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Music Media Your Rights Online

WIPO Music Control Treaty Ratified 261

Posted by michael from the one-world-one-treaty dept.
Greyfox writes: "Here's one that slipped through the cracks. The WIPO (You know, that unelected, unaccountable organization that lives in the Corporate back pockets) has ratified a anti-music piracy treaty which will go into effect on May 20. It apparently has anti-circumvention measures similar to the DMCA and will carry the force of law in the USA and other member countries." We had a more informative story about these two treaties a few months ago. The only new information is that the Phonograms and Performances Treaty now has enough signatures to go into effect in May.
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WIPO Music Control Treaty Ratified More

WIPO Music Control Treaty Ratified

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  • Good thing we have Bush in charge (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23, 2002 @05:48PM (#3058462)
    Bush won't be pushed around by big, evil corporations!
    • According to cnn.com "Both treaties [WTO and WTTP] were adopted in 1996." Was Bush in charge in 96?
      • According to cnn.com "Both treaties [WTO and WTTP] were adopted in 1996." Was Bush in charge in 96?

        Correct. Keep in mind that it was the Clinton administration who helped to bring us DMCA in the first place as a means of setting an example for international law. The Dem's get most of the hollywood soft-money, so go figure. The same administration also tried to parcel off pieces of the US land to the United Nations. Disagree with Bush and the republicans all you may, but at least they take a firm stance on state sovereignty.
        • Right. Lets be clear here, Democrat == soft money from entertainment, thus DMCA. Republican == soft money from Old Boy traditional buisness, thus reduced EPA funding, Enron, etc.

  • I'm having trouble reconciling these: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonynnous Coward ( 557984 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @05:52PM (#3058475)
    from the writeup:
    Although the treaties provide a legal framework of rights, they do not overrule national laws.

    from the referenced CNN article:

    Although the treaties provide a legal framework of rights, they do not overrule national laws.

    Does it have the "force of law," or does it simply mean that nations have agreed to enact laws aligned with the treaty?

    Not that the intellectual "property" goons at the media empires have a prayer in the long run, anyway. They can't get away with selling bandwidth to the public on one hand and locking up content on the other. They're mutually exclusive.

    • OK, I'm a dumbass and didn't stare at the preview long enough. The first part of the parent should say:
      from the writeup:
      It apparently has anti-circumvention measures similar to the DMCA and will carry the force of law in the USA and other member countries.

      Apparently, it's too much to ask Opera to have Ctrl-C actually copy text to the clipboard.

    • heh (Score:1)

      by waspleg ( 316038 )
      they're not trying to lock up the content, they're trying to control the only means of access to it, so they can whore it like they do in every other venue

      obviously this takes some doing since they didn't create the medium.. and they're using their armies of lawyers to fight their battles for them..
      • they're not trying to lock up the content, they're trying to control the only means of access to it, so they can whore it like they do in every other venue


        And most of us just keep on lapping it up...

    • Re:I'm having trouble reconciling these: (Score:4, Informative)

      by rhekman ( 231312 ) <hekman AT acm DOT org> on Saturday February 23, 2002 @06:22PM (#3058580) Homepage
      Well the issue is moot in the US and Europe, as the treaty is enforceable in "signatory states". Accordingly, the U.S. and most European nations (specified as the European Community) have signed on to the treaty. Here is the text of the treaty and docs containing the signatories [wipo.int].

      For those of you who can't open MSWord .docs here are the countries signed on:
      Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, European Communities (50).Albania, Argentina, Belarus, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gabon, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mali, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Saint Lucia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, United States of America (28).

      Regards

    • A ratified treaty carries the same force as a law enacted by Congress, if I understand the legal precidents correctly. It can be challenged in court for Constitutionality just like a regular law can. Of course, this means that now we'll have to try to take both the DMCA AND this treaty down, twice as much work and legal cost.

      OBDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I picked all this up from "Ally McBeal."

      • What's disturbing is that the US constitution says something very obfuscated along the lines of, "This document is the supreme law of the land, along with treaties we enter into," or something. So not only are treaties basically laws passed by the president and the Senate, but they're very difficult to overturn.

        Of course, the Senate doesn't always ratify treaties that we sign. There are a couple of cold war era treaties regarding nuclear weapons and such that we signed as a country but were never ratified by the Senate.

        Mr. Spey
        • I think if this is found to be unconstitutional, it will be because WIPO and the WTO are not treaties. A treaty is a piece of paper with words on it.

          WIPO and WTO are essentially legislative bodies given teeth by treaties.

          The difference is? A *treaty* is a fixed agreement, whereas WIPO/WTO is an amorphous, unelected, non-democratic body with the "power" to pass legislation with the same power as the US constitution? I claim that a treaty and WIPO/WTO are two completley different animals, and thus that line of the document does not apply.

          I think any of our founding fathers would cringe at the situation we're in ...

      • Treaties don't contain punishment for offenders, laws do. Me, an individual citizen of the US, who breaks RandomTreaty#10283 ratified by the US which has no enforcement law in the US has little to nothing to worry about.

