Imagine waking up one day to the reality of Broadcast Treaty!

According to Cory Doctorow:

"Under the Broadcast Treaty, fair use, Creative Commons and the public domain would be trumped by the 'broadcast right,' which would be owned by the broadcaster of works. If you got a copy of a work over the air or over the Web that copyright would let you use (because it was in the public domain, because it was fa"ctual, or even because the creator had granted you permission), you'd still need to seek permission from the 'caster,' who would get a 50-year monopoly over the re-use of copies of the works it transmitted.

The proposal to extend this to the Web could put YouTube, Google Video, and innovative podcaster services out of business, by banning or restricting the way that these companies re-use each others' materials. And if you're a podcaster accustomed to lifting other podcasters' material and pasting it into your podcasts, you'll need permission from the company that hosts the podcasts, not just permission from the creator.

Guess which companies are behind the Webcasting provision? Yahoo and Microsoft. More here.