World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).
Immediate past President of the World Blind Union (WBU) and Vision Australia General Manager International and Stakeholder Relations, Maryanne Diamond, recently travelled to Geneva for the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights meeting.
The meeting featured three full days of negotiations on the limitations and exceptions for people with a vision impairment or print disability in the proposed treaty.
On a positive note, the European Union have finally declared in favour of a treaty. Unfortunately the USA did not and is now alone in failing to support it.
During the week, the detailed text negotiations also started well, with positive progress on the definition of authorised entities and scope of works to include audio books which had previously been left out.
“Progress on the text stalled later in the week partly because of some reluctance by EU Member States,” said Ms Diamond.
“However, there still seems to be goodwill from all parties to get the job done.”
“We are still just about on track to have a decent, usable treaty in 2013. We will need to continue to lobby the EU and work well with other WIPO member states to get to that point,” said Ms Diamond.
“If we back off now, we will lose all momentum.”
While it was hoped that an agreement would be reached on all outstanding issues in the text, this it wasn’t to be.
Nevertheless, according to Ms Diamond, this was by far the most productive meeting of the SCCR over the last four years with all members and groups working together to reach an agreement on some major issues.
From 24-26 November, the WBU Right to Read team held a workshop to begin planning for the next stage of this campaign. Once the treaty has been adopted, countries will be required to ratify or sign up to the treaty.