WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Talks Still Stalled

Efforts to update broadcasting protections for the digital age made little progress at last week's meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), broadcasters told us. "There was no significant movement ... and certainly not a leap forward as broadcasters had hoped for," emailed Erica Redler, North American Broadcasters Association legal adviser. The World Broadcasting Unions' wish list was for the SCCR to commit to finalizing a draft treaty suitable to become a basic proposal for a diplomatic conference by year's end, and for it to ask WIPO to convene such a conference in 2023. Broadcasters "did not expect that there could be consensus on a new draft" at the May 9-13 hybrid meeting, so they asked for a second meeting this year, Redler said. "To help ensure clarity and common understanding" on its scope, the U.K. "proposed a further, focused technical discussion, enabling all member states the opportunity to feed into and develop the new draft text," emailed an Intellectual Property Office spokesperson. Signal theft costs millions in lost earnings every year, and protecting broadcasters and creators is an important issue for the U.K., he said. The committee "discussed whether to hold a special technical session dedicated to this agenda item before the end of 2022," but there was no consensus, said a summary by Chairman Aziz Dieng, of Senegal's Copyright Office. Governments were invited to send further comments, suggestions and questions by July 13, and the SCCR agreed to meet twice next year, it said. The last committee meeting, in July, had strong criticism from some member countries, observers and broadcasters over several issues (see 2107010001).