WIPO Copyright Committee Plan For Week: Broadcasting, Limitations, Side Events

The World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee has agreed to split its week between work on a proposed treaty to protect broadcasters’ rights and efforts to provide copyright exceptions for libraries, archives, and research and educational institutions. It also has lined up a series of side events throughout the week, as detailed below.

The 28th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is taking place from 30 June to 4 July.

The schedule for the week is expected to be two and half days for broadcasting and the remaining time for limitations and exceptions.

According to sources, several informal meetings were held in the lead-up to this week’s meeting in order to resolve stark differences over the agenda and work of the committee. One government source said the meeting itself was in question at one point.

WIPO members have also been distracted with other tensions, such as continued work on the parameters and rules for the selection of new external WIPO offices around the world.

After initial statements, the meeting went into informal session this afternoon and is expected to continue in informals tomorrow morning. Regional coordinators will be notified when the meeting returns to the plenary floor.

Side Events

Alongside the SCCR, a series of side events are being held, as laid out in a schedule [pdf] prepared by the secretariat.

Today, 30 June, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions held a lunch event entitled, “Keeping copyright relevant in the digital environment: libraries, archives and licences.” Tonight, will be held an event organised by the WIPO secretariat celebrating the Marrakesh Treaty, its first ratification (by India), and the launch of the Accessible Books Consortium, which is an industry-oriented parallel to the Marrakesh Treaty.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) at 1pm, the International Publishers Association is organising a panel on the topic, “Growing Knowledge: Publishers, Librarians & New access Models.”

On Wednesday (2 July), the Initiative for Inclusive ICTs will hold an event at 1pm entitled, “Copyrights and Third Party Captioning: Challenges and Solutions.” This will be followed at 6:15 pm by an event on “Advantages of resale rights,” of the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC) and EVA.

On Thursday, the International Authors Forum will organise an event at 1pm entitled, “Limitations and exceptions: why international copyright instrument must respect the three-step-test.”

And on Friday (4 July) at 1pm will be launched the second edition of the WIPO publication “How to Make a Living from Music.”