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WIPO considers new monopoly rights for broadcasters, the saga continues |
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Jason Pielemeier, a Yale Law School ISP Student Fellow is in Geneva this week for the WIPO negotiations on a Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. We covered earlier negotiations on this treaty here, and IP Watch and EFF have more coverage on this round here, here, and here.
Jasons reports:
Today the Chair redid the agenda and broke discussion down into 7 topical areas. The morning began with a discussion of Brazil (cultural diversity, general principles) and Chile (defense of competition) proposals. Quite a bit of discussion, finally ended up with a guarantee by the chair that the concerns would be incorporated one way or another (either in the preamble or in existing articles - 1 on relationship to other treaties; and 12 on limitations and exceptions) but not as free-standing articles (to Brazil's chagrin).
The discussion moved on to issue of term of protection (webcasting is bracketed until after lunch). The Chair sought to limit discussion by saying upfront that the two proposals (20 & 50 years) would both be sent to a diplomatic conf. Brazil intervened to seek clarification on when this term begins? Does it apply only to first broadcast? Chair clarified that as worded it applies to all broadcasts. On the term of protection issue, the chair later agreed to put the phrase "for the first one" (or something to that effect) in brackets at the end of the scope article to be sent to the diplomatic conf. Others intervene on what exactly the term of protection is referring to - signal or program/content? Philippines delegate, former chairman of Phil. Broadcasting Corp. made a beautiful intervention on the need to clarify between the two. Lengthy discussion ensued regarding "what are we protecting", despite chair's attempt to intervene and say that it shouldn't matter at this stage. All of a sudden it was lunch time.
Webcasting will be the first issue after lunch (upon insistence of India, Chile, Brazil that scope needs to be defined before substance). If (big if) that can be concluded, we move onto the substantive aspects of the treaty as well as who can be a member. My impression is that the stalling is tactical and that unless something happens soon (like the US gives up on webcasting), SCCR 14 will not conclude with a draft proposal for dip conf. Obviously I am not an expert in SCCR and there are 21/2 more days left, so this may be overly optimistic, but I'm going to throw it out there.
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