New IP Treaty Looming?

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article by James Boyle in the Financial Times, the United States is helping push a Treaty that would create an entirely new type of intellectual property right in the US, in addition to copyright, covering anything that is broadcast or webcast. (Regardless of whether the work was in the public domain, Creative Commons Licensed etc, the broadcaster would control any copies made from the broadcast for 50 years.) Boyle argues that this is dumb, unconstitutional, and anyway should be debated domestically first."

Our country...

[grasshoppa]

Our country is run by lawyers. No where is this more obvious than when seeing the lawmaking process. Greased palms, closed door deals.

I have a solution, however. The problem is there are too many lawyers. They have no natural predator, as it were. I propose,then, a lawyer hunting season. Say, from Sept to March. Trophies are based on bank account size.

Of course, mounting your kill is perfectly acceptable.

I'm sure

[LoonyMike]

...Piratbyrån's opinion will be taken into account.

Re:Our country...

[Marsmensch]

Of course, mounting your kill is perfectly acceptable.

You pervert! These are lawyers were talking about!

Re:Our country...

[Namlak]

Of course, mounting your kill is perfectly acceptable.

Dibs on Marcia Clark!

If you want to mount her, be my guest!

Re:Our country...

[gstoddart]

Of course, mounting your kill is perfectly acceptable.

Eeeewwww!!!

Mounting a dead lawyer? That's rather ghoulish don't you think?

Repackaged content deserves copyright?!

[erroneus]

Are you kidding me?! Take some free content and repackage it and suddenly it gets a copyright? There's GOT to be a way I can use this... I've got it!

I'm going to repackage "The King James Version" and other versions of "The Bible" and then sue every church that attempts to teach from it.

Re:Unconstitutional?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> Since the Constitution is the law of the land...

You misspelled "greed".

Re:Our country...

[Midnight Thunder]

We have too many lawyers because we have too many laws. Eliminate the excess laws, and we'll have less lawyers as a side effect.

But we have too many laws, because we have too many lawyers, therefore we need too many lawyers - etc.

Re:So who's the broadcaster?

[Kadin2048]

Whoever buys the most members of Congress in order to have himself legislated the broadcaster, duh.

I'll give you a hint: it won't be the guy with the server farm.

Re:Unconstitutional?

[stinerman]

The Constitution is the law of the land...

Well ... in theory anyway. ;-)

Re:Unconstitutional?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of you forgot to look at the bottom of the Constitution...you'll find a Presidential Signing Statement from Bush indicating he won't be held to the constitution.

Marvelous

[nbannerman]

Dear US Government,

Get stuffed.

Yours sincerely,

The Rest of the World.

I have no problem with the US introducing stupid laws in their own country. But why on earth does this need to be pushed into the WIPO? Surely there are more important things to be worrying about than yet more rules to line the pockets of big business?

Re:Our country...

[dufachi]

Why not just give Dick Cheney a gun in each hand at a lawyer convention while letting quail fly around the room?

Re:Come on...

[Cheapy]

If we don't want it to pass, all we gotta do is say that homosexuals will be able to marry.

Re:Unconstitutional? - Nope.

[Shelled]

"I actually am a constitutional scholar."....."I must've been a horrible person in my last life, 'cause I came back as a guy on the help desk."

I think it's tremendous your country is willing to fund a help desk to resolve Constitutional dilemmas. That degree of faith in civic duty is becoming increasingly rare. =D