[Ecommerce] South centre & CIEL Quaterly on WIPO etc.

[Manon Anne Ress]

South Centre and CIEL just posted the IP Quaterly Update Second Quarter
2004.  It is an excellent update for those who want to know what has
been going on at WIPO (read paragraphs 12-15 for good summary of the
broadcasters' treaty bizarre process)WTO, WSIS and other international fora=
.
Manon

at: http://www.southcentre.org/info/sccielipquarterly/ipdev2004q2.pdf

13. While a number of treaties, including the Rome Convention on the
Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting
Organizations, the TRIPS Agreement and the recent WIPO treaties on
Copyright (WCT) and on Performance and Phonograms (WPPT), already
require countries to provide protection for the broadcasting of a work,
its transmission and public communication, the proposed treaty would
grant broadcasting organizations significant new rights. For example,
under the consolidated text of proposals and discussions prepared by the
Secretariat, the current basis for discussions, broadcasting
organizations have the exclusive right to authorize the fixation and
communication to the public of their broadcasts. Such rights would not
only grant them equal protection as is recognized to the creators of the
material, but it would even enable them to gain control over works that
cannot be copyrighted or are otherwise in the public domain.

14 In this regard, developing countries in past SCCR sessions have
repeatedly questioned going beyond the classic protection of
broadcasting to create rights aimed at protecting the investments of
broadcasting organizations, as worthy as they may be, rather than any
innovative activities or a role as an informational and educational tool. 1=
5

14. In addition, the proposed treaty contains alternatives that would
create a similar system of ownership for wired communications over cable
networks and for material transmitted over Internet computer networks,
with no assessment of the effects of such a framework in new, evolving
technologies, as well as no consideration of the challenges of a
coexisting number of different proprietary rights. The broadcasting
treaty would thus, unlike the WCT and WPPT, which made only =93cautious
changes=94 to the legal regulation of copyright on the internet in light
of the constantly expanding possibilities of such novel technologies,
radically modify its legal framework.

16 Nevertheless, the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries,
Kazakhstan, China, India, and Australia, were among the many in the last
session of the SCCR to affirm it would be imprudent at the present stage
to regulate such new technologies. 17 In the same way, a number of
countries have objected to increasing the minimum term of protection,
including Singapore in its proposed treaty text, which in the
consolidated text escalates to fifty years over the minimum twenty years
established by the TRIPS Agreement.18

15. Despite the divergences as to the nature, scope, and term of
protection, among other issues, however, the SCCR decided in its last
Session to recommend that the General Assembly consider the possibility,
at an appropriate time, of a diplomatic conference. The SCCR Chair, Mr.
Jukka Liedes from Finland, insisted that having the General Assembly
make the decision at its next meeting would allow the SCCR, as soon as
it was ready, to proceed directly with a diplomatic conference.
Moreover, he observed that diverging proposals were to be expected until
the negotiating stage, where delegations would reveal the issues that
they considered most significant and those in which they were willing to
show some flexibility. Nevertheless, several developing countries
remained unconvinced as to the ripeness of the issues for discussion at
the diplomatic conference level. As stated by Nigeria, the convening of
such a conference must not be at the expense of further consultation and
deliberation, and most important of all, it must not sacrifice
developing an agreement that addresses the needs of all stakeholders.
Thus, it is crucial for the General Assembly at its September meeting to
grant the SCCR enough time to comprehensively discuss and resolve these
issues in advance of a diplomatic conference to finalize the treaty.





--
Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176