Deeplinks Blogs related to WIPO
Blogging WIPO: No Diplomatic Conference on the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty in 2007
Deeplink by Gwen HinzeA crucial meeting that will determine the future of the proposed WIPO Broadcasting Treaty has been underway this week at WIPO. WIPO' s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights was scheduled to meet from 18-21 June, and then hold a Preparatory Conference on June 22, to agree the rules for the Diplomatic Conference scheduled for November. But at 8:45 pm last night, the U.S. delegation took the floor and said that it did not support moving forward to a Diplomatic Conference this year, on the grounds that there was so little agreement on a proposed text and key elements of what a Broadcasting Treaty should contain. Many Member States agreed that there was no prospect of coming to a consensus by week-end, including Brazil, India and the Africa Group. That's clear from the number of alternative proposals put forward by Member States in the closed-room negotiations that have been taking place this week, which are recorded in two non-official "non-papers" that were circulated yesterday evening. After almost 10 years of negotiations, there is litlle agreement on fundamental elements of a treaty. However, despite that, several countries, including Japan and the European Community, support continuing work on the proposed treaty. IP-Watch has more detailed coverage of last night's breakdown of discussions here.
So what does all of this mean? It means that the intergovernmental Diplomatic Conference scheduled to take place in November 2007 won't be going ahead. But it's not at all clear that the proposed Treaty is off WIPO's Agenda.
There's intense lobbying taking place here in Geneva. We are reminded daily that negotiations have been underway on the proposed treaty for almost 10 years, and there is a clearly discernible institutional desire within WIPO to complete a treaty after such a large investment of time and effort. It is still possible that there will be a move to continue discussions and a renewed push for a Diplomatic Conference to finalize a treaty in 2008. We'll have a better idea about that later this morning, when the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights reconvenes in a "formal" session, to discuss the Committee's report to the General Assembly. We'll be back to report on the outcome of that meeting and what's next shortly.
EFF and a diverse group of public interest NGOs, libraries and major U.S. tech industry players oppose the current treaty draft because it would create a new layer of exclusive intellectual property rights for broadcasters and cablecasters that would harm access to knowledge and consumers' existing rights under national copyright law, endanger citizen broadcasting on the Interet, raise competition policy concerns and threatens to stifle technological innovation. (Here's EFF's briefing paper on the latest treaty draft - the Copyright Committee Chair's non-paper released on May 1, 2007.) We are here in Geneva this week to ensure that WIPO and the Member States take into consideration not just the protection of broadcasters? and cablecasters? investments, but also the detrimental impact that the proposed treaty would have on all of these groups. We'll be back with more information and the NGO coalition's notes of this week's discussions shortly.
Blogging WIPO: The New Development Agenda
Deeplink by Gwen HinzeWIPO's Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a Development Agenda finished meeting late last Friday night and the good news is that it recommended creating a new WIPO permanent committee to implement 45 public interest-oriented proposals designed to turn WIPO into an organization that can help foster sustainable development in all its Member States. Somewhat surprisingly, the week's closed-door, non-public negoiations produced 21 concrete proposals that, if adopted, will help WIPO safeguard the public interest and promote innovation and knowledge creation.
The scope of the proposals adopted by Member States indicates just how far the dialogue has changed within WIPO over the last three years. Member States agreed that WIPO should take account of flexibilities in international instruments, exceptions and limitations and competition policy in its norm-setting and technical assistance, facilitate access to knowledge, support a robust public domain, exchange information on open collaborative projects and strengthen its capacity to objectively evaluate the impact of its work. The PCDA recommended that the WIPO General Assembly adopt these 21 proposals, together with the 24 proposals adopted at the February PCDA, and create a permanent committee to develop a work plan to implement them within WIPO.
The signficance of this acheivement should not be underestimated. The recommended proposals go to the very heart of WPO's areas of concern and its mandate - how WIPO conducts itself as an organization. Three years ago WIPO refused to hold a meeting to discuss open collaborative development. Now, it's being called upon to facilitate exchange of information on open collaborative projects. If the PCDA's recommendations are adopted, this could indeed result in a seachange at WIPO.
Like the February PCDA meeting, Member States worked together this week with evident goodwill and a commitment to find common ground. Let's hope the same spirit of cooperation continues into the General Assembly and the implementation of these proposals in WIPO's work.