        That's why there is the DMCA. It exists to enforce a treaty and supply punishment.

      • A Lawyer's Guess: Treaties vs. Law (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I'm not up on the WIPO treaties, but my take from the CNN article (which may be inaccurate) is that the treaties lack operative clauses. Think about it as the content provider's version of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but when push comes to shove, the Chinese whack all the dissidents they want anyway.

        So the WIPO treaties may recognize rights, but they don't offer significant remedies to enforce them.

        I can't imagine a treaty with operative anti-circumvention provisions couldn't get through WIPO without more noise than we've heard... though I'll have to take a look at them.

        Besides, if it was really bad, we would be knee-deep in indignant press releases from the EFF. ;)
  • Who comes knocking on my door if they decide I've violated their rules/laws?
    • Whichever "police" agency they have the most monitary influence in, in whatever country. Ain't corporate policing grand? It may be the first system to establish world wide rule. To bad it'll be simply a corporate twist on a global police state.

      I pleadge alegence to the flag, which is copywrited, patented, and trademarked by Liberty OmniCorp, 2002, of the United Corporate States of America, and to the corporate republic, for which it stands, one nation, under CEO, with power and profits for big business.

      ...an hyperbole, yes. But it seems to be getting closer and closer to the hyperbole with frightening speed.

  • The Truth about WIPO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hal_9000@!!!@ ( 152225 ) <slashdot@not-real.org> on Saturday February 23, 2002 @05:58PM (#3058501) Homepage Journal
    (You know, that unelected, unaccountable organization that lives in the Corporate back pockets)
    WIPO is a treaty. If one of the 177 countries is unhappy about being part of the WIPO treaty, they can leave. So the fact that a country is part of WIPO is indicitive of the will of the lawmaking body of the country. Furthermore, the treaty had to be ratified by each country, so it was elected. And to say that it lives in corporate back pockets indicates that you don't know much about WIPO. While it has capitalist goals, it is by no means controled by any company in any country.

    • That's what your government wants you to believe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @06:05PM (#3058522) Homepage Journal
      unhappy about being part of the WIPO treaty, they can leave

      Are you trolling?

      This treaty has been SHOVED down the throats of the "177 countries" by threats of catastrophic loss of trade agreements and obscene tolls by the USA. It's a "you're either with out entertainment industry or you're against us" treaty.

      • Re:That's what your government wants you to believ (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        They don't have to accept the treaty if they don't want to. The US is dependant on these foreign countries to buy our stuff. If 80% of them decided they didn't like the way things were they could change it. It would require international cooperation and some backbone.
    • And you don't know much about corporate greed and politics if you think that your statement and his are mutually exclusive.

    • Just look at the Ucraina (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Do you really think, that when the 800-lb. Gorilla
      USA waves the boycott-flag, you have a choice not to sign the treaty?!

      johnboy
      • But people here seem to think that Americans are being unfairly subjected to this "unelected" body, but the U.S. could easily leave if it wanted to.

        • Re:that's true (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cduffy ( 652 )
          The US is not just one "it". One of the benefits of the US constitution is separation of powers -- a great deal of cooperation is required for Congress to do anything; hence, in theory, laws are made quite slowly and only when they have support of most of the country (or, at least, people representing most of the country).

          The treaty-making process doesn't allow the same level of scrutiny -- the Executive branch is involved in their creation and the Senate gets little more choice than approve/deny. The House of Representatives (which tends to be closer to the public in terms of receiving feedback) has no place in the process whatsoever. The gist of this (even excluding the harm done to non-American participants) is that law is being made without the benefit of the full set of protections written into the US constitution, and thus that even if that segment of the public that cares is opposed to such a treaty, it's harder for that fact to reach those involved (and easier for those responsible for ratification to call destructive clauses something they couldn't get rid of lest the baby go with the bathwater -- after all, they only had the ability to confirm or deny the whole treaty!)

          In short, making law via treaties is a loophole entirely unanticipated by the Constitution, and an amendment (or Supreme Court ruling) is needed to abolish it.

    • The Truth about Economic Agreements (Score:5, Informative)

      by poemofatic ( 322501 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @07:26PM (#3058754)


      Your argument is missing some distinctions.

      First, "countries" are not atomic entities. There are interest groups within them. The RIAA/MPAA + media giants have their allies within many of the signatory countries. They would like nothing more than to control content and the means of distributing content completely. They would also like to control prices, limit competition, and some guranteed income in the form of hardware taxes.

      These groups have the advantage of money and organization, but the disadvanatge that many of them live in democratic countries. So to get what they want, they have to do an end run around the democratic process. One way to do this is with economic treaties, which are negotiated in secret, by the very groups who will benefit most from them, and are then passed on to legislatures to be rubber stamped.

      Why do the legislatures rubber stamp them? Well, for one thing, the lawmakers tend to be predisposed to favor this stuff in the first place, due to a variety of filters. For instance, in the US, to even be eligable to make a run for congress requires that you raise about $1,000,000/year from wealthy individuals. This means that our representatives are not exactly a "cross-section" of the population. So the lawmakers don't view the public as some group to be served, but as an annoying constituency which should be kept quiet and under control. I'm generalizing here, but the principle is fairly accuarate. In other countries there are other filters, of varying restrictiveness.

