'All that is required for evil to triumph,' wrote Edmund Burke, 'is for good men to do nothing'. His words came to mind last week as I read the daily reports from Geneva about the meeting of the standing committee on copyright and related rights of the (Wipo). The meeting was assembled to discuss a draft treaty to 'protect' broadcasters and broadcasting signals.
For 'protect' read 'unprecedented, restrictive and anti-social powers'. If enacted, this treaty would require countries to change their laws to grant broadcasters astonishing freedoms. These include: 'the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the fixation [copying/recording] of their broadcasts'; 'the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the direct or indirect reproduction, in any manner or form, of fixations of their broadcasts'; 'the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the retransmission, by wire or wireless means, whether simultaneous or based on fixations, of their broadcasts'; and other rights, including control of exhibition and distribution of recordings of broadcasts.
In addition, signatories would be required 'to provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures' that are used by broadcasting organisations to secure their new rights. Most scandalous of all, the draft proposes that these new rights should apply for 50 years.
This treaty would undermine many of the public's rights under the copyright laws of most countries. It would, for example, eliminate my right to record off-air without the permission of a broad caster, or to copy a recording from one medium to another (eg from tape to DVD).
When I first saw the draft (it was published in April), I assumed it must have been written by executives at Fox, NBC and other US TV networks while high on cocaine, because it read like a wish-list of everything a failing industry could want to protect it from the future.
It is a control-freak's charter. This is predictable, because an obsession with control has worked its way into the industry's DNA. Broadcasting is a few-to-many medium: a small number of content-providers decide what is to be offered, produce the content, and push it to passive consumers. Central to the broadcasting ethos is a desire to control the viewer, to restrict choice to the menus chosen by the industry - like Skinnerian pigeons pecking at coloured levers to obtain food.
The problem is that emerging digital technologies undermine control-freakery. Digital TV recorders let viewers create their own schedules - and automatically skip ads. DVD recorders let viewers make perfect copies of broadcast movies in an easily accessible form. And so on. Digital technology empowers consumers, making them less passive. It makes even couch potatoes sit up. And that is bad news for TV.
Experience over the last decade has shown us how established industries react when they are threatened by new technology. First they go into denial. Then they resort to legal countermeasures - which invariably fail. Finally they nobble legislators, seeking to persuade them to enact laws that will protect the old business models.
Which is where the draft broadcast treaty comes in. The great thing about Wipo, from the point of corporate lobbyists and their allies in certain national governments, is that it offers more bangs per buck. Instead of having to petition 50 or 100 national legislatures, you persuade Wipo to propose a draft treaty, which is submitted to a diplomatic conference and ratified. Then all the signato ries are obliged to do what you want. This is how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was globalised - a Wipo agreement signed back in 1996 became the basis for national laws everywhere embodying the same anti-circumvention clause.
This is clearly the strategy the broadcasting industry is now embarked on. The discussions in Geneva sparked a number of reflections. The first is how compromised Wipo officialdom seems to be: a decision to proceed to a diplomatic conference is supposed to be made only if there is substantial agreement at the standing committee.
There was no such consensus last week in Geneva, but Wipo is nevertheless proceeding as if there were. Why? Because negotiations in a diplomatic conference will be conducted behind closed doors - away from the NGOs and the public-domain campaigners who raise awkward questions.
A second observation is how ignorant many national delegates are about these matters. A third is how refreshingly informed, insightful and forthright the Indian delegation was. Reading the reports, one sometimes had the feeling only the Indians understood what is at stake.
Finally, one began to wonder where our own beloved national broadcaster stands on these issues. The select committee on culture, media and sport is currently inquiring into the renewal of the BBC charter. The committee should ask if the BBC is pushing this pestilential draft treaty. And if so, why?