Podcasters' Rights and the WIPO Broadcast Treaty

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, GPL licences, "free forever" licences (in whatever form) are legitimate and must be upheld in perpetuity.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Podcasters' Rights and the WIPO Broadcast Treaty Petition to World Intellectual Property organization (WIPO) was created by and written by Dean Whitbread (deanw@ukpodcasters.org.uk).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

Send this to a friend