After the jump we have the full text of the 21 "Annex B" proposals adopted this week, together with the PCDA's recommendation to the WIPO General Assembly, the 24 "Annex A" proposals from February and the NGO Coalition's notes of day five.
We will be back in September to report on whether the General Assembly adopts the PCDA's ground-breaking recommendations. In the meantime, stay tuned for updates from Geneva on this week's WIPO meeting on the controversial Broadcasting Treaty.
There's more great coverage of the PCDA at IP-Watch (in English), FGV Law School (Brazilian Portugese) and at KEI.
Blogging the WIPO Development Agenda: [Access to Knowledge]?
Deeplink by Gwen HinzeWIPO?s Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda is meeting this week in Geneva to continue discussions about proposals aimed at making WIPO?s work more development-oriented. This is a crucial meeting for several reasons: First, it?s tasked with coming up with a streamlined list of concrete proposals to take to the September/October WIPO General Assembly, which will decide the future of the Development Agenda. Second, the proposals on the table are the most controversial of the original package of 111 proposals. The previous PCDA meeting in February dealt with the 40 proposals that had wide support, and produced a set of proposals with a surprisingly strong public interest focus. By comparison, this week?s meeting deals with the remaining 71 proposals that the major developed countries have previously opposed. All of this could make for difficult negotiations ? and negotiations are exactly what are going on in an upstairs room at WIPO, in informal sessions, with no NGOs and no press present.
Now, at the half-way mark of the meeting, we have just seen the newly redrafted proposals on Technical Assistance and Capacity Building (Cluster A) and the key proposals dealing with Norm-setting, Flexibilities, Public Policy and the Public Domain (Cluster B). The full text of those is below. What?s most disconcerting is that the proposal dealing with a possible Access to Knowledge Treaty no longer refers to a ?treaty?, and has ?access to knowledge? in square brackets, indicating that that term has not been accepted by all groups. Proposal 3 now reads:
?To discuss possible new initiatives and strengthen existing mechanisms within WIPO to facilitate [access to knowledge] and technology for developing countries and LDCs and to foster creativity and innovation within WIPO?s mandate.?
The square brackets were put in at the request of the Group B developed countries (which includes the EU. The UK and the US), we learnt at this afternoon's plenary session. The Group of Friends of Development and the Africa Group have made it clear that they want it included, and that they would consider its removal to be a dilution of their original proposal. Group B?s reticence to include a mere reference to ?access to knowledge? is new today. Yesterday, the concern was inclusion of the word ?treaty? (since removed). Yesterday afternoon?s progress report mentioned a divergence of views between countries on procedure: whether the proposal should include a reference to ?establishing an area within WIPO? and ?a mechanism? (sought by the developing countries) or refer to ?initiating discussions? on that issue, without any philosophical implications (read Group B).
But now Group B has gone one step further and is objecting to the mere mention of the term ?access to knowledge?. Presumably we are also supposed to conveniently forget the fact that there have been several international conferences on this topic at Yale, in Egypt and in Asia. For the global Access to Knowledge community that exists outside the strange world of Geneva, this is disturbing news indeed.
After the jump we have the latest on what the Development Agenda now looks like, how the negotiations are proceeding, and notes from days one to three.
Senate Committee: Broadcasting Treaty Must Be Limited
Deeplink by Danny O'BrienEighteen months ago, we heard that the controversial proposed WIPO
Broadcasting Treaty was not on the radar of U.S. congressional
representatives. That has changed, thanks to
letters, and much hard work by
a broad coalition of public interest NGOs, libraries, ICT industry
groups and CE corporations . Late last week, the Chairman and the
Ranking Republican Member of the key Senate
Judiciary Committee weighed in. They
Copyrights and Director
of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which make up the U.S.'s
delegation to WIPO, expressing their concern with how the current
rights-based treaty draft will impact U.S. law and stakeholders, and
urged the U.S. delegation to advocate at the next WIPO meeting in
June for a revised treaty with a "significantly narrower scope".
