[Ecommerce] EFF: New WIPO Broadcasting Treaty text posted

[Manon Ress]

From: Gwen Hinze <gwen@eff.org>
Date: March 16, 2006 6:17:10 PM EST

For those who have not seen it yet, the WIPO SCCR's long-awaited
redraft of the draft Broadcasting/ Webcasting Treaty is now available
on WIPO's website at:

<http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/sccr/en/sccr_14/sccr_14_2.pdf>
(entitled the Draft Basic Proposal)

A few points from my very quick skim:

   -- Webcasting (which was previously the subject of the separate
Working Paper with three options) is now included as a
"non-mandatory" Appendix to the Treaty on an "opt-in" basis.
Countries who sign on to the treaty can choose to extend the treaty's
set of exclusive rights to "webcasting" by depositing a notification
with the WIPO Director General (Appendix Art.5)

[The key difference between this and the third option in the previous
Working Paper - a separate non-mandatory protocol-  is that that
would have required a separate act of national ratification. This now
just requires deposit of a notification, which might not require a
separate national authorization procedure depending on national
processes.]

-- Simulcasting is still in the body of the treaty on my reading-
There is still a right of fixation (now Article 7, formerly Art 8)
and the right of retransmission in Article 6 still  includes
simultaneous retransmission of broadcasts and cablecasts over
computer networks.

-- The exclusive right of distribution (previously Art 10) has been
removed.

--The exclusive right of communication to the public (previously Art
7) has been removed.

-- This has caused renumbering of existing rights/ obligation
provisions - eg:

Art 14 - TPM obligation
Art 15 - RMI protection obligation

Note that neither of the latter provisions are in square brackets, as
had been requested by several national delegations, to indicate the
lack of unanimous support.

-- Exceptions and limitations now  in Art 12. Still following the
Rome convention type of approach (Art 12(1) for mirroring national
copyright exceptions, and Three Step Test (Art 12(2)) for new
exceptions. There is no reference to the proposals put forward by
Brazil and Chile at the November 2005 SCCR concerning specific
exceptions in Art 15 of Rome Convention (and other specific
exceptions)

-- Term - now Art 13 - is listed as 50 years [(ie no reference to 20
year term proposed by several delegations, including Singapore]

-- Reservations are now *permitted* - see Art 17 - in relation to
Arts 8(2) - right of reproduction; 9(2) - right of transmission
following fixation  and 10(2) - right of making available of fixed
broadcasts. [Previously Art 19 provided for no reservations]

-- Preconditions/ Eligibility to become a party to the treaty - now
in Art 19. The previous alternative requirement in Art 24(1) -
Alternative AA - requiring accession to the WCT and WPPT as a
precondition - has been removed. Now is open to any WIPO Member State


There is also an accompanying document, the Working Paper on the
Draft Basic Proposal
<http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=57214>


(Finally, an interesting side-note on document dates:

The English PDF version is dated February 8, 2006. The PDF on the
website was last modified on March 9, 2006 at 8:59 GMT. The Word Doc
version was created on March 10 at 0:59 am US PST.

The French PDF and Word Doc versions - also dated February 8, 2006 -
were created on March 13 at 0:59 am and March 10  at 1:21 am US PST
respectively.)

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


************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
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