Access to Knowledge

SCCR 29 December 10, 2014 Morning Informal and Agenda for the Next item on the agenda

Posted on by Manon Ress

The SCCR 29 went again into informals this morning and NGOs can listen but not report on what is going on. As per the agenda, the broadcasting treaty is still the topic of discussion. While the US delegation was supporting making the charts describing the definitions, concepts and rights being discussed available to the public, there were other delegations (TBD) against it and the charts are thus still “secret”.

We are reconvening into plenary after the coffee break.

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SCCR 29: Statements by European broadcasters and push back by copyright owners (IFPI & FIAP)

Posted on by Manon Ress

SCCR29 At 3pm, the plenary reconvened and the NGOs made their statements regarding the rights, definitions and concepts of the proposed broadcasting treaty discussed during the informal with the help of charts.

On the public interest side we only had KEI, TACD, EFF and CIS. I will post these statements in another blog. Here are 3 statements that are good examples of what the arguments were for the broadcasters (the European Broadcasting Union) followed by the push back by the IFFPI (representing the music industry) and finally the FIAP (film industry also pushing back).

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KEI intervention, SCCR 29, December 9, 2014

Posted on by James Love

Below is a cleaned up version of the transcript, from my rambling intervention for KEI on the broadcasting treaty definitions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My comments would be initially on the definitions.

It is our position that it’s more appropriate to provide protection for free services that are traditionally provided by radio and television and less appropriate for pay services,

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SCCR 29 December 9, 2014: 3 secret broadcasting treaty charts ?

Posted on by Manon Ress

The December 9, 2014 SCCR morning session started with the Chair’s summary of yesterday informals. The delegates discussed 3 charts. The first chart called “a technological platforms chart” is supposed to clarify the scope of protection of the new instrument, the broadcasters’ treaty. The second chart is called “a rights chart”. And additionally, the Chair prepared a third chart which was called a definitions chart, which contained the definitions of broadcasting organization, broadcasting transmission and signal. Continue Reading →

SCCR 29 Morning Session: Is the Broadcasting Treaty crawling back?

Posted on by Manon Ress

The morning session of SCCR 29 (Dec 8-12, 2014) ended with a coffee break which will be followed by informals (that we are not allowed to report on at this point). After the usual decisions this morning i.e, Adoption of the agenda of the twenty ninth session then Accreditation of new non governmental organizations (and yes, the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) is in!) we had the Adoption of the Report of the Twenty-Eighth Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. Continue Reading →

Save the Date – 10 December 2014: The Broadcasting Treaty: A Solution in Search of a Problem?

Posted on by Thiru

On Wednesday, 10 December 2014, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) will convene a side event entitled, “The Broadcasting Treaty: A Solution in Search of a Problem?”; the event will take place in Room B of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) from 13:30 to 15:00. Continue Reading →

Former WTO Director-General, Pascal Lamy, mooted to chair Global Fund’s Equitable Access Initiative

Posted on by Thiru

On 14 March 2014, KEI published “Resurrecting the Ghost of Høsbjør Past: Global Fund seeks to establish global framework on tiered pricing enforced by WTO rules” in which we provided an analysis of the Global Fund’s plans to create a global framework for tiered pricing enforced by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Continue Reading →

New leak of TPP consolidated text on intellectual property provides details of pandering to drug companies and publishers

Posted on by James Love

For more information:
James Love, Knowledge Ecology International
email: james.love@keionline.org, +1.202.361.3040

The May 16, 2014 version of the consolidated negotiating text for the Intellectual Property Chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is a long, complex document that taken as a whole is designed to expand and extend monopolies on knowledge goods, including in particular publisher-owned copyrights, patents on inventions, and monopoly rights in data used to register new drugs, vaccines and agricultural chemical products.

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