A remarkably unacceptable treaty proposal is currently being pushed through the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization"s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, seemingly concieved by the RIAA and MPAA and backed by traditional old-line media businesses. The Broadcasting Treaty, currently undergoing review at a UN convention in Geneva, Switzerland, contains passages that would severely restrict the concepts of fair use and freedom of speech—on a global level. IP Watch has an excellent overview of the issues:
The proposed broadcasting treaty would create entirely new global rights for broadcasting companies who have neither created nor own the programming. What"s even more alarming is the proposal from the United States that the treaty regulate the Internet transmission of audio and video entertainment.
It is dangerous and inappropriate for an unelected international treaty body to undertake the task of creating entirely new rights, which currently exist in no national law, such as webcasting rights and anti-circumvention laws related to broadcasting. A global treaty is not the place for experimentation with new rights, but rather for the harmonization of existing legal norms. WIPO treads on shaky ground by proposing to create new rights that no elected body in the world has yet agreed to.