Proposed WIPO broadcast treaty

What is the proposed WIPO broadcast treaty?

Member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are negotiating an international treaty for the protection of broadcast organizations (e.g. television, cable and satellite operators). The primary objective is to protect against signal theft (the unauthorized retransmission of television programmes). The proposed treaty would give broadcast organizations a new exclusive right over the broadcast signal.

The treaty matters for libraries that have television programmes in their collections. For example, university libraries may show TV documentaries as primary research material to students of history or sociology, public libraries show educational TV programmes to children, and national libraries preserve television broadcasts of significance to a nation. Unless the treaty contains safeguards for such uses, libraries could face new legal barriers for uses of broadcast content and new costs for the payment of licence fees.

The text of the proposed treaty has been discussed at WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) since 1997 against the backdrop of changing technologies and major shifts in the media landscape (this is partly why the negotiations have continued for so long). Fundamental questions continue to be raised (e.g. does the definition of broadcasting include webcasting?), and concern has been expressed that provisions to ensure access to content for social, education and public interest purposes by libraries, for example, are inadequate. To help alleviate concerns that the treaty was extending beyond the broadcast signal and encroaching upon the broadcast content, in 2007 WIPO’s General Assembly directed SCCR to pursue a purely signal-based approach. Nevertheless, there remains confusion and concern among Member States and civil society organizations on this and other issues.

What is EIFL’s position on the proposed WIPO broadcast treaty?

EIFL’s position is that any new WIPO treaty on the protection of broadcast organizations should not harm access to broadcast content for social, educational and public interest purposes. The treaty should not interfere with access to works in the public domain, works subject to open licensing (such as Creative Commons licences) or uses permitted by copyright limitations and exceptions. It also should not create barriers or impose new costs on libraries to access and use broadcast material. In other words, if WIPO introduces new rights for broadcast organizations, it should also set clear rules to guarantee unfettered access to broadcast content by libraries for public interest purposes.

In particular, EIFL supports:

  • A signal-based treaty: the text should clearly and unambiguously focus on signal protection (in line with the 2007 WIPO General Assembly mandate).
  • No right of fixation: it should not create a right of fixation that would give broadcast organizations the exclusive right of authorizing, or not, the fixation (recording) of their programme-carrying signal. A right of fixation would mean that libraries would need to obtain a licence to record (fix) a broadcast programme. It also should not extend to any post-fixation activities, such as using the recorded material for teaching, research, or civic education.
  • Mandatory exceptions: if exceptions are optional, there is no guarantee they would be adopted by Member States when the treaty is implemented into national law, and the task of ensuring their adoption would fall to civil society, including the library community, in every country.
  • Same exceptions found in other treaties: exceptions found in other treaties should be included, for example, teaching and research (Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations), quotation (Berne Convention), and the making of accessible format copies for persons with print disabilities (Marrakesh Treaty).
  • Same kinds of exceptions found in copyright laws: to avoid a mismatch between existing copyright exceptions in national laws and new broadcast exceptions, the treaty should allow for the same kinds of exceptions for broadcast material, such as preservation by cultural heritage institutions, research, education and teaching. Countries should also be allowed to craft new broadcast exceptions according to national need and priority.

 

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