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Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights
Twenty-Fourth Session.
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(Background talking.)
>> CHAIR: Colleagues, good morning and welcome to the plenary, the last day of our session.
In terms of the order of the day, I want to propose the following order of the day: You will recall that we had agreed that today would be this morning libraries and archives. It's already on the agenda. You also recall that there was the document on education that the Friends of the Chair have been working on in consultation with delegations there's also the formal adoption for the record on broadcasting, the document. There's also the document on VIP, which we have to -- we've been working on in informals and we need to of course present the revision to the plenary. So those are the four issues, libraries and archives, education, broadcasting, VIP.
There's also -- we need to take note under VIP of the stakeholders platform report.
I intend to then have informal consultations with coordinators on the proposed conclusion document, which I circulated to the coordinators last night after that informal consultation will come back into plenary. And we will continue with Agenda Item 8, which is the Development Agenda. And we'll have some statements on that and then we'll go to the conclusions. So that is the order of the day.
I would then like to invite delegations to speak to the issue of libraries and archives. I do recall that there's been a request from the -- some NGOs to be given some time on libraries and archives and I intend to do so with very careful management of time. Because as I said yesterday, time doesn't seem to be our friend.
So libraries and archives. The floor is open.
Are there commence on libraries and archives? Uruguay.
>> URUGUAY: Thank you, be Chair. Chair, in the previous session of this committee, Uruguay together with Ecuador and Brazil submitted a proposal on limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives. Uruguay has followed this topic of exceptions as has said since 2008 where with Chile Nicaragua and Uruguay it submitted a document regarding the importance regarding limitations and exceptions and the SCCR.
In 2010 the Council of copyright of Uruguay together with IFLA the international federation of laebs and associations submitted their proposal in this regard in our country. At this meeting various experts and chiefs of offices of libraries and archives institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean participated. And it showed the importance for legislation in many countries have a clear status for limitations and exceptions for libraries in the various forms which are required for example regarding the ability to have access to a work for it's content. If this is necessary for this library and this also applies to loans.
I think it was a very good meeting and it fine tuned the proposal by the federation of libraries and archives we believe this is a key topic for the agenda for our country, for all Developing Countries and it's key for this issue to be dealt with, for it to continue to be on the agenda. And that together but not as a package but together with other issues such as visual impairment. And educational and research institutions should be considered together. And these are key issues on the agenda. And she's should be dealt with -- these should be dealt with the importance that they deserve. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, Uruguay. Any further comments? Zambia.
>> ZAMBIA: Thank you, Chair. This delegation supports the statements by others who have spoken before me in support of libraries and archives. Libraries and archives are very important for Developing Countries as they provide students, researchers with educational materials and access to culture and knowledge. In order to meet the needs of users libraries and archives should have the exceptions to make reproductions in protectiontive works in printed and digital format they should be able to safeguard against damage and loss. Distinguished Delegates libraries and archives particularly in Developing Countries cannot meet all of the information needs for users we therefore feel that libraries should be able to share materials between libraries through what is known as interlibrary documents apply we believe this is important for all types of libraries in the world as it facilitates access to materials from others.
Mr. Chairman it's important that libraries should be able to make use for content outside of the library and outside premises a treaty to provide exceptions for the rights of libraries and archives to benefit Member States from this exception. I thank you.
>> CHAIR: Colleagues, you recall that yesterday the working document on this item was -- it was adopted and we have since received some textual proposals to add to that document. Those will be taken into account. We've received textual language from the African Group they will be taken into account and a revision will be done and posted on the Web site accordingly.
I will then give an opportunity to the NGOs that want to make statements on this issue.
(Background talking.)
>> CHAIR: Kenya.
>> KENYA: Thank you, Chair. Like other delegations who have expressed the need to provide for SPC for libraries and archives we wish to acknowledge that publish ertion and librarians need each other therefore librarians and archive ease-of-uses do their work in good faith and respect the rights holders this having been said my delegation in support of the African Group's proposal wishes to submit it's concern with the regards to the liabilities that have been in the past leveled against librarians and archivists who have been from time and time again accused of mist use of copyright work and have fallen prey of inad was sees that the current Copyright Law provides it needs to be clearly stated that the librarian or archivist is expected to provide access to information or knowledge. They are also under obligation to comply with IP statutes in making available information and material to their users the complexity of IP studies and the absence of ready legal advice to librarians and archivists while acting bonafide who as such may wrongly construe or interpret or apply copyright statute should not be personally held liable.
This not with standing this can only be attained if we provide in limitations and exceptions and insulation against such liabilities and this will provide librarians or archivist who inadvertently misinterpret or miseye ply the copyright status. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Nigeria.
>> NIGERIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Nigerian delegation and also on behalf of the African Group wants to stress like other speakers the importance of this issue. Personally as the daughter of a librarian, I can emphasize the importance of libraries, particularly with ensuring that the access needs the educational needs the research needs of the population are met in this regard parallel importation is of particular importance. Both in ensuring the vitality of libraries as cultural institutions but also to ensure that users not only in Developing Countries but in Developed Countries are able to access the rich trove of resources that are not often within national boundaries so I think it's important that as this body begins to look at an international treaty on this issue that the question of what libraries do, how they are able to preserve to distribute works. And the necessary limitations that will facilitate parallel importation for libraries as well as library lending be of utmost priority. I think it is fair to say that the international copyright system and national copyright systems on the whole have only been successful because libraries have been in existence. I think that it is important to note that in the absence of parallel importation and limitations and exceptions on distribution right it would be virtually impossible for even the work we are doing in this body to go on. So without saying much at this point, again, just to stress the importance of this issue and to encourage that this body treat this with utmost seriously. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: South Africa.