The letter goes further, and expressly encourages the U.S. delegation to
oppose any effort to move to an intergovernmental Diplomatic Conference
(currently scheduled for November) if the proposed treaty is not rewritten to
be limited to "true signal theft". Welcome words indeed.
letter clearly indicates that the Senate Judiciary Committee
understands the significant policy issues raised by the proposed treaty and
the changes it would require to U.S. law. It states:
The Revised Draft Broadcasting Treaty appears to grant
broadcasters extensive new, exclusive rights in their transmissions for
a term of at least 20 years, regardless of whether they have a right in
the content they are transmitting. While we support the need to protect
against signal theft of broadcast transmissions, the treaty appears to
go beyond this purpose and grant broadcasters a right in their
transmissions similar to a content holder's copyright. As a result, the
rights that would be granted to broadcasters by the Revised Draft
Broadcasting Treaty could limit legitimate, fair use of the content and
would add an unnecessary layer of uncertainty in consumer use.
We couldn't have put it better ourselves.
In recent months, the U.S. delegation to WIPO has signalled
support for exploring an alternative signal-protection based treaty
approach. The problem is the current treaty draft is plainly not
limited to signal theft. In
WIPO Member States met for three intense days to try to come up with
an alternative signal-based treaty text with no success. The WIPO
Copyright Committee Chair is currently producing a new "non-paper",
due to be released on May 1, which will set the framework for
discussions at the next crucial Special Session of the WIPO Standing
Committee on Copyright and Related Rights on 18-22 June, 2007. EFF
will be at that meeting, and we look forward to reporting how the
U.S. delegation responds to the Senate Judiciary Committee's requests.
Blogging WIPO: Progress at WIPO sets stage for Second Round of Development Discussions in June
Deeplink by Gwen HinzeThis last week at WIPO has brought a series of welcome surprises. When the proceedings started on Monday, we had a Chairman who was new to both WIPO and the Development Agenda. The Member States faced a battery of 40 proposals that had to be reconciled into a unified document. To everyone's surprise, that happened by week's end. That WIPO was able to produce such a document is amazing. That the document is a powerful affirmation of many key parts of the original Development Agenda proposal is nothing short of astounding.
In the past, WIPO's process of closed-door "informal" meetings between countries has usually served to weaken strong public interest proposals. But this week, though most of the negotiation happened behind the scenes, the final product contains an array of policies for strengthening development concerns at WIPO. For example:
- Promoting measures that will "help countries deal with IP related anti-competitive practices".
- Considering the "preservation of the public domain within WIPO's normative processes and deepen the analysis of the implications and benefits of a rich and accessible public domain".
- Requesting WIPO "to expand the scope of its activities aimed at bridging the digital divide".
And much more. The full text of proposals adopted is set out below. Remarkably, none of the public interest-oriented proposals were abandoned, or even substantially weakened. Member States and the Chairman, Ambassador Trevor Clarke of Barbados, deserve much credit for this welcome achievement. The Chairman fostered an atmosphere that kept everyone working hard, laughing a little, and avoiding the endless procedural interventions that have plagued previous WIPO proceedings.
The Chairman's help will be needed at this year's second and final special meeting on the Development Agenda. That proceeding will be substantially more difficult for several reasons. First, there will be nearly twice as many proposals to deal with in the same amount of time. Second, those proposals are considered more "controversial" -- i.e. many are opposed by either the United States, the European Union, or both. In contrast, all of this week's proposals (save one) were supported by both.
This week brought new momentum into the years-long fight to weave public interest concerns into the fabric of WIPO. We'll be there in June to report on whether that momentum is facilitated or frustrated. In the meantime, we're happy to report that things are looking good in Geneva at last.
Following is the NGO Coalition's notes of the final day's wrap up, including the text of the proposals adopted.
Blogging WIPO: Can WIPO Protect the Public Domain?
Deeplink by Gwen HinzeWIPO's Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda is meeting in Geneva this week to continue discussions about establishing a Development Agenda for WIPO - a set of proposals for measuring the impact of WIPO's work on social and economic development in its member states. Two years after they started, the Development Agenda discussions now involve a wide-ranging set of proposals, including requiring WIPO to recalibrate its technical assistance program (WIPO's practice of advising developing countries on how to set up their IP systems), and to develop mechanisms to protect the Public Domain. The discussions may be obscure, but they are important. The WIPO Development Agenda offers the possibility of creating global intellectual property laws that balance rightsholders' interests with the human rights of the world's citizens for access to medicine and knowledge.
