WIPO Meeting Ends Without Agreement on Provisions for Visually Impaired
The meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) of the World Intellectual Property Organization ended Thursday without a recommendation to the General Assembly to convene a diplomatic conference on limitations and exceptions for the visually impaired. SCCR members could only agree to return to the negotiating table in November. Representatives of non-government organizations were highly critical of what they called a missed opportunity.
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The SCCR said it will try to get to a more consolidated text, in the hope that an extraordinary WIPO General Assembly can decide on a 2013 conference. A failure to convene the conference in 2013 could mess up the 2014 plans for a diplomatic conference for the controversial broadcasting treaty.
Japan said a major issue with the treaty on the visually impaired remains the scope of the document, which some feel has to be strictly limited to traditional broadcasting; others, like the U.S., want it to include at least Internet transmissions from traditional broadcasters and cablecasting companies.
As the meeting closed, the U.S. and the European Union were heavily criticized by the World Blind Union, the Royal National Institute of Blind People and other groups for giving disabled people only “second-class” protection.
"I note in the document here at this meeting on broadcasting, where there is a long way to go before there is an agreement, it is referred to as a treaty,” said Maryanne Diamond, president of the World Blind Union: “On behalf of the 285 million people in the world from 190 countries, 90 percent living in developing countries that I represent here today, this is more than frustrating. It is insulting. While we wait, pat ourselves on the back and come back next time to further work on the text, the reality of the world is that many people are waiting to receive an education, access to employment, access to culture and participate in their communities."
EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier rejected criticism that the EC “would be opposed to the granting of an exception to copyright rules to benefit the visually impaired and blind people.” He said he’s “fully committed to fighting against the unjustified discrimination of visually impaired people, but the Commission cannot effectively defend such an approach without a negotiating mandate to do so from the Council of Member State Governments.” He said the Commission has requested the mandate, but it hasn’t been issued. Dan Pescod of the Royal National Institute of Blind People warned against instilling uncertainty into a future treaty text by burdening the accepted exemptions and limitations with a three-step test proposed by Maria Martin-Prat, head of the copyright office at DG Market.
Justin Hughes of the U.S. delegation recommended that the provision on limitations and exceptions for libraries focus on a few issues instead of trying to solve the list of 11 topics agreed in the working document, including parallel importation, technological protection mechanisms or orphaned works. Hughes said: “Since everyone is making suggestions or making implicit suggestions along those lines for the United States, limitations of liability for librarians, which was mentioned by Kenya, is a priority for us as is preservation.”