Can the World Be Copyrighted?

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Tue Feb 26 19:23:20 EST 2002


http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,50658,00.html



Can the World Be Copyrighted?
By Brad King

2:00 a.m. Feb. 26, 2002 PST
Two treaties taking effect this spring would expand the reach of
controversial American legislation designed to regulate the Internet.

The World Intellectual Property Organization, an international body of
government representatives that globalizes laws, announced new guidelines
to crack down on digital piracy. The WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO
Performance and Phonograms Treaty, which go into effect over the next three
months, extend copyright protection to computer programs, movies and music.



The treaties, hammered out in 1996, give a general framework for countries
to develop standard copyright laws.

However, it took several years for each to be ratified by 30 countries, the
minimum required before they can formally take effect. In the interim, the
agreements became the basis for America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
the first legislation designed to protect intellectual property on the
Internet.

Several watchdog organizations believe the DMCA, which domestic media
companies touted as the treaties' best practical application, give media
conglomerates and copyright holders too much control over digital
distribution.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) primary beef with the DMCA is
the legalization of rights management that gives copyright holders the
ability to dictate how people can listen, read and watch digital files. Two
prominent legal disputes drew the battle lines between the watchdog
organization and media companies.

2600 Magazine, a hacker publication, was barred from posting links to Jon
Johansen's DeCSS decryption application, which allows computer users to
watch DVDs on their PCs. The software breaks the digital security on the
disks, an act that violates the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.
Johansen, a Norwegian teenager, was charged with violating his country's
copyright laws and faces two years in prison.

Russian programmer Dimitri Sklyarov faced 25 years in prison after being
arrested in Las Vegas last July. He was released six months later after
being charged with distributing software that broke the copy protection on
electronic books, an act that violated America's DMCA but not his own
country's laws.

The EFF has fought to dismantle the DMCA and now the group is taking the
fight abroad, said Fred von Lohmann, EFF senior staff attorney.

"There are some people that argue that American laws were already compliant
with that law," von Lohmann said. "If you need to crack copy protected
work, you need to make a copy of it first and those reproduction rights
were already protected. But (DMCA author) Bruce Lehman and the other folks
expanded the copyright owner's protections to make the U.S. the banner
carrier for intellectual property.

"The DMCA satisfies the WTC treaty and then goes way beyond its scope. The
U.S. actually adopted the DMCA long before we were required to by
international law and now we're going overseas and telling people they need
to enact a DMCA-like law."

The EFF hopes to head off legislation in other countries since the treaties
offer a general framework that individual countries use to craft national
laws. The EFF has teamed with Electronic Frontier Canada, filed comments in
New Zealand, and worked with England's Eurorights.org as well as with
German groups.

Though 30 countries ratified the treaty, some of the world's biggest
economies are not on board. The European Union (comprising 15 countries,
including Germany and Italy) Japan and China haven't agreed to adopt the
framework.

The large, international, media companies, however, urge that the treaties
not only be ratified but also enforced.

Companies, such as Japan's Sony and Germany's Bertelsmann, have a growing
concern with the international flavor that these lawsuits have taken, said
Neil Turkewitz, the Recording Industry Association of America's executive
vice president and the music industry's representation at the WIPO
gathering in Geneva six years ago.

"Right now, copyright is national," Turkewitz said. "There is no such thing
as international copyright law. It's a little oversimplified, but these
treaties help harmonize the laws and the protections as much as possible.
It will take away the reasons for these companies to be moving around
because there will be a consistent level. The Internet is only as strong as
its weakest link."

Sklyarov wasn't arrested until he came to America, but that could change if
Russia adopts the two treaties. Then, copyright organizations in that
country could go after a programmer like Sklyarov.

The agreements would also make it easier to hunt down country hoppers such
as Niklas Zennstrom, the Dutch entrepreneur who licensed decentralized,
file-trading software to United States companies and later sold his company
Kazaa to an Australian investment firm.

Zennstrom faces separate lawsuits in the Netherlands and the United States
that were brought by national music copyright organizations. The
Buma/Stemra, a Dutch copyright watchdog organization, is suing Kazaa for
distributing a software application that allows people to connect to a
file-trading network. In its suit, the RIAA named Consumer Empowerment, the
licensing arm of Zennstrom's company, for selling the software to American
companies.

The reason these treaties need to be enacted, Turkewitz said, is that cases
such as these leave U.S. and Dutch copyright holders with little recourse.
The problem was exacerbated in January when Zennstrom sold Kazaa to Sharman
Networks Limited, a small privately held Australian company.

The new investors remain quiet, making it difficult for authorities to
track them down. However, Internet users still downloaded 2.2 million
applications through Kazaa last week, making it the leading file-trading
service.

That leaves copyright holders trying to coordinate lawsuits against at
least five companies in three countries.

This is a serious problem for record companies that claim piracy caused a
massive decline in album shipments last year, costing the major labels $600
million in sales. The explosive growth of peer-to-peer services and the
increase in CD-burning were the main culprits, said RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen.

"This past year was a difficult year in the recording industry, and there
is no simple explanation of the decrease in sales," Rosen said. "The
economy was slow and 9/11 interrupted the fourth quarter plans, but a large
factor contributing to the decrease in overall shipments last year is
online piracy and CD burning."

The problem looms much larger outside of America, where the industry
estimates physical piracy siphons off between $2 and $4 billion each year.
The advent of new technology is expected to increase that figure, Rosen
said.

Hollywood studios and the developers of video games and software are
expected to support the treaties as well.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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