      Moreover, the media doesn't highlight these amendments. Where was the huge public debate about the Telecommunications Act? Where was the public debate about the DMCA? Why do these agreements slip under the radar? There is little discussion of them in the media -- unless through leaks or lack of control word spreads anyways, and then there is a rush to defend them. So the Nafta debate, which was caused only because Perot -- who can buy his own air time -- forced the issue onto the airwaves. And then there was a rush by the NYTimes, Washington Post, etc. to villify him and to not present the opposing views.

      Finally there is the method of bundling, by which these agreements are presented to congress without possibility to amend them, as part of a larger package, for a straight up or down vote. Threats of boycotts, higher tariffs, cutting of loans/aid are big clubs than can be used against other countries to get them to sign. But the key point is that the legislatures generally want to sign these things, and the aforementioned threats are provided as cover for them to say to their citizens -- "we had to do it."

      At the end of the day, you end up paying taxes when you buy a hard drive, and the police can arrest you for reverse engineering, even if your goal is to interoperate, or just provide a lower price substitute.

      I recommend reading an article about the derailed Multilateral Agreement on Investements [zmag.org] to see this dynamic at work. In the case of the MAI, media leaks, mostly on the internet, launched a grassroots effort to oppose the provisions of the MAI. This resulted in derailing the agreement as more and more of the provisions came to light, and public hearings in several countries were called. A brief excerpt:


      The [Wall Street] journal goes on to urge that it will be necessary "to drum up business support" so as to beat back the hordes [of people opposed to the MAI]. Until now, business hasn't recognized the severity of the threat. And it is severe indeed. "Veteran trade diplomats" warn that with "growing demands for greater openness and accountability," it is becoming "harder for negotiators to do deals behind closed doors and submit them for rubber-stamping by parliaments." "Instead, they face pressure to gain wider popular legitimacy for their actions by explaining and defending them in public," no easy task when the hordes are concerned about "social and economic security," and when the impact of trade agreements "on ordinary people's lives...risks stirring up popular resentment" and "sensitivities over issues such as enviromental and food safety standards." It might even become impossible "to resist demands for direct participation by lobby groups in WTO decisions, which would violate one of the body's central principles": "'This is the place where governments collude in private against their domestic pressure groups,' says a former WTO official."


      • you said: 'This means that our representatives are not exactly a "cross-section" of the population.'

        i get really sick and tired about hearing about how stupid our elected officials are, how stupid juries are, how stupid are, etc. then someone claims to want a "cross-section" of the population in congress or running the country, which would put all those "stupid" people in positions of influence.

        later on: "At the end of the day, you end up paying taxes when you buy a hard drive..."

        so what? i pay taxes when i buy milk at the convenience store. what's the problem?

        jon
        • i dont believe the parent to your post ever declaired our elected officials to be stupid. by the taxes portion i believe he was associating that by paying taxes you are paying for your government-a government which is pandering to corporations.
        • i get really sick and tired about hearing about how stupid our elected officials are..

          1) I didn't say that they were stupid -- my point was that the topics of debate were limited because of these filters. It's not a personal critique one way or another. Suppose a candidate wants to, say, limit IP rights and reform patent laws significantly. Well -- who would donate to his campaign? How would he raise the money needed to run? He wouldn't and so our representatives don't hold these opinions. So they support things like WIPO. I think that's a fairly straightforward remark.

          so what? i pay taxes when i buy milk at the convenience store. what's the problem?

          2) I was talking about paying "taxes" which are surcharges on storage media. The money goes to the content cartels. I'm not against paying taxes either, but they shouldn't go to private, unacountable monopolies. And I should have some say in how the money is spent. And the process should be decided on democratically. Is the saying "No taxation without representation" to radical for you?

          • in this particular comment i was correlating larger slashdot issues with your comment. i should have been more clear about the distinction.... for that i apologize.

            my point is that /.ers have a really bad habit of using ad hominem attacks when a simple factual debate would do. again, i am referring to /.ers in general (of whom i am one) and not you specifically. (see, i learn from my mistakes!)

            jon
      • Pretty much everything you've said relates to the flaws in the US lawmaking process, not WIPO. That's 1/177 down. The parent's post is still accurate: WIPO resolutions, like those of all other international bodies, require ratification by member-states before they have force of law. Think of WIPO et al like you would the W3C and its ilk: their only purpose is to write the standard; it's up to individual companies to impliment it as they like to. And in writing a resolution in WIPO, the influence of private interests is limited to their influence on member-states.

        The situation with international organzations as they stand right now is somewhat comprable to the situation in the former european colonies; locals had no official say in the running of their state. Until the second world war, the political focus of activists was mainly integration within the colonial government (i.e. more civil service positions, limited influence in the lawmaking process). After ww2, that focus shifted to control of the government (i.e. elections & self-government); it was the second focus which brought about real emancipation of the colonized. There is a parallel to this in WIPO: as it stands, people want more access and influence in the decision-making process. That's all well and good, but a much better goal (in my mind) would be to have direct representation in the bodies: voting for your UN rep, etc. While this won't solve all problems, it would be a much more elegant system than the current undemocratic resolution-writing/democratic ratification that currently exists.

        • hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

          by poemofatic ( 322501 )
          Pretty much everything you've said relates to the flaws in the US lawmaking process

          Yes:) I am an American. The little I know of the situation in the EU is that there are similar filters. There they take the form of a more class(and so wealth) based beauracracy which is so byzantine that no one can police it, and removed from popular influence by ever-increasing administrative layers. In the third world, with exceptions, politics are much more violent and dealing with popular pressures is not so much of an issue.

          That's 1/177 down. The parent's post is still accurate: WIPO resolutions, like those of all other international bodies, require ratification by member-states before they have force of law. Think of WIPO et al like you would the W3C ...

          Here in California, we have some direct democracy in the form of propositions each election cycle. We're routinely blitzed by commercials from groups such as "Concerned Citizens for Environmental Responsibility". If you read the bylaws of these groups, they claim to be just that -- a grassroots campaign to educate the public about environmental issues. But it's easy to see that the above group, say, is actually a front for oil companies who want to enable off shore drilling. It only exists to pass/derail some resolution and has a membership which you can count on your hand. Now, you can argue that if we democratically elect members to this group of concerned citizens, that the organization might be reformed and would then serve some useful purpose. I just have no idea why anyone would want to do that (see end of rant).

          This is pretty much the case with WIPO. Statements like "the US is only 1/177 of WIPO" " and "Corporations influence it only to the extent that they influence the member states" are only true in the actual WIPO bylaws, and --possibly -- some political science articles.

          In reality the US must be atleast 2/3 of WIPO (in terms of influence) and Europe maybe 1/3 -- the rest of the world, including China, constitutes a rounding error. And in terms of corporate influence, it's not only that the actual proposals are negotiated/written by corporate attorneys, many of whom don't even bother to take on govt. jobs, but most top governmental officials are unaware of what these lawyers agree to. This includes congressional chairs of foreign trade, although I imagine that the Bush Administration's top trade executive is occasionally briefed on the matter.

          In fact, the very existence of an orginization called "WIPO" already prejudices the situation, since the natural course of all developed countries has been to ignore (foreign) IP laws entirely -- except possibly limited rights of attribution. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that the US began to pay lip service to any foreign IP rights at all. And not until after WWI, when we confiscated many patents from Germany, did we even begin to take foreign IP rights seriously. Currently, even in the more developed countries, foreign IP rights were (and are) ignored on a selective basis. And so just the desire to codify and enforce IP laws worldwide is already a huge slap in the face of development efforts going on in the third world, and has no popular support in those countries.

          This is not like W3C or the UN; and it's difficult to imagine what a "democratic" world wide IP regime might be, other than some statement to the effect of "There should not be a worldwide IP regime".

    • "And to say that it lives in corporate back pockets indicates that you don't know much about WIPO."

      Well, ok, to be fair, governments live in corporate back pockets also.

  • WIPO (Score:2, Informative)

    by sanity_slipping ( 514239 )
    WIPO is the World Intellectual Property Organization. I don't know exactly what it is, it just sounds evil =].

    Although the treaties were adopted in 1996, they are only ratified now with the signature of Honduras. The WTTP is basically the DMCA for the rest of the world. It exists to "provide protection for companies in the cultural and information industries".

  • Good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @06:02PM (#3058515) Journal
    Hopefully music will get wrapped in enough red tape to drown out Britney & Westlife

    The musicians are just as guilty as the record companies and the RIAA and the rest of them. No-one forces you to sign to Sony Music or Thorn EMI.

    There's so much great music out there that's not distributed by the big corps you know, you don't *HAVE* to buy stuff from them.

    Let them do wtf they like with their music, who cares, let them drown in their own decadence.

    • I like this attitude actually - lets put our money into open music.

      Me to music companies - come on - what are you waiting for? bring it on!
      • I make a point of warezing music my lad likes so he gets a copy before he can waste his money on it!

        Do I really want to put food in Fred Durse's mouth? Do you really want more Steps & Hear'Say?

        Splashing their ill gotten gains around and flaunting themselves living it large and for what, a few plastic pop songs to fill up the airwaves of AOL/TW & Fox & MTV.

        Hopefully he'll see how manipulative the process is, in the meantime he can get down the the groove of the chocolate starfish and feel the acceptance of his peers, he even gets some false kudos for having stuff not released here etc.

        Do you actually believe the ability to learn some crappy dance routine and wear make up deserves million dollar rewards?

        I have argued on /. before :
        "oh but they entertain millions of people, they deserve it"

        well those millions are just gullable dupes, just like me, no er...

    • The artists are hooked on the RIAA, and us consumers (well, not me), are hooked on this weird notion that we just MUST have whatever our favorite artists happen to produce. Everyone's in it together.

