At the 43rd session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), which took place in March, we witnessed a major shift in the EU’s position on international lawmaking in the area of exceptions and limitations to copyright (L&Es). The discussions also brought to light the rationale of the demandeurs of a Broadcast Treaty, deepening the civil society’s concerns about the impact of a new copyright-like right on the public domain and public interest activities.

Exceptions and limitations: a departure from the EU’s stance on text-based negotiations

The last time the most important forum at the global level for copyright rulemaking engaged in text-based negotiations on L&Es was a decade ago, in the lead-up to the adoption in 2013 of the Marrakesh Treaty. After the treaty was adopted, many developed countries claimed that the international instrument for persons with print disabilities was meant to be an exception, and opposed the drafting of any other instrument on copyright exceptions, be it binding or non-binding (such as a joint recommendation or a model law).

This stance was repeated ad nauseam over the years, particularly by the EU. So much so that not even the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated clearly how important it is for schools and cultural heritage institutions to be able to operate remotely and across borders, seemed to remove them from those crystallised positions. 

This status quo remained until the last SCCR, when developed countries finally showed a change of heart. While still opposing the drafting of a legally binding instrument, the EU stated that it was willing to discuss non-binding instruments:

In this context, as consistently expressed in the past, we would like to remind, however, that the EU and its member states cannot support work towards legally binding instruments at the international level or any preparations in this regard. However, we stand ready to continue to engage constructively under this Agenda Item to reflect further on the other possible non-binding instruments and ways how WIPO can best help to provide guidance to WIPO member states to address the problems faced by institutions and people with disabilities including through the introduction of meaningful exceptions and limitations in their respective national laws. (…)

However, as the week proceeded, it became apparent that France wanted to soften the EU statement delivered by the Commission. The only EU country to ask for the floor, France made the following intervention, repeating what had been the EU’s position until that point:

In this regard, France has reservations regarding the fact that the conversation on L&Es could touch upon normative instruments. The continuation of discussions in L&Es should be founded on the exchange of best practices at the national level (…).

Frustrated with these continued attempts to divert the conversation away from concrete language to address the problems and solutions faced by educators, researchers, and cultural heritage institutions, in our statement we threatened not to return to the Committee:

We come here, year after year, to defend the rights of teachers and researchers. We support your discussions. We bring evidence. We talk to you, the person that was here before you and the person that will come after you. It’s a massive effort. Yet, every year, we leave this room empty handed, with no binding instruments, no soft laws, nothing that could make a difference. Do know that we question if we should come back.

We further shared the story of Jonas, a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, who we interviewed for our publication “Nobody puts research in a cage”. We explained his struggles with accessing the data sources he uses in his research remotely and sharing his research results with colleagues for purposes of verification and validation of his research. And we read his words out loud, hoping they could make a difference in the discussions:

Perhaps they did. At the end of the last day of SCCR/43, the Committee finally agreed to approve the revised African Group proposal for a work program on L&Es, which includes drafting work towards “objectives and principles and options for implementation at national level”. The Chair was tasked with advancing information sharing and consensus building on L&Es between SCCR meetings and given the option to create working groups of member states supported by experts to produce outcomes for consideration by the Committee.

Broadcast Treaty: increasingly difficult to grasp!

The discussions on the protection of broadcasting organisations against unauthorised retransmission and related uses were centred around the Chair’s Second Revised Draft Text for the WIPO Broadcasting Organizations Treaty, which continues to raise substantial issues of concern. 

While there seems to be a common understanding that any potential treaty should be narrowly focused on signal piracy and not extend to post-fixation activities, there are still many important issues to be agreed upon, including fixation rights, a perpetual term of protection, and limitations and exceptions.

The revised draft text contains important changes to the L&Es provision. Yet, none of the exceptions are mandatory, not even those that are already mandatory for copyrighted works (such as quotation, news of the day, and providing access for the visually impaired). Furthermore, unlike the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the text does not even mandate the contracting parties to achieve a fair balance between the rights and interests of authors and rightsholders, and those of  users. 

