Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Public Knowledge does not believe that a broadcasting treaty is necessary. A large number of national and international instruments on copyright and related rights afford protection to the necessary parties.
Furthermore, as you have noted, there has been a history of difficulties in reaching resolution on a broadcasting treaty over the past several years. The disagreements have extended even to the basic definitions of terms within the General Assembly’s mandate, such as what “signal-based” means. The divergence of opinions extends to the objective, the scope, and the object of protection of the treaty, and, according to interventions made earlier today, may yet diverge even more with regard to webcasting and post-fixation retransmission.
The marked lack of agreement, expressed just this morning by a large number of delegations present, suggests that the needed consensus on an instrument, even one narrowly tailored to address signal misappropriation, versus an exclusive rights-based treaty, is not possible for the foreseeable future.
Among the difficulties preventing consensus is the concern that exclusive rights in a treaty might create an overlap of potentially conflicting rights and interests that might hamper end users in their ability to make legitimate uses of information.
These problems, and the difficulties they have created in reaching consensus here, highlight the value of approaching some of these issues not on a right-by-right basis, and instead from the perspective of the users or uses affected.
To that end, regarding future work, I would like to stress the importance of resolving some of these issues via ongoing work on limitations and exceptions, along the several tracks proposed this week. Subject areas for this work include exceptions and limitations for the visually impaired, libraries and archives, education, orphan works, and other critical issues.
These exceptions and limitations are pressing issues in the field of copyright today, and I believe the authority of this Committee might best be turned towards concrete steps addressing urgent needs in line with this Committee’s role in supporting WIPO’s Development Agenda.
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