>> SOUTH AFRICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman I just want to ask for a point of clarity. My apologies for just arriving so late. Perhaps you have addressed this question. Our method of work this morning, is it general presentations right now on libraries and archives or are we going to go topic by topic? We just want clarity here because we hear general remarks right now and we understand we have Document 23/8/Prov which has comments not only comments made at the last session but written comments and part of the comments were questions that were posed on a number of text you'll citations which were made so we just want to understand our method of work this morning. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Well, I had indicated yesterday -- well some delegations indicated yesterday that there were textual suggestions to make to the document and weigh wanted those addressed -- we wanted those addressed today as a priority. And I thought that based on that there would have been comments on those new suggestions because they were new and then we move on that truck. Yeah United States. Sorry; USA you have the floor.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like many delegations here the question of SPC for libraries and archives is very important to us and we have contributed a great deal of material and ideas to the working document like the Distinguished Delegate of South Africa we are concerned that just a series of general statements doesn't advance the work of the committee. We all are committed to SPC properly and appropriately crafted for libraries and archives. So Mr. Chairman as we said in informals last night which think the work for libraries and archives will proceed if not today but in the future if this committee actually focuses on some of the topics in the list of 11 in the document the African Group has just said they see an emphasis on parallel importation we would have emphasis on other things as a place to begin the process but we really strongly urge the committee that general statements are not needed and we need to move on to a specific understanding of where in the document we should focus our attention because we have to focus our attention now to make progress. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, U.S. Tunisia.
>> TUNISIA: Thank you, Chair my delegation on behalf of the African Group wish to express real issue on the issue -- real interest with the issue with reference to cross-border issues. We think it is important to stress -- to address the issue of how to obtain excess materials from libraries and archives in other countries in response to requests from users. We believe that international treaties on copyright do not address this issue and this poses a real challenge to access to information especially in the current Digital Age where information has no defined borders. So my delegation and on behalf of the African Group suggests that this committee should seek to provide for cross-border information transfer which is recognized by intergovernmental communities. And thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: Ecuador.
>> ECUADOR: Thank you, Mr. Chair. This delegation also would like to support the idea put forward by the Distinguished Delegate from the United States that we should sort of start focusing the issues of the libraries that we're going to address. Having in consideration that we will have to address them all. But it would be a good idea if we start I don't want to say clusters but we need to have some order so we focus on what we want to resolve. That's what I think.
And the second thing is I'm not sure Mr. Chairman but I think the African Group still hasn't had a chance to explain the proposal so maybe that will be a standard for focusing that those who have presented the proposal will have the possibility of explaining it. And if they would be willing, it would be interesting to hear the explanation.
>> CHAIR: The African Group had made the proposals yesterday and they were circulated and available for delegations. Delegations may wish to raise questions if they have questions. Any other delegations? The secretary will announce the list of -- Egypt.
>> EGYPT: Thank you, Chair. We would like to address of course this issue of the proposal represented yesterday. One important aspect of this proposal was the issue regarding the attractive withdrawn and accessible works. In this regard we think this is very important topic to be discussed especially given the encasing -- the increasing number of work circulated under this particular classification. And we would like to support the ongoing discussions as part of the Exceptions and Limitations for libraries and archives for this issue we also need to address the for the works as part of the issues before committee, in this regard we note the libraries and archives to make available materials that are historical scientific and cultural in nature and making them accessible to their patrons. Essentially these institutions face the challenge of where the authors cannot be found where the authors have withdrawn the works and where the work is no longer commercially available therefore we view these works that are originally in libraries and archives are in different languages across the world we know the effective functioning of these institutions would allow us to address this issue and include some specific Exceptions and Limitations regarding it and we will be willing to listen to any comments to present any clarifications in this regard. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Nigeria.
>> NIGERIA: Thank you on support of the African Group with regard to the issues of contracts on this item my delegation supports the efforts by the committee in providing limitations and exceptions for archives in line with this we strongly support the limitations and exceptions on licensing regimes or agreement by libraries and archives. Limitations and exceptions provided by the copyright national laws supersede contracts and licensing terms that seek to limit copyrighted works. This is because to do otherwise would permit rights holders to defeat or limit certain limitations and exceptions that are already provided in the Berne Convention. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Senegal.
>> SENEGAL: Thank you, Chairman, I do thank you for giving me the floor at this stage. My delegation would like to begin by expressing support for the proposal that's been put forward by the African Group. That is to say the proposal referring to the need to establish limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives. We support that proposal. We believe that this is a matter of paramount importance for the African region. Given the importance of libraries and archives for education and research in our region. And also given their particular sporns when it comes to access to knowledge.
My delegation believes that the existence of TPMs is indeed very important in order to ensure appropriate protection for copyright but we also believe we need to clarify the fact that such measures could constitute limitations on the ability of libraries to enjoy access to knowledge. we therefore believe we need to focus further on this issue. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: USA.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. A number of the Distinguished Delegates who have spoken have identified individual areas that seem important to them. The Distinguished Delegate of Nigeria first mentioned importation. Then the Distinguished Delegate of Egypt raised a different topic, which was orphaned works. And then the Distinguished Delegate of Nigeria came to a different topic which was licensing then the Distinguished Delegate of Senegal raised the question of TPMs. And again the United States would like to recommend to the committee that we'll only really be able to move this forward in the future if we focus on two or three topics that we can all agree are the topics that really should warrant our first efforts. And since everyone is making suggestions or making implicit suggestions along those lines for the United States limitations of liability for librarians, which was mentioned by the Distinguished Delegate of Kenya, is a priority for us and an emphasis for us as is preservation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, Egypt.
