Karsten on Free Software

As Thiru reports, WIPO has published a draft text for the proposed broadcast treaty. This treaty, if adopted, is going to establish a new layer of monopoly powers. Working somewhat like copyright, these monopoly powers would be given to a broadcasting institution merely for broadcasting something.

Weirdly, there is the idea of a "webcasting right": A monopoly that would be given to someone for spreading content on the web.  

Richard Stallman has aptly described (.pdf, see p. 6) these powers as "skunk odor powers":

So what kind of power is it?  I think it is like the power of skunk odor: it sticks
to whatever it touches, and once it’s on you, you practically can’t get it off.  So
how about "skunk odor power"?

Well, what would this power look like? Would I be given a sort of copyright on Richard’s quote above, just for redistributing it here? As I said: Weird. 

Though this "webcasting right" is only a voluntary opt-in, its adoption by a few major players (EU, US, Japan) would in practice make it mandatory for everyone. 

Now Thiru tells me that WIPO has published two texts: One "Draft Basic Proposal" and one "Working Paper". The first one is the "Winners" paper, where the things go that the WIPO Secretariat wants in the treaty. The second is the "graveyard" paper, where all the ideas go that don’t suit the Secretariat (or those most effectively lobbying them).

There seems to be little logic behind the decision about which idea was put into which paper – unless one would assume that anything the US wants goes in. Proposals by Brazil and Chile, concerning the protection of competition and the public domain, didn’t make the winners paper.