Equally concerning is the idea to give contracting parties the option to protect signals by means of a fixation right. This would grant broadcasters a new lawyer of exclusive rights over the programme-carrying signal on top of the rights they already have on the signal content, effectively extending the scope of protection beyond the mere signal. This is particularly concerning when the signal content is already in the public domain, as it would allow broadcasters to re-appropriate public domain broadcasts. Broadcasters are sitting on huge collections of public domain content and are the only ones that have complete, high-quality copies of those materials. Prohibiting the fixation of signal would mean preventing access to, and re-use of, the public domain material itself. 

When questioned why public domain materials were not being excluded from this new layer of rights, the facilitators made it clear that this was intentional. They claimed that broadcasters needed to be incentivised to promote public domain works to the public. We found this reasoning nonsensical and asked why corporations would need copyright-like incentives to use materials that are free for anyone to use and for which they would not need to pay any copyright licence fees. However, none of the facilitators were able to provide a response.

The next SCCR will take place in Geneva on November 6-8. This time, the Committee will meet for three days instead of five, and attendees will be asked to forego making oral opening statements and general declarations, in order to allow the Committee to focus on substantive discussions. Certainly something to look forward to!

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We made the following statement regarding limitations and exceptions for educational and research institutions and for persons with other disabilities (Agenda Item 7):

Dear Delegates,

We come here, year after year, to defend the rights of teachers and researchers. We support your discussions. We bring evidence. We talk to you, the person that was here before you and the person that will come after you. It’s a massive effort. Yet, every year, we leave this room empty handed, with no binding instruments, no soft laws, nothing that could make a difference.

Do know that we question if we should come back. The only reason why we persist is because we cannot stand talking with those researchers and teachers about the challenges they face when researching newspapers or showing Youtube videos in Zoom classes, and turn our backs on them.

So today, I’ll use the 1 minute that I have to let you hear from one of them, in the hope that this will be it, that these will be the words that will also make you stand for them.

Jonas is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, and we interviewed him for our publication “Nobody puts research in a cage”.

Jonas is struggling because he cannot have remote access to the data sources he uses in his research and also because he cannot share his research results and underlying resources with colleagues for purposes of verification and validation of his research. In his words:

We are studying book reviews in Swedish newspapers from 1906, 1956 and 2006. We want to train the computers to understand different expressions in their context. We also have a dream that feels more and more likely, insane at first but now maybe real? That is, to train a text corpus to identify what is a book review!
To access material from 1956, we have to go to the National Library Lab in Stockholm. It is a small glass cage with three data terminals. You sit in the lab, annotate. Access to it costs SEK 70,000 the first year, and 35,000 in the following years. You are not allowed to take data in or out, all labs must be done in the cage.
The transparency is non-existent. If someone wants to verify the results, they also have to buy the license for a lot of money. An incredible anxiety!

End of quote.

Thank you.

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Today, the A2K Coalition is launching its website with demands for education, research and cultural heritage.

Access to knowledge is not enjoyed equally across the world. Crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate emergency, highlight the barriers that the current copyright system poses for those who learn, teach, research, create, preserve or seek to enjoy the world’s cultural heritage.

The international copyright system has failed to keep pace with advancing technology and practices, including for digital and cross-border activities. Consequently, we have been unable to seize the possibilities that exist to promote access to, and use of, knowledge to fulfill human rights and achieve more equitable, inclusive and sustainable societies.

The members of the A2K Coalition represent educators, researchers, students, libraries, archives, museums, other knowledge users and creative communities around the globe. Our individual missions are varied but we all share a vision of a fair and balanced copyright system.

In addition to our mission statement and demands, the A2K Coalition website features evidence to substantiate our claims. Three maps track the state of copyright limitations and exceptions for online education, text and data mining, and preservation across most countries in the world. Currently, only the text and data mining map is fully implemented, but the maps for online education and preservation will follow soon. The website is available in English, French and Spanish language versions.

We invite you to explore the A2K website and spread the word about the A2K Coalition.

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