17 November 2020
Oral statement of Knowledge Ecology International – agenda item 5 – Protection of broadcasting organizations.
New measures to address signal theft are one thing. But durable post-fixation rights to entities that just retransmit works by authors, performers and producers, is a bad idea.
Post fixation rights are controversial because they create thickets of related rights that make it more costly and difficult to clear, lead to perpetual protection if assigned at the time of each broadcast, and create a massive expansion of rights to non-creative entities, if extended to webcasting.
The biggest beneficiaries will be Pandora, Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, and other giant technology firms. The proposed treaty would extend to services like Tik Tok, Youtube and Facebook.
None of these rapidly growing technology platforms are asking for or need the proposed related right.
