Deborah De Angelis, Creative Commons Italy Chapter Lead, Link
The SCCR42 took place in Geneva from May 9th to 13th, 2022, turning into an in-person meeting after the Covid pandemic, but with the possibility of remote participation as a “phygital” event.
The SCCR (Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights) is a specialised committee within WIPO dealing with copyright and related rights. It is composed of all member States of WIPO and/or of the Berne Convention; and, as observers, certain member states of the United Nations (UN), which are non-members of WIPO and/or the Berne Union, as well as several intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.
The SCCR42 agenda item 7 has been dedicated to limitations and exceptions to copyright, which has formed a core part of the agenda of the SCCR for at least 15 years. One of the goals achieved during the previous discussions is the Marrakesh Treaty in 2013 for the use of copyrighted works by people with blindness or visual impairments.
The African Group proposes a Draft Work Programm on limitations and exceptions to ensure that all laws enable the preservation activities of libraries, archives, and museums, including the use of preserved materials across borders and the use by people with disabilities (SCCR/42/4). The mentioned proposal had a crucial role in enhancing the discussion about the topic and encouraging the SCCR to take action and conclude the work on limitations and exceptions.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we assisted in the sudden shift to the digital environment, and online learning and research will remain in that context. The Covid pandemic showed the primary need for a balanced relationship between copyright and limitations and exceptions, especially for the Global South countries. For example, in Africa, the lack of clearly defined rights for the GLAM sector creates troubles in digitization and making digital copies available to teachers and students and does not permit teaching, learning and research through digital and online tools, including cross borders.
The AG proposal received support from the Committee, and a broad consensus by national delegations since the preservation of national cultural heritage is vital for all countries, as noted by WIPO experts who also underlined the urgency of this issue due to climate change natural disasters.
The Italian delegate confirmed that the Italian legislation (due to the recent implementation of the Directive 2019/790/EU on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single market) provides exceptions for libraries, archives and other cultural institutions to make copies and digitize works in their custody in order to preserve collections from major disasters. He also underlined the need to extend national measures on a cross-border basis.
The AG proposal also took consensus to move forward on education, highlighting the increasing demand for digital and online classroom materials and the need for effective exceptions for online uses for education and research addressing emerging issues of computational research such as text and data mining.
The new mandatory limitations and exceptions introduced by the Directive 2019/790/EU in Europe are still unevenly applied within each national legislation. Indeed, Common Law States adopt the fair use or fair dealing system, and other countries have a mixed system. Therefore, the current legal fragmentation severely limits cross-border collaboration demonstrating the need for a global solution.
The AG work program proposal has provided important suggestions in order to achieve a global harmonization and the creation of an international system to protect the needs of GLAMs and people with other disabilities, but it was not fully approved at this SCCR, due to opposition from the EU and other developed countries.
Thanks to the worthwhile and intense work done by the coalition of the civil society, a couple of actions regarding the exceptions and limitations agenda contained in the African Group Proposal were approved by the Committee.
Nonetheless, the Committee approved two actions contained in the draft program and encouraged Member States to continue negotiating the proposal and discuss it again at the next SCCR. This outcome was highly disappointing for the civil society coalition since the next SCCR session will be held only in 2023.
On the other hand, the civil society coalition welcomes the two actions that the Committee decided to improve: 1) at the next meeting of the SCCR, the Secretariat should invite presentations by experts on the problem of choice of law for cross-border uses of copyrighted works, with a focus on a case-study approach (such as cross-border implications of an online educational class with students in multiple countries, or where collaborating researchers are located in different countries); 2) based on the work completed by WIPO so far, the Secretariat should implement inclusive and transparent consultation processes when developing tool kits to guide targeted technical assistance programs which help Members craft laws and policies that support education, research and preservation of cultural heritage and cultural participation.
