UN Trying to Kill Podcasting?
So there’s some movement at WIPO that Cory Doctorow (in Boing Boing) and others argue will be bad news for podcasting. I can’t get my head around what’s on the table, but it’s related to Webcasting and DRM, and the problem seems to be requiring special permission from a host to distribute even creative commons licensed content. Anyway, if WIPO’s around, I assume it’s not all that great. Here’s what Cory has to say:
The UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization has reconvened to discuss a treaty to kill innovative Internet audio/video offerings — like podcasting, YouTube, Google Video, and Democracy Player — in order to protect the business models of a few entrenched broadcasters. This is the Broadcast Treaty, and the process — never pretty — got uglier than ever today.
He goes on:
… Webcasting and DRM — are deadly for podcasters. Podcasting services rely on the ability to mirror, aggregate, index, process, convert and host podcasts, and hundreds of thousands of podcasts are licensed to explicitly permit this kind of work. But once you need permission from hosting companies like Yahoo before you can index, and once it’s illegal to break copy-restriction formats to analyze the podcasts they contain, it’s game over.
Check the EFF post about it.
(thanks to the ever-vigilant digital copyright canada for the tip)
