The UN's World Intellectual Property Organization has abandoned its plans to create a podcast-killing treaty -- for now. This is the Broadcast Treaty, which will create a new group of rightsholders, the people who transmit information (broadcasters, satellite casters, cablecasters, but for now, not webcasters). These people get a "broadcast right" to the works they transmit, over and above the copyright that goes to those works' creators. That means that even if you have the creator's permission to use a work you've received, you still need to get clearance from the broadcaster, whose only contribution to the work was putting it on the air.
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