      You KNOW that the artists aren't going to get clean- they've got too much at stake. The question is, when are the consumers ever going to get clean?
      • S'right. Greed & fame make terrible masters.

        "I want to be a pop star" seems an overwhelming dream for the attention starved nobodies.

        I've worked in the music business and to my mind talented people are ten a penny. Music is a relatively easy discipline. Sure, touring can be hard work but it's not in the same league as coal mining or sewing Nike trainers together. Most of the crap pumped through the big boy channels is just pretty young things acting as clothes hangers to people like Pete Waterman and Nigel Whatsit (the guy behind Westlife & co).

        The TV stations pump it up, hyping away at their new puppets so they can fill their airtime. Cosy deals between the big distributors of content put up invisible trade barriers. Mindless soporific pap to brainwash the nation into thinking that factory work is okay because as least I can fantasize about fucking Kylie when I wtach the Brit Awards tonight.

        As you can tell it just doesn't sit happily with me. Bitter? yeah, pint please and a bag of nuts.

  • Oh fooey.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by _Knots ( 165356 )
    The pessimist in me wants to say "bend over and kiss your ass goodbye" - the next step to a corporation-controlled digital age.
    Maybe (maybe) it will get better before it gets really bad, but reality's shaping up a lot like this. [gnu.org]
    Can anybody point a link to a list of all the countries that have so far bought into this?

  • I heard Ralph Nader speak a few months ago... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by I Want GNU! ( 556631 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @06:05PM (#3058521) Homepage
    And he was worried that global organizations were hurting national sovereignty, if I interpreted his speech correctly. He was talking about organizations like the World Trade Organization whose agreements bind member nations to follow their policy above their own local laws, or be punished. It isn't just the national organiztaions that we must pay attention to now, but international ones like the World Intellectual Property Organizations whose treaties bind their members to follow their laws, for better or for worse.
    • Too bad Nader and consumer advocates in general don't have billions of dollars in profits on their side.
      I don't agree with everything Nader says but I might if he had an expensive marketing department that specialized in manipulating people's ideas.

      I agree that we should value our national sovereignty above any of the Wxx organizations. (Can you imagine Germany suing the USA for copying its jet plane ideas without proper patent licensing during WW2?)

    • And he was worried that global organizations were hurting national sovereignty, if I interpreted his speech correctly. He was talking about organizations like the World Trade Organization whose agreements bind member nations to follow their policy above their own local laws, or be punished. It isn't just the national organiztaions that we must pay attention to now, but international ones like the World Intellectual Property Organizations whose treaties bind their members to follow their laws, for better or for worse.

      International organizations probably do hurt your national sovereignty if you are American. But for the many smaller or poorer countries in the world, the international organizations at least allow them to negotiate as a block rather than bidirectionally with the much more powerful western countries. That increases their ability to strike deals in their own favour. Of course the US can always refuse to ratify any that they don't like, such as the Kyoto protocol or the UN Convention on the Rights of Children.

    • National sovereignty is an outdated and fast fading notion - look at the extraordinary transformation Europe is undergoing barely 50 years after nationalism devastated that continent. It is particularly dissapointing that those on the political left are suddenly discovering the "virtues" of nationalism. National boundaries are arbitrary and dangerous divisions between people. More wars have been fought on the basis of what we now call "national interest" than for any other cause, even religion.

      One of the great advantages of the Net is that it disregards national boundaries. The world is moving away from the narrow perspective of the nation state; its a shame that Mr. Nader is getting himself so mired in this tired idea.

      Which is not to say that trans-national organizations like WIPO, WTO and the European Union shouldn't be democratic and transparent: they should. But we should welcome the death of the nation state, not mourn it.
      • A big part of the problem with a One World Government is the people who are making this version. It is being formed by the most elite of the elite. And, of course, they will set it up to extend their own power.

        The leftist support of nationalism is not a support of the nations that exist, but something like admitting that those nations, while messed up, are easier to fix than a world government -- the number of levels of obfuscation, obstruction, and entrenchment are fewer. It's easy to see that politics can be more easily effected by individuals the smaller the scale. Nader didn't do too well nationally, but Green Party candidates have won seats in local government. It's similar on the right.

        Perhaps a global government could be set up to allow democratic participation and to not hoard power. But the current is obviously not that government, and the people who are making this new world government have clearly shown that they do not care for democracy. I do think it's a bit negative to then talk down world government entirely... too often, when we see something bad being created we become conservatives. Instead it would be better to offer a different solution, to provide alternatives instead of being reactionary. But I can't blame the naysayers -- first do no harm, after all.

        And, of course, a world government tends not to allow alternatives. That's what law is about -- you don't get to choose your law (especially when it covers every part of the globe) and you don't choose whether to obey it. You can't say, "I will work to make this one place better" if it's in conflict with the world government. You can't ban products, you can't even demand they be labelled. Increasingly you cannot try to inform the public about products. You can't decide how information should be free to use. That's what they are doing now, who knows what they'll do later -- I only see it getting worse, not better.