>> EGYPT: Thank you we wanted to thank the delegation of the United States for engaging this discussion. We just wanted to get clarity that this proposal to have focus on two or three topics so what will be the situation regarding the other topics? Because we understand that in this committee we have identified the 11 clusters or topics for further discussion, this committee and later on. So I would just request for further clarity about the exact perspective towards the other topics beyond the two or three identified as proposed by the U.S. delegation.
>> CHAIR: Argentina then South Africa.
>> ARGENTINA: Thank you, Chair. We're going to make a general intervention regarding the process we're doing today. And we would like to talk about some of our particular points of interest in this discussion.
I would like to reiterate that we are also interested in preservation. We are also interested in the responsibility of libraries and archives. Interlibrary loans and technological protection measures without prejudice to establishment. Which in fact all of the other previous delegations have dealt with -- interventions have dealt with. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Before I give the floor to South Africa, colleagues on this issue of topics and how you want to prioritize them, of course you can already hear that various delegations have different areas of interest which will make it difficult for you to say we'll focus on this one. I would suggest that we all agree that we run through the document as structured in the proposal. I mean, we have to begin from this start of the document and go down. Because if we start a pick-and-choose process we will not agree on the basis of priorities. But yen, it is in the hands of delegations -- but you know it is in the hands of delegations. I can only give guidance. South Africa.
>> SOUTH AFRICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman I think you said what we were going to say our understanding is we have 11 topics and what is logical is to go by sequence starting with preservation I believe there will be comments if there are no comments then we move on to the second topic so I just wanted to suggest we start with the first topic on preservation. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: United States.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you Mr. Chair we believe the Distinguished Delegate of South Africa was addressing what we should do in today's session, which is completely fine with us. We were only making an informal suggestion regarding future work and I think that's clear to everyone. And we would still recommend that to the Chair. Of course picking two or three topics by consensus is not to the detriment of the other topics being eventually addressed. We would just recommend to everyone that the only reason we have been able to make substantial progress like we have on print disabilities is a very focused and narrow topic where we can really put our attention and that's the only reason that the United States is recommending that we take among the 11 some place to start. And were the committee wanting to do that in future work as the Distinguished Delegate of South Africa recommended, you just start with the list, that would be fine. But then we would recommend we really have a focused effort on that first topic. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: Thank you. Do I see any other requests for the floor
There's a proposal from South Africa as I understand it that we start looking at the document from of course the first topic, which is preservation, in this committee session. I just want to hear your views on that proposal. Egypt.
>> EGYPT: Thank you, my delegation can support this proposal because we think it's a logical way to proceed with the work and we note it's coming from the Chair that we would like to have some sort of a structured discussion around the issues. So we can support this path.
>> CHAIR: Any other comments?
Yes, I would suggest at this stage because we have -- I'm aware that libraries and archives was of course scheduled for today for this morning. And I'm very much willing to proceed on that basis. I just want also to appeal to colleagues that I did at the opening of the meeting announce the order of the day. And we need to be aligned to this fact.
So taking that into consideration, I want again to request delegations as to whether we should start in this session substantive discussions.
Well, I hear nothing to the contrary. So may I suggest that we hear from the NGOs. That have requested the floor on this matter. My preference of course that we begin after having received these textual proposals, new textual proposals that we look at the document in totality and open discussions on the topics themselves in the next session. That is my recommendation to the committee
NGOs, the following NGOs have put up their requests for the floor. The Secretariat will announce them and we will close the list at that. So Secretariat, could you announce the NGOs?
>> SECRETARIAT: The list is IFRO, IFLA, IEFL net, KEI, CIA, STM, LCA, CCIA, CIS, CLA, IPA, and MPA.
>> CHAIR: I'll invite IFRO to take the floor. Strictly three minutes.
>> IFRO: Thank you, Mr. Chair for giving the floor to IFRO. We acknowledge our countries where appropriate exceptions may be required to perform duties legally to support such Exceptions and Limitations in national legislation many WIPO states also include such Exceptions and Limitations in the laws libraries should be able to lipped out formats after the lending period. Rights holders should have the right to receive some remuneration for such lending we note a 54 countries possibly more have adopted public lending library schemes in the legislation libraries should also be enabled to provide access to their users to works in their collections with permission and under license from the rights holders or their representatives such as reproduction rights organisations. The same principle based on the permission and the license with the rights holders or their representatives should apply to cross-border users any international document delivery of copyright works should be conducted with the permission of the rights holders in the country of supply or their authorized representatives in the country of supply or reception or if performed under any exception complying with the Three-Step Test of legislation in the country of supply or reception or both countries then the countries agreed to and accepted by the rights holders or authorized representatives in both countries. The reproduction and making available of orphan and out of commerce works is best handled when voluntary stakeholder initiatives including licensing arrangements set a point of departure for it. Solutions to enable the digitalization and making available of open works and out of commerce works required a country specific approach considering national legal and other traditions this is best achieved when stakeholders are offered the opportunity to establish the premises for it. We refer to the Memorandum of Understanding on the digitalization and making available of out of commerce works through collective licensing which associations representing libraries, authors, publishers ROOs and IFRO have signed in Europe also the sake stakeholders in Europe have jointly and voluntarily developed such as modelling agreements mechanisms for one stop shops by collective management on the arrow system which reduce time effort and costs in identifying the rights status and rights holders by 95% in comparison to traditional research. Regarding technical protection measures the reference points would be the established WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO performances and phono grams treaty. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Thank you. IFLA.
