Good news out of the WIPO meetings we've been following: "Member states of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) have sidelined a US government proposal to extend copyright protection for television and radio productions to cover webcasting, a WIPO official said on Monday."

Said Cory, before presenting an open letter from 20 technology companies opposing the inclusion of webcasters' rights, "This coalition shatters the illusion that there is a technology consensus on this issue."

Reads the letter, "One proposal within the Treaty would extend these pseudo-copyrights to the Internet, by means of a controversial 'Webcasting Provision.' While there has been very little support from the national delegations for this proposal, the insistent voice of self-styled representatives of the technology industry has been loud enough to see to it that this proposal has persisted through draft after draft of the Treaty."

Admitted WIPO Deputy Director General Rita Hayes after the proposal failed, "There was no support for it."

I love it when a negotiation process like this actually works, 100 per cent against the odds.