    • ...forcing their will upon poor innocent countries but WTO, WIPO is just like say EU, UN, NATO or any other international organization. They are completely voluntary organizations, and they make rules for how one must act to take part. The treaties they come up with are the (weighted) sum of the laws they would want individually.

      As in every other case, some viewpoints will be voted down to reach a common result, but that's the reason they bothered to come together in the first place. If everybody was to it their own way anyway, what would be the point?

      Of course politicans will try to blame unpopular laws on somebody else, and an international body for which constituents don't vote is a perfect excuse. If you'll let them get off the hook by saying "we had to follow WIPO policy", you've lost already.

      Kjella
    • Well, what exactly are we talking about when it comes to "punishment"? Black helicopters out of which jump Army Rangers and SAS commandoes to execute the impertenent leaders who dared defy the WTO?

      Nope. The only enforcement action legal under WTO rules is retalatory trade barriers. Which countries like the U.S. could legally impose unilaterally if there wasn't a WTO.

      Here's an analogy. You and a friend form The Dating Club. The club has various rules, one of which is that you can't date someone another memeber is going out with. If you break any of the rules, however, other members of the club are no longer bound by the rule that they can't date people you are going out with.

      So, if you aren't a member, the club rules don't protect you from members of the club dating your boy/girlfriend. If you are a member, the only punishment for breaking the rules is that the rules don't protect you from members of the club dating your boy/girlfriend. And if the club ceased to exist tomorrow, no rules would be protecting you from any other people dating your boy/girlfriend.

      The only "power" the WTO has is to withdraw its protection, a protection that wouldn't exist if the WTO didn't exist.

  • WIPO? Why is slashdot covering a story on a new brand of toilet paper?

    Oooops... should have read the article before posting.

    Nevermind.

  • WIPO got it's eyes on the prize (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danspalding ( 560127 ) <teachrdan@gmail.com> on Saturday February 23, 2002 @06:24PM (#3058592) Homepage Journal
    Just because the treaty was ratified by 177 countries doesn't mean it was democratic. After all, what does the US do if we don't like other countries' policies? We strongarm investors to suck all their capital out of the country until they do what we tell them to. And if they go along with our policies, we reward them (or at least their corrupt leaders) with massive loans from the World Bank or IMF.

    The point is that these policies are getting more universal and more severe. Take a look at the article last week about the Chinese government's firewall built by eager US corporations. We're getting to the point where the internet no longer guarantees that information will be free (like speech or beer).

    Between laws enforcing intellectual property, technology that can monitor and censor internet traffic, and governments cracking down on terrorism and digital theft, we risk losing the promise of the internet.

    International treaties like this one are as important to the slashdot community as anything Bill Gates or George Bush does.

    (Now we just have to find effective ways to fight back)

    • Suck out capital?

      If only they were so nice.
      No, the SOA and CIA go in there and put in a nice fascist puppet government until the dictator feels his police state built by the US is strong enough to resist the US. Then we go replace him with another. And so on. In the name of democracy.

      Or if they're lucky, the impoverished nation turns to the IMF to loan them money in return for certain conditions which will lock the country in debt and poverty and reliant on foreign capital.

      There are plenty of other versions; consult your local library.
  • There are many organizations not appointed by the public or any election, and these are called de facto organizations. Most of the time these organizations exist because the government wants to do something that the public would never support, such as a fascist war on the citizens (DEA). These organizations have their own laws and regulate themselves, and do not have to pay attention to the opinions of us peasants.

  • compare to DMCA (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mbrx ( 525713 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @06:31PM (#3058614)
    Can this treaty realy be compared to the DMCA. As I see it the worst part about the DMCA - restricting the freedom of speech by outlawing the *construction* of circumvention devices (read programs) - is not present in this treaty. The clost they get to this seem to be Article 18 and 19 which I interpred solely as forbing the *use* of said devices/programs. Which of course is bad that too... but not as bad as the DMCA.

  • Region codes for music would be an atrocity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ilan Volow ( 539597 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @06:42PM (#3058640) Homepage
    It's bad enough that there are some great foreign films that will be probably never viewed in the United States because they are a different region (which negates travelling and legally buying the DVD and brining it back) and distributors do not consider the films worthy enough to port over to region 1. But to think that one day people might be denied exposure to music from the world's many cultures for the same reason is barbaric.

    • I don't know how it stands in the US, but the habit in the UK now days is either to flash the firmware for the DVD drive, buy it preflashed with region free firmware or for the terribly paranoid simply buy a couple more. At $30 a drive the cost for foreign film viewing is somewhat lower than the cost of a PAL/NTSC convertor 8)

  • Is that there is nowhere to flee too. If you want a country with electricity, medical resources, and lack of local warfare then you're stuck with the vast majority of these crappy treaties.

  • I give up. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23, 2002 @07:02PM (#3058697)
    That's it, since most of my personal effects are music recordings, I now OWN virtually nothing.... and since I'm a musician, did I mention that any attempt to gain a wider audience will result in some huge, monolithic corporation dictating what I can play.... Just licensed to a slimy tentacle of the great machine that'll control all of us in 10 years or so...