>> IFLA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman I'm speaking on behalf of the international federation of libraries associations we fully support this committee sending a recommendation to the General Assembly this year to convene a diplomatic conference for the visually impaired with regard to discussion on the text for this instrument we would like to remind you libraries have worked very long time with the visually impaired and print disabled people and we are the main providers of these services to them IFLA maintains that libraries should specifically be included in the definition of authorized entities since we are absolutely integral to the provision of accessible material by blind and print disabled people.
Secondly, if the committee elects to have record keeping safe marks in the instrument these should be drafted as flexibly as possible so they can reflect national laws that best reflect the local institutions at the very least Article D3 from proposals for revised text for Document SCCR/23/7 allowing rights holders to request anonymous aggregated data on copies and treating authorized users and libraries with suspicion should be deleted.
We thank all Member States for their contributions, proposals and comments contained in SCCR/23/8. In particular we are especially grateful for the contributions from the African Group, Brazil, Ecuador, India, the United States and Uruguay. We note with appreciation that the document covers a broad range of issues that are essential to the functioning of libraries and archives in the Digital Age.
IFLA reminds delegates that we are seeking an instrument that will provide basic minimum international standards for limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives providing flexibility to Member States to enact provision in their laws that meet or exceed these minimum standards. The scope of interpretation of the three steps -- Three-Step Test should not be constrained by an unduly narrow or restrictive approach. In our view and reflected in the max plank declaration the Three-Step Test does not only take into account the interest of the rights holders but involves consideration of the collective public interests. These values are fundamental to the consideration of the Three-Step Test and I quote: The public interest is served when the inevitable tendency of Copyright Law to restrict competition through the grant of exclusive rights is no greater than necessary.
We support advancement on all four topics before this committee and we look for a Work Plan that recognizes the different level of maturity of the topics. Libraries and archives have been scheduled for two half days this SCCR. We understand that other issues are high on agenda and we want a resolution on TVI we seek a Work Plan for libraries and archives that will take us forward for the next two years it's important to allocate sufficient time to consider each issue and to fully discuss libraries and archives and the other proposals.
Given the adjustments made to the scheduling at this meeting and given the high level of maturity of libraries and archives illustrated in the proposals made by some Member States contained in SCCR/23/8, we urge delegates to set aside and safeguard substantive time at SCCR 25 to discuss libraries and archives. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, EIFL.net. I wish to emphasize the time, please. Keep the time.
>> IEFL.net: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm experiencing on behalf of Electronic Information for Libraries firstly I would like to commend the Secretariat for providing live webcast and transcription for this meeting we appreciate the openness and transparency this brings to the committee proceedings. We thank the committee for the adoption of SCCR/23/8 we believe is a good basis for moving forward on all of the topics. I will comment briefly on two important issues that arose in the discussions last week. The first is the relationship between Exceptions and Limitations and delivery of local content strong Exceptions and Limitations benefit the creation and dissemination of local content without jeopardizing the incentive to create. Here are two examples a university library that provides lawful reproduction for students and academics quips the next generation for innovation, creativity and leadership.
A work preserved by the national library becomes part of the national heritage for future scholars and citizens who can rediscover resources that would otherwise be lost.
We strongly believe that Exceptions and Limitations are good for local research, local creativity, local innovation and development.
The second issue relates to the Three-Step Test. The applicability or otherwise of the Three-Step Test in the different treaties to different rights and different exceptions plus varying interpretations of it's meaning are a growing source of confusion and uncertainty we would ask the khe to provide guidance on this complex topic to help advance the thinking of the current role and function of the Three-Step Test it's scope and application as well as limitations on it's use this guidance would be very helpful and provide confidence of what is possible in the copyright system.
And finally I will comment on the negotiations for a treaty for blind and visually impaired people. Mr. Chairman we reject any assertion that would use libraries and archives as a reason not to advance a treaty. Every issue should be discussed, evaluated and stand on it's own merits.
It would be a tragedy if the copyright system were to freeze up in the face of change or through fear of new precedence when all around us change is happening through technological developments, new business models and judicial decisions such as that of Canada Supreme Court that fair dealing is a user's right as stated by the Distinguished Delegate of Brazil TVI is a human rights issue without an issue to business interests and the famous remark by Victor Hugo in 1878 is pertinent and I quote: If one of these two rights the rights of the writer and the right of humankind had to be sacrificed it would of course be that of the writer because the public interest is our sole concern and humankind I declare must come before us writers.
So in this spirit we ask you Distinguished Delegates to demonstrate your commitment to the human rights of print disabled people around the world by endorsing a treaty proposal at this meeting. Thank you for your attention.
>> CHAIR: KEI.
>> KEI: Thank you very much I would like to start off by saying that we agree with the comments the United States made that it would be a good idea to identify within the many different things that have been proposed in terms of the textual negotiations a smaller set of areas that are -- would receive in the short run more attention just because I think it's hard to talk about everything all at once and I think that that would -- you know that would get us further along in seeing to what extent people can reach a consensus on particular issues that have to come I think that would be a great confidence building and instructive thing.
And I notice that U.S. was listed in catalog in some areas they thought might fit that category and try to identify things they heard from the African Group in that area. We have very much an open mind in this area. I certainly think that discussions along that line would be productive here. Also toward reaching conclusions at the end.
