadcast on other media. Hopefully the wrangling over terms will cause this treaty to die again -- but considering how much of an effort big media companies have put behind it, you can bet it won't go down without a fight.

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