[A2k] IP Justice ,Intervention Statement WIPO SCCR Special Session 1

[Petra Buhr]

Hi there, hee is our statement from today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I speak on behalf IP Justice, an international
civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual
property law. Based in San Francisco, IP Justice also maintains
representatives in Switzerland, and Italy.


IP Justice strongly recommends member states to remember the concerns
which were led up to the very clear decision of the 2006 General
Assembly. There it was decided that this committee should - as a
precondition for the convening of a Diplomatic Conference =E2=80=93 reach a
consensus revised draft basic proposal on a signal-based approach.

I want to remind Delegates that, at the international level,
broadcasters rights are regulated not only by the Rome Convention and
the TRIPS-Agreement. as the Chairs non Papers are suggesting. They are
also regulated by the Brussels Satellite Convention which takes a
signal-theft approach which seems, if I think of previous discussions,
to be the approach that most of the delegates deem most appropriate. In
our understanding this is what the 2006 General Assembly had in mind
when it was speaking in its decision of a signal-based approach.

Changing the definition will not help to solve the current problems. The
General Assembly was very clear in stating that a consensus paper is
needed before a Diplomatic Conference is convened. Such consensus will
not be reached by only changing the definition neither in the draft
proposal, where this was done before without solving the problem, nor in
the Chair's non-papers. The problem is not the definition. It is the
exclusive rights approach which strikes many delegations. To delete
these provisions and tie the treaty down to a real signal based approach
in the sense of signal theft is, in our thinking, the only way to solve
the problems many delegations have with the current proposals.

Apart from this, three major problems still exist in the current draft
proposal SCCR/15/2 which delegates should keep in mind:

    *

      the current proposal continues to regulate Internet transmissions
      of programming in Articles 9 and 14 and the Definition of
      Retransmission in Article 5d, which significantly threatens
      bloggers, podcasters, and other innovative Internet users of
      programming and by this broadens the scope of the treaty immensely.

    *

      The proposal still has not deleted the measures against the
      circumvention of technological restrictions =E2=80=93 which already h=
ave
      shown their harmful effect on the public domain, and on artists=E2=80=
=99
      and consumers=E2=80=99 rights to use programming.

    *

      Limitations and Exceptions still are not mandatory, even though
      they are the most important means of balancing the interests of
      the beneficiaries of the treaty with the interests of the public
      as a whole and groups thereof.

Intellectual Property Rights can foster economic and social development.
The Broadcast Treaty in its current form will not help to reach these
aims and does not, in our understanding, comply with the decision of the
2006 General Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.