Switching to a different topic, I think that it's important to in general -- and this is not related to any particular provision but to avoid the mistakes of the Berne appendix as these negotiations unfold which is to say the Berne appendix, which was one of the worst parts of the copyright system was -- failed because it introduced a lot of burdensome and complicated and restrictive procedures on things. And I'm not saying that the current proposals by the African Group do that. On the contrary I don't think they do but I know in watching what's happened in the treaty for the blind issue, I think there's a risk that will come up in these discussions and I hope it doesn't.
Finally on the issue of the -- of cross-border exchange I think that is a topic that's technically interesting and important to everyone and it plays out definitely with libraries and some other things because they do a lot of things like interagency loans and things like that where there's no prices involved. Usually libraries lend out for can -- lend out things for free to their own patrons. In a Digital Age it's complicated. So that seems like a really important thing that the African Group identified. And I note that the libraries one of the reasons for having international norms is to deal with cross-border issues to the extent that could be touched in some ways I think it's really ambitious but I think there's a big payoff if you get it right. And on the issue of parallel trade I would say we recently filed a brief in the United States Supreme Court on this topic where we said in the area of textbooks and books and libraries and things like that we felt there were some areas for restrictions on parallel trade. Between low income countries and high income countries. I think our general feeling was Developing Countries should be able to engage in global parallel trade and copyrighted goods but there should be barriers between parallel trade that go from Developing Countries and high-income countries in order to protect differential pricing in countries we feel the same way about pharmaceutical drugs we feel if they are cheaper in the Developing Countries they shouldn't be placed in the market in the United States through parallel trade that's an exception that we have toward a general group we tend to make an exception and some copyrighted goods where we think differential is important for countries of different incomes. But for low-income countries we think that the most robust -- most robust parallel trade is in their interests. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: CIA.
>> CIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The international Council on archives is grateful for the opportunity to address the committee. I represent the body that it itself represents archives throughout the world. We are working closely with our library colleagues to help this, this committee, to work towards a draft or instrument on Exceptions and Limitations to copyright to assist non-profit libraries and archives to provide a high-quality public service.
The international Council recognizes the vital importance and fast progress for an instrument for the visually impaired and welcomes the attention that's been devoted to it we look forward now to seeing in the conclusions of this meeting a renewed commitment to a timetable for taking forward work on a draft instrument in favor of libraries and archives which is well advanced.
Archives can be said to exist for two primary and closely related purposes to preserve the largely unpublished records of the past so they may be studied and used by their creators in the public now and in the future.
Libraries and archives are strong supporters of copyright recognizing it's a central role for creators and to the economies of the world however copyright can inhibit archives in performing their essential public functions even though few copyright works and archives have any significant commercial value and few were created with the expectations of exploitation by the copyright owner.
Many unpublished documents and archival collections are still in copyright and permission is needed merely to make a copy in order to preserve a fragile paper or electronic document in a new format copies are also needed by readers to enable them to continue their studies elsewhere and to compare sources.
Permission can be impossible to obtain. Since information about the owners of copyright in archival materials is rarely available.
The international Council on archives hopes that work on an instrument for the visually impaired will soon reach a successful conclusion and that progress can then be made on the remainder of the Exceptions and Limitations agenda. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: STM.
>> STM: Thank you, Chair. STM would like to express it's support for the Berne Convention Three-Step Test for flexibility in national legislation and for licensing solutions in the context of discussing possible exceptions for libraries and archives this does not mean STM is not supportive of certain Exceptions and Limitations. In all cases where are publishers accept the principle of exceptions, the terms must be clearly specified and specific terms may be required to ensure that the exceptions are applied in the spirit of the Three-Step Test. Publishers are prepared to discuss such details when specific solutions are sought in the context of special national circumstances. And here I would support and comment on the interventions of a number of Distinguished Delegations and a number of previous speakers that say it's important to focus on specific problem areas with sufficient factual underpinning to arrive at mutually acceptable and sustainable solutions. That is perhaps a level of specificity so far not reached and more work is in STM's view is needed to arrive at that level of specificity.
Scientific and technical publishers operate in one of the most dynamic and innovative fields combining literary works and Information Technology. Publishing includes all steps that bring an author's manuscript into book form, peer reviewed into an e-book form and so on.
All of this is enabled through a copyright system that allows for the editorial production, discovery and delivery of content. At the forefront of this electronic revolution, STM publishers have enabled and shaped the information networks as they exist today and they continue to innovate and shape.
Currently licensing partners are sometimes consortia of libraries of research organisations. Access is provided to entire regions or even on a country basis.
The e-book market is growing and developing into various models of purchasing and lending. In this context carefully crafted exceptions are a must to avoid preempting the future.
The Three-Step Test has historically allowed a balanced approach and we still believe that national problems are not sufficiently uniform to be tackled always in exactly the same way. We therefore, think that flexibility in whatever instrument might be considered is vital.
The public interest of access to information, research and education is best served by encouraging the creation of new publications, information services with these audiences in mind. It is second best to provide only for exceptions to existing and pre-existing materials.
STM reserves the right to make specific comments once individual topics or clusters earmarked for further work are known. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: LCA.
>> LCA: The Library Copyright Alliance expresses appreciation to Member States for your thoughtful discussions regarding limitations and exceptions for these three broad areas that affect the daily work of libraries, DVI, libraries and education.
