WIPO webcasting treaty - Boyle

James Boyle has another article in the FT today.

He criticises intellectual property policy making because:

1. It is never based on empirical evidence.
2. It is done through deals between large industries with the public interest neglected.
3. It regulates communications networks increasingly directly and not very well.

And continues:

"The World Intellectual Property Organisation has now managed to combine all three lamentable tendencies at once. The Broadcasting and Webcasting Treaty, currently being debated in Geneva, is an IP hat trick...

WIPO is in the grip of the belief that more rights are better...

Eventually, a new treaty will be produced. A new round of “harmonisation” will begin – upwards, always upwards. An unnecessary set of rights will have been created and created without evidence, perhaps reaching the heart of our new communications technology. And the lobbyists will return to their desks to plan again. Perhaps the growing furore about the webcast right will drive it off the agenda eventually. Yet the larger pattern of making decisions without evidence, as a contract among the affected industries, will continue. This is a scandal. But at WIPO, it is business as usual."