I’ve been in Geneva for the past three days, where the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee
on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR 11) has been meeting to consider a treaty to protect broadcasters’ rights. Thanks to Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology, an unprecedented number of public-interest oriented non-governmental organizations — including CPTech, , UPD, IP Justice, Public Knowledge, and EDRi — attended and intervened at the meeting to raise concerns about preserving the public’s rights in the face of expanded “broadcast protection.” We also spoke with many governmental delegations and other NGOs about our concerns that this treaty would mandate international adoption of technological protection measures like the U.S. broadcast flag.

We also brought new transparency to the rather closed process of treaty preparation. To that end, we’ve posted notes taken collaboratively with SubEthaEdit (a great Mac collaboration app) —
Notes from the full Standing Committee meeting.

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I’m flattered to have been invited to speak at two exciting events:
Supernova 2004, June 24-25 in Santa Clara, and BlogOn 2004 - The Business of Social Media, July 23 in Berkeley.

I’ll be talking about how intellectual property rights should be exercised — versus the way they often are. This isn’t a message just for activists and individuals, but one for businesses and corporations as well: You can court your customers or you can threaten to sue them. In the long run those who offer better value and better service will succeed over those who bully.

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