Most of the participants at the roundtable Wednesday on the WIPO broadcast treaty were sharply critical of the latest draft, leaving Ben Ivins of the National Association of Broadcasters virtually alone in defending the need for a treaty that gives broadcasters new intellectual property-like rights. The best line of the day was by Ed Mierzwinski of U.S. PIRG, who — drawing on the fact that the current draft is set forth in a document labeled a “Non-paper,” a nice bit of diplomatic double-speak — said that this non-paper should clearly lead to a non-treaty.

The current draft does pare back on the sheer number of exclusive rights that earlier versions would have given to broadcasters. But it still represents an exclusive rights approach, rather than the signal theft approach that has been urged by CDT and a broad coalition of industry and civil society groups. In connection with the roundtable, CDT and over thirty other signatories submitted a document to the U.S. delegation to WIPO expressing opposition to the current draft. Hopefully the U.S. delegation will take it to heart before the important upcoming meeting of the relevant WIPO committee in June.

CDT’s specific concerns with the treaty were laid out in a Policy Post last September.

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