We strongly oppose language in the proposed text for Article D of SCCR/23/7 regarding the provision of aggregated data to rights holders it would invite publishers to second-guess the procedures of libraries as authorized entities to challenge the quality and quantity of the records kept or the appropriateness of transactions and to threaten litigation when they see an increase. These record keeping and reporting activities involve significant costs better spent on the provision of services compliance may impose such a burden that many libraries will decide not to provide services to print disabled patrons there's no evidence that authorized entities anywhere that exceptions have existed have abused those exceptions so there's no justification for the added administrative burden. Furthermore with current technology there's no such thing as anonymous aggregate data several major privacy breaches occurred because people were able to reverse engineer the aggregated data to find out personally identifiable information this threatens the privacy of visually impaired. Record keeping is a formality one must engage in before benefiting from exception but this is unfair to users if under Berne there are no form amounts for owners there shouldn't be formalities for users the language would set a terrible precedent for other exceptions for lishs and other institutions publishers would seek this right to data in connection for every exception the Library Copyright Alliance is grateful for the critical topics addressed in SCCR/23/8 regarding limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives we believe the following issues should be emphasized: The right of libraries to lend works and the exhaustion of the distribution right upon the first sale of a copy regardless of country of manufacture. Cross-border uses by interlibrary loan by libraries in different countries the use of orphan works by libraries, broad library exceptions to prohibitions on the circumvention on the technological protection measures for educational use and dooiming preservation and library exceptions surviving contractual restrictions we encourage Member States to continue to move forward in their consideration of this working document. We support instruments that will guide Member States in formulating national legislation that will expand the array of available copyright limitations and exceptions globally. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: CCIA.
>> CCIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The computer and communications Industry Association welcomes the work of the SCCR in this important subject area and we're encouraged by the many proposals which exhibit a high level of engagement by countries worldwide. Ensuring that a balance exists in copyright as a -- is a public policy goal we all share a key part of realising that goal is a balance of rights and flexibilities especially in the Digital Age. This discussion seeks to develop a more balanced system which all stakeholders should welcome. We certainly do.
Mr. Chairman, those who remember the initial proposals for discussing limitations and exceptions presented by amongst others Chile will recall that part of the rationale the proponents gave is a group of countries in Latin America tried to create a shared educational portal online and found their legal regimes in combination made it impossible to do ensuring that safe harbor provisions are a part of any international agreement to facilitate legal access to information is essential to making that kind of portal available.
Afterall, if you create a regime which grants users access but doesn't produce legal certainty for those who responsibly facilitate that access, have you really helped anyone? We're therefore surprised by interventions of the United States and the European Commission objecting to the language proposed by Nigeria on Internet intermediary safe harbors from our review of the language proposed it's clearly logical and tailors specifically to the subject area in fact safe harbors are essential to make access envisage the to beneficiaries in the digital environment we find the U.S. -- we find this perplex since it's congruent with the legal regimes of both of them. Mr. Chairman the empirical evidence is overwhelming if you want to have a vibrant Internet with rich services of all kinds with all of the economic development and opportunity for improvements, commerce and social development that they bring, safe harbors for spwed immediate release who make access to information possible are an absolutely indispensable foundation upon which to build an enabling environment it's not accident that you see concentrations of the Internet economy and innovation in those countries where you see strong safe harbor regimes. Finally with respect to the proposal to focus on a couple of issues we suggest that the ultimate result of these discussions should be holistic and sustainable and endorse the comments of IFLA in regard for a work programme and reiterate our support for a clear statement from this house as an outcome of this meeting to prioritize the needs of the visually impaired. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: CIS.
>> CIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to associate ourselves with the statements made by IFLA, KEI, CIA, CCIA and the CLA and IFRRO the centre for Internet stoet would like to commend this house for adopting SCCR/23/8 as a working document on the exceptions on libraries and archives this issue is of paramount interest the world over and particularly in Developing Countries. I would like to limit my oral interventions to two quick points and will send in a longer statement via e-mail.
First, we feel that this committee should pay special attention to ensuring that digital works and online libraries and archives such as the Internet archive also receive the same protection as brick and mortar libraries. Second, we are concerned that we have been seeing some -- we have been seeing some delegations advancing a very narrow interpretation of the Three-Step Test. Such a narrow interpretation is not supported by leading academics nor by practices of Member States.
A narrow interpretation of the Three-Step Test must be squarely rejected. In particular I would like to associate CIS with the strong statements made by IFLA and KEI to maintain flexibilities within Exceptions and Limitations instead of overly prescriptive provisions incumbered by weighty procedures and specifications.
We have comments on parallel trade, as well, drawing from Indian experience but I'll send those in by writing.
Lastly, I'll note that libraries and archives enhance the value of the copyrighted works that they preserve and provide to the general public. They do not erode it.
Exceptions and Limitations that help libraries and archives actually help copyright holders. The sooner copyright holders try not to muzzle libraries and archives, especially when it comes to out-of-commerce works, electronic copies of works and in Developing Countries, the better it will be for them, their commercial interests as well as the global public interest. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: CLA.
>> CLA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Canadian library association notes the progress which has been made in advancing deliberations on establishing basic minimum standards for limitations and exceptions in the areas as laid out in the SCCR schedule while recognizing that during the deliberations the issues relating to the visually impaired and print disabled libraries and archives and education and other disabilities can become intertwined, it remains the belief of CLA that they are most properly addressed in separate treaty instruments in their order of maturity. While sufficient time should be allocated in each area to advance deliberations, it is important that there be agreement at this SCCR on a recommendation to the General Assembly on a treaty instrument for TVI.