In contrast to the stalling at previous meetings, this week's discussions have proceeded relatively smoothly. Countries have expressed support for, or concerns with, a set of 40 proposals grouped in 5 clusters listed in a table. Proposals have been classified as either "Actionable" (appropriate subjects for further discussion) or "Declarations of General Principles" (which need to be reframed, at risk of being sidelined). The WIPO Chair has enlisted a group of "Friends of the Chair", regional country group coordinators, who have been entrusted with summarizing and redrafting the clusters of proposals into action items. This too, is proceeding remarkably quickly, with a redraft of the most important cluster (Cluster B on norm-setting, flexibilities, public policy and the public domain) apparently getting approval from almost all Member States. For the most part, WIPO Member States have shown an almost unprecedented spirit of cooperation. However, against this backdrop, there has been a strange and perplexing attack against the various proposals on protection of the Public Domain.
Read on for more analysis and notes of days 2, 3 and 4 after the jump.
Blogging WIPO: The Broadcasting Treaty Creeps Forward Despite Disagreement
Deeplink by Gwen HinzeIt's been just over a week since the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights met in Geneva with the intention of finalizing a new signal-based Broadcasting Treaty to be the basis of negotiations at an inter-governmental Diplomatic Conference scheduled for November. However, after three days of intense meetings, it's impossible to say with any certainty what a new version of the treaty would say.
The proposed Broadcasting Treaty could take one of two approaches (or perhaps fall somewhere unsatisfyingly in-between). At one end of the spectrum, there's the current draft's dangerous "rights-based" approach that would lock-down devices like TiVos and curtail consumers' rights to make use of recorded video and audio. At the other end of the spectrum is a signal theft approach that would provide for narrower, tailored remedies against intentional unauthorized interception and redistribution of a broadcast signal.
As we've previously reported, there is widespread support for moving towards a signal-based treaty that should differ considerably from the current draft. That, of course, requires agreement on a new treaty text. If WIPO Member States can't reach agreement, two things are possible. First, there might not be a Diplomatic Conference later this year. That was the understanding of WIPO Deputy Director General Michael Keplinger at the meeting, and would seem entirely appropriate if there is no agreement after nine years of negotiations. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, there might still be a Diplomatic Conference to negotiate on the current anti-innovation, anti-consumer rights-based draft (WIPO document 15/2). That would be the worst possible outcome for the Internet community.
So where to from here? Read on after the jump.
Blogging the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty: Signal-Based Protection or Rights by Any Other Name?
Deeplink by Gwen HinzeThe 183 member states of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization are gathered in Geneva this week to discuss the controversial draft WIPO Broadcasting Treaty. EFF's main concern with the current treaty draft - shared by the other 40 public interest groups, companies and industry groups that have submitted a joint statement to WIPO this week - is that it is not limited to signal theft. Instead, it creates a set of broad and unwieldy intellectual property rights in the recording and use of fixed transmissions, which are likely to restrict the public's access to information in the public domain, preclude uses of works permitted under national copyright law, curtail consumers' use of lawfully-received programming in their home, and stifle technological innovation.
Over the last year there has been widespread support for moving to an alternative signal-focused treaty. Last October, WIPO's plenary body, the General Assembly seemed to endorse just that. It gave the Copyright Committee a clear mandate for this week's discussions: to agree and finalize the objectives, specific scope and object of protection for a signal-based draft treaty, which will be discussed at an intergovernmental Diplomatic Conference in November.
This, of course, brings us to the key question: What does "signal-based" mean? And that has been the focus of discussion for the last two days. Despite the clear concerns expressed by many Member States with the current rights-based approach - as evidenced by the heated discussion at the 2006 General Assembly - the Chair told us that the current draft was indeed signal based, but now needed to be more so. He also stated that a signal-based approach did not necessarily preclude exclusive rights, nor protection of a signal after it ceased to be a "live signal".
In other words, a "signal-based approach" could look quite like the current treaty draft. Rights creation, but under a different name. [More after the jump]
Two Victories at WIPO!
Deeplink by Ren BucholzThe negotiations have been tough (we hear), but the 2007 WIPO General Assemblies have come to a close with two huge victories for the public interest. On the Broadcasting Treaty, while the GA agreed to convene a Diplomatic Conference in November/December 2007, we now have two welcome safeguards in place (document after the jump).
