New Draft Of WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Consolidates Proposals

World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee members last night reach preliminary agreement on a new draft text for a global treaty aimed at protecting broadcasting organisations. A copy of the text is available for subscribers below.

The WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is meeting from 26-30 November.

The new draft chair’s text is available here.

The text shows changes to the original text (SCCR/36/6) brought about after one-and-a-half days of informal negotiations among governments, and pulls various texts into one.

“We just want to make sure it’s all in one place,” the committee Chair Daren Tang of Singapore told Intellectual Property Watch today, so that participants can move forward on the “inter-relationships” between documents and ideas.

It will be helpful to have a single document for capitals to assess heading into the April session of the copyright committee, he said, at which they must decide if they are ready to recommend a diplomatic conference.

Changes appear to mainly reflect incorporation of new and recent proposals from Argentina (SCCR/37/2) and the United States (SCCR/37/7).

An explanation of the revised Argentina proposal was made in the plenary by the Argentinian delegate. A copy is here, along with an English translation.

An explanation of the new US proposal was made available here (IPW, WIPO, 27 November 2018).

[Update:] During the short plenary summary of the informal sessions, the chair explained a few points in the text.

He said they made some amendments to the definitions. One phrase that was retained, related to scope of the treaty, was that transmissions over computer networks shall not constitute broadcasting.

The Argentinean proposal is reflected in several new proposals, he said, specifically in the new definition of equivalent deferred transmission. There was a “good discussion” on “prebroadcast,” Tang said, and he announced that the issue seems to be largely agreed, though “deferred transmission” is not yet agreed, and remains “the single most important policy issue” still be worked out. Questions include how much of it to protect, how much is in the scope of the treaty, he said.

Image Credits: WIPO