Last week it was stated that fair dealing and fair use are mere defenses against alleged infringing activity. I remind the delegates of the ruling of Canada's Supreme Court in 2004. In a unanimous decision the court found that and I quote: The fair dealing exception like other exceptions in the Copyright Act is a users right in order to maintain the proper balance between the rights of a copyright owner and users interests it must not be interpreted restrictively CLA believes that the July 21st proposals text for Document SCCR/23/7 bring delegates closer to an acceptable consensus on TVI. We note one area of concern for CLA the delegation of authorized entity must acknowledge the important role currently played by libraries in a number of jurisdictions providing alternative format content to our visually impaired and print disabled users. In conclusion while eagerly awaiting the deliberations on limitations and exceptions on Latin America CLA urges delegates to move now on a recommendation on a treaty instrument for the print disabled. Millions of visually impaired and print disabled individuals spread across all of the nations represented here today await formal WIPO recognition of their basic human right to equal access to the world's print heritage. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: IPA.
>> IPA: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for giving the International Publishers Association the floor. I will restrict my comments only to the issue of how we should progress on the issues surrounding libraries and archives.
The delegate of Kenya made a very good description of the relationship between rights holders and publishers. It is not a hostile relationship. It is actually a very close relationship and often a partnership.
Libraries are the most important customers for many publishers and in many regions for all publishers.
We should take -- keep that in mind when we approach the 11 topics now before us on libraries and archives. We should also remind ourselves as the U.S. delegate did of why we were able to make such great progress in the area of print disability.
In print disability we had several issues which came together. Firstly the creation of special files at great expense for the organisations in question. Secondly, the lack of an international exchange of such files. And therefore, thirdly, a duplication of effort which we all agreed was unwarranted.
Not all of the 11 topics that we are discussing on libraries and archives are under the same constellation. Some of the topics actually affect the business relationship between libraries and rights holders. This committee in discussing them would actually be discussing an aspect of a very normal partnership which is evolving as the digital environment evolves. Instead, therefore, this committee should focus on topics which are not part of an existing library publisher relationship.
In doing so we should keep two things in mind. Firstly, that the public interest is on both sides, both in the interest in showing that the libraries can serve their purpose but also in ensuring that rights holders can provide their content to libraries. Secondly each of these topics should start with an intensive information sharing and an intensive evidence-based discussion about what the issues are and where the problems lie and where the problem with access lie and what the cause of that is. We will surely find that not everywhere the problem is copyright and certainly not everywhere the problem -- the solution are copyright exceptions. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: Thank you. Last speaker, MPA.
>> MPA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the opportunity to take the floor on behalf of motion picture association.
As we have stated previously, we support a balanced and workable system of copyright including not only strong exclusive rights but also Exceptions and Limitations for libraries and archives. MPA member companies have agreements with film archives around the world and we recognize in particular the importance of film preservation it's in the interest of the general public and the film sector.
-- regarding the use of TPMs, technological protection measures which are driving the use of new business models in the interests of consumers people have invented measures to introduce exceptions in technological measures moreover we have the recent example of the Beijing treaty this committee's work needs to be realistic focused narrow and clear. As it considers issues that arise in the context of Exceptions and Limitations in this area we need to remember that digital exceptions don't exist in a vacuum. There need to be digital rights in place, as well. The process must be informed by and must respect the international copyright framework including, yes, the Three-Step Test. This framework as has been mentioned already provides the flexibility to introduce a wide range of exceptions and also encourages licensing solutions the fact there were different interpretations of the Three-Step Test around the world is evidence of that flexibility. That flexibility needs to be preserved in recognition of the diversity in this house.
With respect to ISP privileges sometimes referred to also as safe harbors also come responsibilities to address illegal activity online. Indeed, the U.S. and European legal regimes also recognize this point. Copyright is in the public interest and is a fundamental right. It provides the incentive for the financing creation and dissemination of the works to which libraries and archives seek access and in which they do indeed play such an important role.
That incentive must be, also, preserved. And yes, thank you,
>> CHAIR: Thank you. The committee takes note of the statements made on this item also to note there have been very useful suggestions on how we can progress the work forward in the next session with suggestions from a number of delegations on trying to tackle the discussion on specific items on specific topics. I note Algeria is requesting for the floor.
>> ALGERIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for giving me the floor. Actually I have understood that we will be starting a discussion cluster by cluster and now I'm a little bit surprised that the discussion on this issue -- the discussions on these issues are closed so while my delegation doesn't know exactly how it works with this issue, I would like to deliver a statement on the preservation.
Can I do it at this stage?
>> CHAIR: The delegation of Algeria when I was addressing this issue, you were in the room. And I did invite delegations to comment on this specific issue that you are raising. So we have already dealt with that. Unless you are raising a new issue. South Africa.
>> SOUTH AFRICA: Thank you. Along the lines of Algeria, there was a reason why we sought clarity at first because we realised that our method of work was different from what we are used to because in examining a document we have to go topic by topic. And when we worked in here, we worked when people were making general statements.
So in that regard, I mean we note also that there were good proposals which were made from the floor. But my delegation will reserve it's right on some of this -- some of these proposals which were made especially in limiting or prioritizing subjects especially something we haven't discussed that's why I'm saying Document 23/8 has many comments and we can't prioritize without discussing it unless we discuss the document in it's entirety again what impacts offer future work again is one comment which was made at the last session and which we find in Document 23/4 by the U.S. which might impact future work is on the use of museums we wand to question if museums should be in addition to libraries and archives so if we are not going to be given that opportunity I don't know how we will effect this in the future work. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Colleagues, you recall that I had made suggestions on how we are going to proceed. And I did suggest that we take into account the comments that have been made on how we're going to proceed in dealing with the various topics that are in the document that we adopted yesterday. And also taking into account that there are new proposals that have been put forward by the African Group that delegations, as well, need to consider. There was no objection to that and that's on the basis we move forward. I do note the reservations that have been registered and the issues is that have been raised. But if we are to make progress I would invite delegations that when an issue is put forward, you state your position before a position is taken and we move forward so before we move forward you should at least come forward and make your position known.