    In the meantime, I plan to move somewhere out of the way and raise sheep. Call me when it's time to mechanically tattoo the barcode on my forehead.

  • Anti-Music? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rayonic ( 462789 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @07:20PM (#3058744) Homepage Journal
    "...has ratified a anti-music piracy treaty"

    I assume you meant "anti-music-piracy" or "anti music-piracy" but I like your version better. ;-)
    Seems like all these damned laws are anti-music.

  • A little Background (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thumbtack ( 445103 ) <thumbtack@@@juno...com> on Saturday February 23, 2002 @07:37PM (#3058799)
    This was lobbyed for very heavily by the IFPI and the RIAA. Jason Berman is the head of the IFPI (and the former head of the RIAA, he reccommended Hilary Rosen to replace him. He is based out out New York and has been a steady fixture at the WIPO meeting and debates. One has to ask why the head of an organization based in London, lives in New York, unless this was the plan all along. He is a former Warner Bros exec and a Senate aide. While we were watching the Hilary, Berman was expanding US copyright policy to the world. More on Berman. [boycott-riaa.com]

  • Scary Part (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chagrin ( 128939 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @08:16PM (#3058947) Homepage
    • the performer shall, as regards his live aural performances or perfomances fixed in phonograms, have the right ... to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of his performances that would be prejudicial to his reputation.
    So, for example, if I take a video of Eminem and pick out the more inflammatory parts, under the rules of fair use, to demonstrate his use of hate speech ... this would be illegal?

  • Has anyone actually read the thing? (Score:3, Informative)

    by JoeBuck ( 7947 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @08:39PM (#3059010) Homepage

    Here is the only language in the treaty [wipo.org] concerning anti-circumvention measures:

    Obligations concerning Technological Measures

    Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by performers or producers of phonograms in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty and that restrict acts, in respect of their performances or phonograms, which are not authorized by the performers or the producers of phonograms concerned or permitted by law.

    A Contracting Party is a country that has signed the treaty. Note that the above language only requires countries to punish people who used a technological measure to violate a performer's rights, that is, to punish people who use technological measures to do piracy. A signer is not obliged to implement something like the DMCA; a far narrower law would suffice to comply with the treaty.

    • Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by performers or producers of phonograms in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty and that restrict acts, in respect of their performances or phonograms, which are not authorized by the performers or the producers of phonograms concerned or permitted by law.

      Note the language here: Everything is forbidden unless the government or the "content" provider grants express permission.

      This default configuration setting is incorrect, because it is socially oppressive. It is the setting used by totalitarian regimes, both public and private; republican and monarchical. It is an evolutionary dead-end.

      The correct configuration setting would be that all uses and actions are permitted unless expressly forbidden by law, or by a contract signed by both parties (none of this shrinkwrap/clickwrap horsesh*t). This setting makes it hard to oppress the populace, which is what you want.

      ...Unless you're a greedy, power-mongering, little tinpot dictator.

      Schwab

  • Protect the children from phonography! Phonography is all over the internet, and the League for Moral Turpitude will stop at nothing to destroy this exploitative industry!

    DOWN WITH PHONOGRAPHY!

  • Where's the Bricker Amendment When you need it? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @10:13PM (#3059265)
    Here's an interesting little snipped from Article VI of the US Constitution [cornell.edu] that most of you probably didn't know about (emphasis mine):

    This Constitution... and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.

    The Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that international treaties hold the same weight as the Constitution. [cornell.edu] This means that if a WIPO treaty trumps the First Amendment, you're up a creek.

    Back in the 1950's there was a bill floating around Congress known as the Bricker Amendment that would have forbade Congress from ratifying a treaty (only requires 2/3 of the Senate) that would require a constituational amendment to do otherwise (which requires 2/3 of both houses and then 2/3 of the states). It didn't pass. Do a Google for more info.

    This means that a group of people who we don't have any control over for six years at a time can trump the Constitution whenever 67 of them agree to. (Yet another reason to repeal the 17th, probably.)

    There's been a new interest in the Bricker Amendment in recent years from the political right and other groups, but I don't think anything's been really done about it.

    BEGIN subtleHint();

    Perhaps if we all wrote to our Congresscritters [house.gov] and Senators [senate.gov] and bitched about the lack of such a law protecting us from abuses in WIPO and WTO something might get done about it.

    END subtleHint();
    • The Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that international treaties hold the same weight as the Constitution. [cornell.edu] This means that if a WIPO treaty trumps the First Amendment, you're up a creek.

      Not so sure about this. I'm no Constitutional scholar, but this Article says to me that federal law (including the Constitution, laws and treaties) all trump state constitutions and laws (since the next part of the text reads, "and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."). As far as the states are concerned, yes, international treaties hold the same weight as the Constitution. However, this does not mean that the treaties can trump the Constitution itself.
      • "However, this does not mean that the treaties can trump the Constitution itself."

