WIPO Broadcast treaty negotiations

The first significant negotiation on the WIPO broadcast treaty took place in December 2013, and negotiations will continue at the SCCR during a meeting of April 28 to May 2. This is a Timeline of WIPO negotiations on the Treaty.

The Current working draft of the treaty is SCCR/24/10 Corr. (Link here).

The KEI Testimony to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, on January 14, 2014 is available here: /node/1905. The CSPAN broadcasting of that hearing, which addressed several other issues, is available here: http://www.c-span.org/flvPop.aspx?id=10737443508

WIPO has a briefing note on the negotiations (quite favorable to the broadcasters), here: http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/briefs/broadcasting.html. WIPO has a related page on sports broadcasting. http://www.wipo.int/ip-sport/en/broadcasting.html

The relevant TRIPS provision on Broadcasting is Article 14(3), which reads as follows:

Article 14: Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms (Sound Recordings) and Broadcasting Organizations
(3) Broadcasting organizations shall have the right to prohibit the following acts when undertaken without their authorization: the fixation, the reproduction of fixations, and the rebroadcasting by wireless means of broadcasts, as well as the communication to the public of television broadcasts of the same. Where Members do not grant such rights to broadcasting organizations, they shall provide owners of copyright in the subject matter of broadcasts with the possibility of preventing the above acts, subject to the provisions of the Berne Convention (1971).

The European Union web page on Copyright and related rights: satellite broadcasting and cable retransmission:
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/internal_market/businesses/intellectual_property/l26031_en.htm

The World Broadcasting Unions have a “WIPO Broadcaster Treaty Group (WBU-WIPO)”, which has a web page here:
http://www.worldbroadcastingunions.org/wbuarea/committees/wipo.asp

EFF has a web page on the negotiation here: https://www.eff.org/issues/wipo-broadcasting-treaty

Public Knowledge as a web page on the negotiation here: http://publicknowledge.org/issues/wipo-broadcasting-treaty

The American Library Association web page on the WIPO Broadcast treaty.

Note that the WIPO treaty negotiations address issues that are similar in some respects to the US disputes in the Aereo case currently under review at the US Supreme Court, although the WIPO negotiation concerns much broader and legally different claims as regards broadcaster rights.

Below are links to several KEI documents and web pages on the negotiations