New Paper just published on the Broadcast Treaty "Comments on the September 6, 2023 Draft of a WIPO Broadcasting Treaty, the Definitions, Scope of Application, National Treatment and Formalities"
November 7, 2023
The new research paper "Comments on the September 6, 2023 Draft of a WIPO Broadcasting Treaty, the Definitions, Scope of Application, National Treatment and Formalities" on the Broadcast Treaty provides an analysis of the Third Revised Draft Text for the WIPO Broadcasting Organizations Treaty. This paper proposes specific amendments that would narrow the instrument to protect public interest.
Abstract
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is evaluating a proposal for a new treaty that provides rights to broadcasting organizations. The negotiations began in 1997 and are currently taking place in the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR). On September 6, 2023, the WIPO Secretariat published a revised draft text prepared by the SCCR Chair, SCCR Vice-Chairs and facilitators. This article looks at certain elements of the draft concerning the definitions, scope of application, national treatment and formalities. Objections to the text focus on several draft definitions and the scope of application on the grounds that (1) very broad categories of information transmissions are defined as broadcasting and broadcast programmes, including information not disseminated through traditional radio or television mediums, and (2) that point-to-point transmissions, as opposed to point-to-multipoint transmissions, are inappropriately considered broadcasting. The draft text clearly extends the broadcaster right to transmissions of works in the public domain, licensed under Creative Commons or similar licenses, or even works infringed by the broadcaster. The draft treaty text Article on National Treatment includes a dangerous upward ratchet on broadcaster’s rights, particularly as regards conflicts between the rights of authors, performers and audiences, on the one hand, and broadcasting organizations on the other. The conditions on formalities are unnecessarily restrictive. Alternatives are proposed for some sections of the draft text to narrow the types of transmissions and activities covered by the treaty. This comment does not discuss the default rights or limitations and exceptions to those rights, a topic that will be addressed in a subsequent paper.
James Love is the director of Knowledge Ecology International an NGO that works mainly on matters concerning knowledge management and governance, including intellectual property policy and practice and innovation policy, particularly as they relate to health care and access to knowledge.