SCCR 28 Day 1: Selected Interventions re Technical Experts Invited to Informal Negotiations

Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights: Twenty-Eighth Session
SCCR/28 June 30 to July 4, 2014 (Geneva, Switzerland)

June 30, 2014.

The Chair has decided to move the Committee to room B for informal (i.e. not public) discussions. He announced the names of 3 representatives from broadcasting organizations associations. Some delegations welcomed the technical experts selected and appointed …by the Chair. However, others saved the day (or the process?) by asking a few questions.

In their own words:

Continue Reading

WIPO sccr 28 Day 1: The USA Statement re 3 topics: Broadcasting, L&E for Libraries and Education

Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights: Twenty-Eighth Session
SCCR/28 June 30 to July 4, 2014 (Geneva, Switzerland)

June 30, 2014 Statements of the USA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: […] the United States was very pleased by the progress that we made at the last session of the SCCR, and we are looking forward to continuing to move forward this week in clarifying and improving the proposals before us.

Continue Reading

WIPO SCCR28 Day 1: Support for a Broadcasting Treaty Diplomatic Conference in 2015?


Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights: Twenty-Eighth Session
SCCR/28 June 30 to July 4, 2014 (Geneva, Switzerland)

June 30, 2014. Morning Session
to read the close captioning of SCCR28
http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=WIPO
password: sccr28 during the meeting
Watch live: Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights – ow.ly/yAzbf. #SCCR28

Find a few comments and selected interventions:

Continue Reading

TTIP: Anti-Transparency Rules laid out in USTR letter to DG-Trade

KEI has obtained the terms of reference (TOR) for the confidentiality of the negotiating texts of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Agreement. The TOR are laid out in a two-page letter from US Chief Negotiator Dan Mullaney to EU Chief Negotiator Ignacio Garcia-Bercero which is available here. The letter was obtained through a FOIA request filed by KEI with the USTR on May 19, 2014.

Continue Reading

KEI Notes on TTIP 5th Round: How to engage in a dialogue without access to the text?

Wednesday, at the George Mason University Law Campus in Arlington, VA, the Office of the US Trade Representative hosted an all day Stakeholder Forum in conjunction with the fifth negotiating round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The first part of the day was devoted to Stakeholder Policy Presentations, with several hours of presentations by a variety of industry, academics, trade associations, and public interest groups. The latter part of the day consisted of a briefing by the US Chief Negotiator Dan Mullaney and the EU Chief Negotiator Ignacio Garcia-Bercero.

Continue Reading

SCCR27: Chair’s Conclusions

At 12:56 AM on 3 May 2014, WIPO’s Copyright Committee, (SCCR27) could not reach agreement on the future work on “Limitations and exceptions: libraries and archives.” The main point of contention was “text-based work” which the European Union sought to excise from the text. Consequently, the Committee was at an impasse in developing an appropriate international legal instrument (in whatever form) on copyright exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives (whether model law, joint recommendation, treaty and/or other forms). Continue Reading

SCCR 27 Difficult Discussion re Orphan Works & Author Right to Withdraw Work from Circulation

ORPHAN WORKS, RETRACTED AND WITHDRAWN WORKS, AND WORKS OUT OF COMMERCE
May 1, 2014 SCCR TOPIC 7

The discussion regarding orphan works included the rather difficult and political topic of moral rights and the right to withdraw a work from circulation. Can a library reproduce and make available a work that the author wants withdrawn from the public?

For example the Africa group had proposed:

Right to Access Retracted and Withdrawn Works
Continue Reading

KEI intervention on Library Access to Orphan works, at SCCR 27

KEI and other NGOs attending SCCR 27 have been able to make interventions on various articles in the proposed library treaty. On the issue of library access to orphaned works, KEI’s intervention covered the following points, and made a proposal for text.

1. There is ample evidence that national approaches to providing access to orphan works is quite diverse.
2. The diversity of approaches have been used by some to express pessimism that this issue can be addressed in a treaty.
Continue Reading

Cross-Border Evidence at SCCR 27 May 1, 2014

If the Broadcasters’treaty often appeared to be a treaty in search of a problem in the last few days (or years?), the Libraries and Archives’ problem is about a treaty in search of a solution… or maybe solutions. And if the problems (and thus solutions) were not specifically cross borders…well, the librarians and archivists of the world would not be here “en masse” testifying at the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, a Committee extremely proud to have created the WCT and the WPPT to solve the cross border issues of copyright owners.

Continue Reading