[nobe-l] Will the U.S. Senate Allow Big Media to Hold Blind People for Ransom?

[S. Kashdan]

Will the U.S. Senate Allow Big Media to Hold Blind People for Ransom?



by Jeremy Malcolm and  Maria Paz Canales



Electronic Frontier Foundation, March 17, 2015



https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/03/will-us-senate-hold-blind-people-ransom-big-media



In Jewish religious law, there is an offence called lifnei iver (literally,
“before the blind”), that prohibits placing stumbling blocks before blind
people, deriving from a verse of scripture also accepted by Christians and
Muslims. This offense seems so obvious that it hardly requires a scripture
verse to call it out. But the authors of the Torah obviously didn't count on
the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), who are doing exactly
that.



The stumbling block in question is a reported attempt to link the
ratification of a WIPO treaty for people who are blind (the Marrakesh Treaty
to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and
Persons with Print Disabilities) with the ratification of a completely
unrelated and earlier treaty, the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances
that benefits the motion picture industry.



The United States has already signed both treaties, but merely signing a
treaty does not make it law; that also requires it to be sent to the U.S.
Senate and approved with a two-third majority, after which the President can
formally ratify it and thereby commit the United States to comply with it.
Some treaties may also require Congress to pass legislation to implement the
obligations that the treaty sets out.



The Marrakesh Treaty doesn't require any such legislation for its
implementation—since it already accords with US law. The United States
therefore can and should show leadership by ratifying this treaty
immediately, and thereby bringing it closer to the 20 ratifying states that
it requires before it comes into effect. This would bring the written word
to millions of blind, visually impaired and print disabled people from
around the world, who are currently starved of books. It's a no-brainer.



Not so the Beijing Treaty. This treaty would bestow new 50-year
copyright-like rights upon audiovisual performers such as actors, musicians
and dancers—who are generally already paid for their work when they perform.
So what good is this extra layer of added monopoly rights? You won't be
surprised to learn that it benefits the corporate rightsholders, who in most
cases will require the performers to sign away their rights.



The Beijing Treaty acknowledges this reality through a provision that allows
the full transfer of rights to the producer of an audiovisual work; a
provision that was prompted by the U.S. delegation during the last round of
negotiation of the treaty, in response to Hollywood demands [PDF]. Thus,
these new monopoly rights will serve only to enlarge the bulging copyright
portfolios of the motion picture industry, leaving performers no better off
than before.



Incredibly, it gets worse. The treaty would also allow “performers” (which,
remember, usually means Hollywood producers) to restrict the availability of
their performances, years after they have already been made public. A
current case that foreshadows this is the decision in Garcia v. Google, Inc,
whereby a professional, paid film actor is suing to prevent the distribution
of her performance. This essentially amounts to censorship of the film, of
which her performance was only a small part. During argument in this case
(which is subject to appeal), a Ninth Circuit judge expressly referred to
the Beijing Treaty, suggesting that it supported the actor's case—or would
do, if it were law.



The potential ramifications of this are vast and troublesome: performers
(or, in practice, the companies to whom they transfer their rights) could
create new roadblocks to the creation of parodies, mash-ups or new versions
of their performances, independent of copyright. It would further complicate
the process of clearing rights to audiovisual works, and cast a new legal
cloud of uncertainty over the activities of creators and producers who build
on audiovisual works in compliance with copyright law.



The Beijing Treaty would also require U.S. law to be changed to recognize a
new set of “moral rights” of performers, which include the right to
attribution for a performance, and the right to preserve its “integrity”.
Moral rights are strongly recognized in civil law countries such as France,
but the United States has always resisted recognizing them—and for good
reason. Whilst it is fair that an artist receives attribution for their
work, to allow them to control how the performance is used after its
fixation goes too far. It impinges upon the separate First Amendment rights
of the producer of an audiovisual work, limiting their creative freedom to
meld the contributions of performers into a unified whole copyright work.



At a bare minimum, if the U.S. is to implement the Beijing Treaty, then it
is imperative that the "fair use" right is fully extended to the new regime,
to limit the impact of the new performers' rights on legitimate uses of
their performances.



But we would much rather the treaty was simply abandoned as the thoroughly
bad idea that it is. Would this put the United States in breach of its
international obligations? Hardly; the US often signs treaties that it later
decides not to ratify. Many of these are far more important than the Beijing
Treaty—they include the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights (CESCR), the Kyoto Protocol, the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) the
Convention on Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and even the Convention
on the Rights of the Child (for which the only other hold-outs are Somalia
and South Sudan).



So the reason for linking the Beijing Treaty with the Marrakesh Treaty is
pretty obvious. Normally the Senate might look askance at approving an
untested, special-interest treaty that will require changes to US law, all
for the benefit of wealthy Hollywood studios (or maybe not… but we can
dream). However, when you link it to a treaty that would help millions of
blind people around the world, then opposing the Beijing Treaty becomes much
politically tougher, even for well-meaning Senators who might otherwise have
reservations.



Linking these treaties together is a thoroughly immoral proposition. In
other words, it's typical MPAA Capitol Hill politics. Placing stumbling
blocks before the blind.