European Podcasters Team Up To Lobby WIPO

This is a big one. The fix appears to be in for the big Broadcasting conglomerates to tie up copyrights for material they broadcast, even if the content is in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license. Just the mere fact that they have touched it would be enough.

From Blogger News Network via Boing Boing:

UK Podcasters Association has been joined by the Irish Podrepbod and German Podcastverband to lobby WIPO in a pan-european effort to assert podcasters' rights at the WIPO meeting in Barcalona Wednesday, June 21st.

There is an online petition here - the text follows:

To: World Intellectual Property organization (WIPO)

This is a petition to the World Intellectual Property organization (WIPO) regarding the Broadcast Treaty as it affects podcasting and podcasters.

This treaty as it stands gives broadcasters (not creators or copyright holders) the right to tie up the use of audiovisual material for 50 years after broadcasting it, even if the programs are in the public domain, Creative Commons licensed, or not copyrightable.

We consider this to be an infringement of the right of the originator of a work to determine its form of licence, future usage and copyright status.

Further, the extension of the Broadcast Treaty to include Podcasting does not take into account the many forms of the new medium of podcasting which do not correspond to broadcast models. We uphold our right to be different from broadcasting and therefore subject to legislation which takes these differences into account.

We, podcast creators, producers and supporters of the global podcasting community, earnestly request that WIPO respect, acknowledge and include the following in any revision of the Broadcast Treaty:

- Broadcaster copyright cannot overrule podcast copyright or other licence

- Podcasting is not broadcasting and the two must not be conflated (forced together)

- The wishes of the creator regarding their rights in their work must be respected

- Creative Commons licences, GPU licences, "free forever" licences (in whatever form) are legitimate and must be upheld in perpetuity.