The scope of a potential World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) broadcasting...

the treaty that includes transmission of broadcasting over the Internet. The exclusion of “non-traditional” platforms in the attempt to protect broadcasters against “signal-piracy” would mean ignoring the real problem, the South African Delegation said. “A treaty that does not provide protection against signal theft using new forms of technology would not be worth concluding in the 21st century,” the U.S. delegate said during the debate. Delegations that were not ready to go beyond protection for traditional broadcasters, she said, perhaps would find it important to protect their traditional broadcasters against “unscrupulous actors who stream their signal over the Internet.” But several countries are opposed to including Internet distribution of broadcasts in the treaty. Japan presented an alternative proposal that explicitly excludes webcasting, including simulcasting by the broadcasting organizations. India’s representative announced fundamental opposition to what the delegate said would be an extension of the original mandate for the broadcasting treaty, as defined by the WIPO General Assembly in 2007. Several nations, including Brazil and Venezuela, also were against expanding the broadcasting treaty, while not advancing faster on the treaty for copyright exceptions for the blind and visually impaired.