On Friday morning, 10 July 2026, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) delivered the following statement on agenda item 11(i), Report from the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).
KEI would like to thank Madam Sylvie Forbin for her service to this committee, and the openness and sensitivity she has shown, while dealing with a complex set of issues.
We are going to make a comment on the broadcasting treaty negotiations.
For more than two decades, broadcasters could have had a treaty that provided additional measures to address unauthorized uses of broadcasting. But only if that agreement avoided giving broadcasters unneeded and unwanted rights on content they did not create, own, license or pay for. The blockage has been around post-fixation rights. Many negotiators and NGOs, including KEI, do not want a new layer of rights on top of copyright and the content that broadcasters distribute.
The negotiations are stalled or blocked because the broadcasters want to own something they do not create, license or pay for. Broadcasters are insisting that broadcasting be redefined from a one-to-many transmission to a transmission of stored programs on demand. The revised text does not have a single bracket despite the large differences among negotiators and the whole negotiation is taking place in secret. If broadcasters will not accept a that deals with signal theft but does not impose a layer of post fixation rights then the subject should be removed from the SCCR agenda so that Delegates can focus on more important topics including those associated with the digital environment.
Thank you.