Electronic Information for Libraries, Link (CC-BY)
At WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR/42) that took place in May 2022, the Committee agreed that the Chair would revise the Draft Text for the WIPO Broadcasting Organizations Treaty (document SCCR/42/3) based on comments, suggestions and questions from delegations. EIFL’s comments focus on Limitations and Exceptions (Article 10).
To ensure fair access to copyright-protected content for social, educational and public interest reasons, EIFL calls for the significant strengthening of Article 10. Currently, there is no obligation to provide exceptions of any kind for social, educational or informational uses because Article 10 is optional, not mandatory. It doesn’t provide for exceptions that are mandatory in other treaties, such as the right of quotation and news of the day in the Berne Convention, and the making of accessible format copies in the Marrakesh Treaty.
Libraries of all types have broadcast material for teaching, research, civic education and community information. Without exceptions for these types of uses, the new treaty risks harming these public interest activities as rights clearance becomes more time-consuming and complex, transaction costs are increased, or projects and services are stopped altogether because the process becomes too expensive or legally risky for a public institution to undertake.
EIFL proposes replacing the existing Article 10 with a new set of mandatory exceptions for uses including preservation, teaching and research, and general purposes such as fair practices or dealings. In recognition of the digital environment, the proposal protects the exceptions from being overridden by terms in contracts and by technological protection measures.
The Chair of SCCR, working with the Vice-Chairs and Facilitators, will revise document SCCR/42/3 for further consideration at SCCR/43 that will take place in 2023, based on the comments and suggestions received.