        In Missouri v. Holland (the case I linked to in the text you quoted), the Supreme Court ruled that a treaty granted Congress the right to pass laws it otherwise wouldn't have been allowed to pass (because of the Tenth Amendment in this case). Of course the limits of this are fuzzy because the Tenth Amendment talks about stuff that isn't explicitly stated, and it is explicitly stated that Congress has the power to make sure we stay within the bounds of a treaty.

        On the flip side, we have Reid v. Covert which says things that are explicity stated in the Constitution still trump treaties. So things are maybe alright again.

        Except then we have United States v. Pink, where we learn that executive agreements (like treaties, only they only have an effect as long as the current president agrees to them, and Congress isn't involved) are treated as treaties when looking at the precedent set back by Missouri v. Holland. And this is worrisome in this case because because the First Amendment only keeps Congress from limiting your speech, not the president. Whether or not he'd get impeached after trying it depends on who's in Congress at the time, and we're 0 for 2 so far for convictions in presidential impeachments.

        I'm no scholar either, this is just stuff I've pieced together from Google.
    • Actually, there's a precedent out there (I know, I know, a precedent isn't any good if you can't cite it) that a federal statute can overturn a treaty. That is, a treaty is just a law like any other.

      Yes, the precedents contradict one another. But basically, the 10th Amendment is considered essentially a dead letter, to bend whenever any other federal power can be brought, however indirectly, upon the matter. So, since making treaties is a granted power, any actions necessary to fulfill them don't violate the 10th.

  • WIPO ratified? What about *Congress* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Saturday February 23, 2002 @10:31PM (#3059308) Homepage Journal
    Doesn't the constitution specify that no treaty
    is effective or binding unless ratified by Congress?

    Now I know that much of the Constitution is
    an irrelevant theoretic excercise, since Roosevelt
    established an autocratic presidency by threatening
    to pack the supreme court in order to get the
    grotesquely unconstitutional ruling of washburn
    in 1942, but surely this core element of the
    document is still in force!

  • Definitions? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Discopete ( 316823 )
    IANAL: But....

    from Article 2: Definitions...
    (b) "phonogram" means the fixation of the sounds of a performance or of other sounds, or of a representation of sounds other than in the form of a fixation incorporated in a cinematographic or other audiovisual work;

    (c) "fixation" means the embodiment of sounds, or of the representations thereof, from which they can be perceived, reproduced or communicated through a device;

    (d) "producer of a phonogram" means the person, or the legal entity, who or which takes the initiative and has the responsibility for the first fixation of the sounds of a performance or other sounds, or the representations of sounds;

    If would appear that if a musician were to make a cassette recording of a song before going into the studio, their producer would in fact not have intellectual property rights to it.
    IF this is the case, then the WIPO just managed to shoot themselves in the foot.

    Article 21
    Reservations
    Subject to the provisions of Article 15(3), no reservations to this Treaty shall be permitted.

    It would also appear, juding from article 21, that if any section of the treaty conflicts with national law and is struck down, that the entire treaty is rendered null and void. OR (depending on how you read it) that the treaty in fact overrides any national law (DMCA) and in agreeing to this treaty, the nationality agrees to either reform or abolish any law that conflicts with it.

    Article 28
    Signature of the Treaty
    This Treaty shall be open for signature until December 31, 1997, by any Member State of WIPO and by the European Community.

    Also going on to Article 28, did the treaty get the required 30 signatures before December 31, 1997?
    If not then it would appear that the entire teaty is null and our lawmakers have been wasting our money and time
    (like this is anything new).

    ----------

  • It seems to me that the author of the cited article as well as the referenced publication are missing a few salient facts.

    1). In the US anyway all treaties must be ratified by Congress. It's specified as such in the US Constitution. Anything WIPO does cannot have force of law in the US without ratification by the US Congress. The last time I looked the US Congress was both accountable and elected.

    2). The article clearly states that the WIPO treaty does not override national laws.

  • My fear is it will always be illegal to download decss or use any device such as linux that doesn't support drm. It won't matter if the DMCA is appealed or not because its an international crime under the wipo act. This scare the f*cking shit out of me! Not this law per say but the mere power such an organization will have.

    The whole idea of having different branches of government is for accountability and potential abuse of power. Its called checks and balances. Other governments besides the American one state that the police and FBI may only enforce laws only! Not make laws. And the legislative branch may only write laws but NOT enforce them. This protects governments from dictators.

    But is there any branch of government that the wipo can be checked and balanced from? The EU also scares me. The officials are not elected but appointed and have no checks or balances either. They could write a dmca equalivant and it WILL NEVER BE APPEALED. Globalization in this style could be disaster. But the scariest of this whole mess is I am conservative and not one of the anti globalization zealots. I hate government interaction but it seems that extreme corporatism is making the governments move so far to the right that they began to resemble the left. Ask any political science professor about this. Politics is like a clock. Someone who is extremely left or right may actually resemble each other more then someone near the center.

    As a republican I will proudly support McCain during the next presidential primaries. We need to take our government back from corporate extremists on the far right and left of both parties and end totalitarian globalization now before we lose all our rights!

  • Does anyone know why the WIPO Phonograms and Performances Treaty is called WTTP?

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