shouting loudly

In the latest round of developing US copyright law via unaccountable delegations to international policy bodies, the PTO and Copyright Office are helping to concoct a WIPO treaty that would give a scary new para-copyright to broadcasters.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is currently considering what is often referred to as the “broadcast treaty,” most drafts of which would give broadcasters a new layer of rights, on top of copyright, to control the reuse of anything they broadcast. For more on why this is a terrible idea, see these Public Knowledge and EFF pages.

While the specifics of the treaty warrant more discussion than I have time to provide here, the process says it all. Rather than approaching Congress to lobby for a policy change, the PTO and Copyright Office are headed straight to WIPO, a profoundly friendly venue with zero democratic accountability. Then, after getting the treaty ratified, they can go to Congress and insist that international law leaves legislators with no choice.

The dynamic is sometimes referred to as policy laundering. This term has a lot of descriptive power and, as a bonus, an implicit metaphorical link with money laundering.

For more on the use of various international strategies such as policy laundering, see Ian Hosein, The Sources of Laws: Policy Dynamics in a Digital and Terrorized World, 20 The Info. Soc’y 187 (2004).

Jessica Litman details the policy laundering that led to Title I of the DMCA in Digital Copyright (2001).

Also, though he does not use the term policy laundering, props to William Patry for this inspirational post on the crafting of the broadcast treaty. He has more details on this process and some valuable links.