[A2k] EFF Intervention at WIPO PCDA 4, June 11, 2007

[Gwen Hinze]

--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
FYI, following is the intervention delivered by EFF this morning at
day one of the WIPO PCDA Fourth Session:

---

ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION STATEMENT TO
PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE ON PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A WIPO
DEVELOPMENT AGENDA, FOURTH SESSION
June 11-15, 2007

Thank you, Mr Vice-Chairman.

I speak on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an
international civil society non-profit organization with over 13,000
members worldwide, dedicated to the protection of civil liberties,
freedom of expression and the public interest in the digital
environment.

EFF commends the intersessional work done by Regional Groups and the
generosity of spirit with which Member States are synthezing the
proposals in Annex B to create a comprehensive set of concrete
proposals that can guide WIPO's future work and ensure that it helps
to achieve the common goal of sustainable development in all WIPO
Member States. We hope that a similar spirit of common enterprise
will continue into the discussion on the next steps towards
operationalizing these proposals.

EFF wishes to express its support for various sets of proposals in Annex B:

First, we support proposals calling for independent development
impact assessments undertaken by an independent body, such as the
proposed WERO, to facilitate Member States' understanding of the
likely impact of WIPO's norm-setting activities within their domestic
economies and to measure the effectiveness of WIPO's technical
assistance program at meeting the needs of all Member States.
(Proposals B3, B54,  B60, B61,  and B63). We are aware that WIPO's
technical assistance program utilizes a model copyright law that
currently has a number of deficiencies, such as not limiting legal
protection for copyright owner's technological protection measures to
the scope of national copyright law, which was the key recommendation
of a recent major review of the European Community's 2001 Copyright
Directive undertaken by the University of Amsterdam in the
Netherlands. We understand that this part of the model law is
currently under review and will hopefully address this. We believe
that this type of deficiency would be more readily identified and
remedied in a timely manner through an ongoing and transparent
process of assessment of WIPO's technical assistance program.

In addition, WIPO Member States are currently being asked to adopt
new obligations for legal protection for broadcasters' and
cablecasters' technological measures within the proposed Broadcasting
Treaty that will be discussed at next week's meeting of the Standing
Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. This issue has proven
controversial. We believe that all parties would benefit from an
independent assessment of the economic and social costs of
implementing such new obligations.

Second, we support proposals 23 and 29 in Cluster B, calling for
models for protection and identification of Public Domain works and
for WIPO's norm-setting activities to safeguard national sovereignty
in the area of exceptions and limitations appropriate for countries'
level of development and domestic public policy priorities. A rich
and robust public domain is both a source of creativity for future
literary and artistic endeavour, and an essential foundation for
education, scientific knowledge and innovation. As the discussions at
the third session of the PCDA made clear, WIPO can play a vital role
in protecting the public domain against encroachment by overbroad IP
norms and legal protection for rightsholders' technological measures,
and facilitating access to, and efficient use of, orphaned
copyrighted works.

Third, we support calls for WIPO's consideration of the potential
benefits of developing a treaty for Access to Knowledge to rebalance
Intellectual Property norms,  and investigation of alternative
mechanisms which have proven to be successful in generating knowledge
and furthering innovation such as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia,
built with Creative Commons licences, and open collaborative
development models such as those used in the Human Genome project
(Proposals B24, B33, B35, B59 and B62)

Fourth, we wish to express our support for the establishment of an
appropriately resourced permanent committee or mechanism within WIPO
to allow discussion on these important matters to continue and be
operationalized.

Finally, we wish to reiterate the importance of these talks. The WIPO
Development Agenda has captured the attention of civil society,
academia and industry across the world. The progress of these talks
is being closely monitored by many not able to be present in Geneva,
who see the potential for WIPO to play a key role in enabling the
creation of balanced intellectual property laws that provide
incentives to creators, and facilitate the economic and social
development of all humankind. The success of these talks will also be
seen as a crucial test of WIPO's ability to strengthen its capacity
to meet the needs of all of its Member States.

Thank you for your consideration.

Gwen Hinze
International Affairs Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Email: gwen@eff.org

--
Gwen Hinze
International Affairs Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Email:gwen@eff.org
Tel.: + 1 415 436 9333 x110

Please support EFF - Working hard to protect your digital rights and
freedom of speech since 1990