>> CHAIR: Thank you. I now give the floor to the delegate from the United States of America. America (Speaker) thank you, Mr. Chair.
The United States would first like to congratulate you on your election and to thank you for your leadership in advancing the discussion of international protection for broadcasting organizations. It is a complex subject, conceptually, legally and technologically. We greatly appreciate your efforts to help us all clarify the legal and technical issues, focus on the fundamental questions presented and to build bridges between our differing legal traditions.
As a result, we’re we will-positioned to make further progress this week.
The United States for some time now has urged an approach to the protection of broadcasting organizations based on a single exclusive right, that of the broadcaster to control the retransmission of the broadcast signal to the public. We believe this is the most feasible way to address the core problem of signal piracy while achieving consensus internationally.
At the last session of the SCCR our Delegation introduced a new proposal that built on this approach by providing some flexibility on how the right could be granted allowing Member States with divergent national systems to provide effective protection to broadcasters through a combination of rights. The key to our proposal is that all Member States must provide broadcasters with an exclusive right in the signal. At the last SCCR meeting we were pleased to hear expressions of interest by many delegates in the new proposal. Of course, we also heard many questions and concerns raised about the meaning and impact of our language.
The process of answering these questions began immediately at that session and has continued since then.
All of these informal conversations have been very helpful and very productive.
We have reflected over the last few months on the thoughtful comments made and issues raised by colleagues from other Delegations, we have a number of ideas on how to improve our proposal by clarifying and refining it. There particular, we hope to make clear how our language would provide meaningful protection for broadcasters in all countries and to avoid loopholes that could be taken advantage of by would-be infringers. We look forward to engaging further in informal settings to see if it is possible to get closer to consensus on the fundamental elements of the proposed treaty.
Thank you.