First, there will be two more meetings of the SCCR to work through some of the issues on which countries are still clearly divided (Technological Protection Measures, and coverage of certain Internet transmissions) and a "pre-conference" before the November/December dipcon. In effect, this represents a rejection by the GA of the recommendation passed amidst controversy at last month's WIPO Copyright Committee meeting (the SCCR). The previous schedule included only a pre-conference, at which nothing substantive would have been accomplished before a July Diplomatic Conference. The four month reprieve and two additional meetings are good news indeed. The full text of the decision follows, below.
Second, and most importantly, the GA's compromise has an escape clause that allows for the convening of a dipcon *only if all outstanding issues are resolved* in those two SCCR meetings. By implication, for the first time, WIPO has indicated that there might not be a diplomatic conference and a new treaty if all member countries can't reach agreement. An eminently appropriate outcome if countries are not able to reach agreement after almost nine years of negotiations.
It has also been decided that the treaty will now take a signal-based approach instead of the messy, dangerous rights-based approach that is used in the current treaty text. This, too, is good news for the Internet community, and reflects the concerns raised by many WIPO member countries at last month's meeting. There's much support for narrowing the treaty's overbroad scope to signal protection. The key question will now be how the next treaty draft reflects this in practice.
The colossal effort required to broker this deal was recognized when the meeting's Chair said, "I would like especially to thank Mr. Jukka Liedes, who must have lost a few kilos trying to work out this agreement." Liedes, the Chair of the infamous meeting earlier in September that closed by an unpopular "silence as consent" procedure, was charged with finding a compromise at the GA, and appears to have done so this time.
On the Development Agenda, there's good news also. The GA agreed to continue the dialogue, and most importantly, to keep all the issues on the table, not just those that have the support of the developed countries. The Assemblies agreed to extend the mandate of the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda (the now non-provisional PCDA).
And so we end this year's WIPO General Assemblies with good news on all fronts. We're mighty chuffed.
* If you're wondering where we hid all of the notes for a 6-day meeting, the answer is that not many notes could be taken at this session. Once each country's position has been staked out in public, the meetings typically adjourn to "informal sessions", unrecorded discussions held in private, where compromises were hammered out, one way or another.
WIPO Debates Direction, Priorities for 2007
Deeplink by Ren BucholzEFF is back in Geneva to report on the 2006 General Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This is the large annual meeting where progress is measured and paths are charted for the coming year. We're here to cover two issues in particular: the WIPO Development Agenda and the proposed broadcasting treaty. At issue are how discussions on the Development Agenda will proceed in 2007, and whether to approve a recent subcommittee recommendation to convene a diplomatic conference (what the cool kids call a "dipcon") in 2007. The goal of the treaty is to provide broadcasters with protection against those who would re-broadcast their signals without permission. The two dominant approaches to achieving this goal are 1) rights-based, creating new copyright-like rights for broadcasters over recordings and retransmissions, and 2) signal-based, creating penalties for the unauthorized interception and redistribution of a broadcast signal. The rights-based approach grants broadcasters a host of copyright-like rights even though they've done nothing "creative" as per copyright. The resulting mess would be a nightmare of overlapping, poorly defined entitlements.
The signal-based approach is gaining steam at WIPO, which warms my heart. After all, the whole point of this treaty is *supposed* to be protection against, um, signal theft! Describing the behavior you want to prohibit is a much cleaner solution than the first. EFF believes that The fact that this debate is still alive after eight years of WIPO negotiations is reason enough to postpone the proposed diplomatic conference -- the last step before formal treaty language is adopted -- until after 2007.
With countries like America, India and Venezuela lining up against the EU and Japan on the issue of a diplomatic conference, there's bound to be a compromise. Check back later for an update on what that compromise looks like, plus notes from Day 4.
On the bright side, things are looking better for the Development Agenda, which asks WIPO to consider the impact of its work on social and economic development in all WIPO member countries. For example, this means that instead of reflexively pushing for more strict patent protection in a developing country, WIPO should consider whether that would reduce access to affordable generic medication. The last DA meeting in June ended in turmoil and bitterness, with countries divided on what issues to include in future dialogue and uncertainty about how and where discussions could continue. As of today, there is unanimous support to continue dialogue on this topic, but the scope and scale of that dialogue is yet to be determined.
Notes after the jump.
