An extraordinary General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization...

An extraordinary General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization is set to decide the date for a diplomatic conference to approve a treaty on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons and those with so-called print disabilities. Such disabilities can include learning disabilities and make it hard to read. The WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights last week tried to narrow down differences between the 185 member states to prepare for a successful diplomatic conference. Dan Pescod, from the U.K. Royal National Institute for the Blind that’s a member of the European and World Blind Union, said there’s still the possibility of failure. “The most pessimistic reading is that even the extraordinary General Assembly might get canceled; the second most pessimistic scenario is that the extraordinary General Assembly takes place but decides not to call a diplomatic conference,” he said. During last week’s negotiations, some differences were narrowed down, Pescod said. That included the definition of what constituted an accessible format copy and also the definition of “beneficiaries,” he said. Despite the progress, Pescod said “the discussions overall were quite disappointing, [and] member states suggested too many new amendments rather than whittling down the text into nearly final form.” One of the biggest open issues is “a final definition of authorized entities, the rules for cross-border sending of works, as the European Union is worried about piracy as a result of cross-border activities, something which is unfounded,” he said. The EU still firmly supports including a reference to the three-step test, which many stakeholders opposed. At the recent Frankfurt book fair, Anne Bergman-Tahon of the Federation of European Publishers said her organization prefers a self-regulatory approach to facilitate access for blind and print-disabled people, rather than an international treaty. “The discussions on the international level are slowing down the work on ETIN, the European Trusted Intermediary Network,” she said. Allan Adler, vice president-legal and government affairs for the Association of American Publishers, said WIPO efforts were being slowed by still-arriving new proposals for the text. India has raised the question of accessibility of works that the country calls “interactive,” and that include excerpts of audiovisual works, of sound recordings or computer programs, for example, he said. There’s still a question if a full-fledged treaty is the way to go, he said. “It could be more useful to have a model law, a recommendation or joint statement.” Such actions could take effect more quickly than a treaty. Several draft treaties including the Broadcasting Treaty have sat on the WIPO agenda for many years, Adler said.