Colleagues, I would want to move to education. Egypt Egypt thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a word of clarity before we leave the issue of libraries.
Since there's no -- we heard no objection to the proposal from the African Group so -- can we consider them that they can be included in the working document?
>> CHAIR: Yes, Egypt, in fact I had already stated that. United States.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Just a point of clarity. Could the Distinguished Delegate of Egypt remind us what the new proposals are, the phrase new proposals made my ears perk up.
>> CHAIR: Egypt.
>> EGYPT: Thank you. They are in line with our discussion and they fall under some specific clusters or topics that have already been identified. And I believe that they have been distributed by the Secretariat since yesterday. And they deal in particular with the issue of Topic 3 repositories with accessible works. Topic 8 limitations on available for libraries and archives. And this is one of the issues identified by the United States as a priority issue. And Topic 9 scape works.
>> CHAIR: Egypt, the right to translate works is actually 11, isn't it? Yes.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thanks for the good friend's clarification on that we now see the document and your notice was that the proposal considered right to translate works properly went up Topic 11 but that's fine with us then. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Thank you. Education.
Distinguished Delegates, you will recall that on this item the provisional working document was under consideration of this committee. And it was agreed that the Friends of the Chair would work on compiling the various contextual suggestions put forward in this committee. I would then at this juncture invite the Secretariat to just go through the process that was undertaken in coming up with this document and that reflect the nature of the discussions in the Friends of the Chair group.
>> SECRETARIAT: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Your Friends met twice on this document. And the version that's been distributed this morning reflects discussions during both of those meetings. So at the first meeting the friends suggested dividing the main -- two major divisions -- well really three major divisions of the various what had been called clusters, now are called topics that had been discussed in the plenary into uses other Persons with Disabilities and other considerations. Broader topics with implications for education.
So the Secretariat took into account the discussion of those various topics. Tried to put them under the broad topics as described in the discussion. And then tried to put all the suggestions from Member States under the various topics and subtopics as requested by the Member States where Member States then came forward and said they would either like material placed in multiple places or moved.
The Secretariat did undertake to place the material where the Member States requested. Then the Chair had asked those Member States who had made proposals on the floor that were reflected in what was at the end of the previous version of the document and now comes third to indicate where they wanted that text placed within the body of the document under the various topics and subtopics. To the extent delegations did that, the Secretariat placed the material where requested by the Member States.
Then yesterday there was a meeting of a smaller group of the Friends of the Chair where there was discussion of the structure of the document. During that meeting, it was decided to put the section that includes material on other Persons with Disabilities before both the longer textual comments and the topics with broader implications for education because the topic of persons with other disabilities was actually one of the topics designated for discussion at this meeting.
So based on that, the Secretariat has now prepared the document before you which reflects first the section on uses. Then the section on other Persons with Disabilities, then the text comments which are retitled as per discussion yesterday general comments on Topics 1 and 2. And then finally the category which had been Topic 3 and still is labeled that broader topics with implications for education.
Mr. Chair, there was also discussion yesterday about giving delegations and the Friends of the Chair the time to walk through the various topics 1, 2 and 3. And once that occurs which might be at the next meeting, to consider whether the last two sections of this document, that is the general comments on toeps 1 and 2 and -- Topics 1 and 2 and the Topics with broader implications for education might actually be separated out into a separate document which would either include the text of the broader topics of implication for education or just a list of topics to be discussed at a future time but there was not time during the time available for the Friends of the Chair to go through that examination of each of the topics and where they belonged. So the point to which the discussion got is what's reflected in this document before you.
I should also indicate that to the extent some groups sent us further clarifications of where they wanted material placed or copied yesterday, we incorporated those changes this morning. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, Secretariat, for that brief on how this document has been constructed and the process it's gone through.
I will then invite delegations to address -- to have -- make any comments on the document.Ined knees I can't.
>> INDONESIA: Thank you Mr. Chair we would like to express the opinion on this document as we have expressed in the plenary before our position that the comments should be separated and as a Friends of the Chair from the Asian Group in the meeting it is our understanding that it is the committee to decide whether or not comments should be put in the text and every Member State has the right to comment on the text.
We did raise our concern during the meeting and on this and that -- on our concerns and wish to reiterate the same concern that this document should not include the comments. It should be separated from the main bodies to give clarity of the document as well as to enable to accelerate and move forward with the working text. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: Thank you. Iran.
>> IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate Friends of the Chair and their effort in restructuring the document. And also we discussed this issue this Mork in Asian Group meeting. And -- this morning in Asian Group meeting and there was support for our initial suggestion in plenary which at that time supported by several Member States as well we clearly said in the plenary we would like the textual comments to be separated from legal textual proposals. And it has been the case for VIP document. And this practice is fully compatible with the General Assembly mandate which calls for text-based work. And also as mentioned from my colleague from Indonesia which was presented from Asia in the meeting of the Friends of the Chair, it was not understanding of Asian Group that comments would be mentioned in the main body of the text. And so it's regrettable that the text as it stands now is very confusing. And almost useless and does not take into account the utmost principle of this committee which is the equal treatment of the issues.
If we committed to work on this area on the equal basis, we shall present the committee a meaningful document, a workable document. And this document we find that it's not the one we want. And it's confusing. And we request that again we discuss this matter in informal to find out a formulation acceptable for all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> CHAIR: India.
>> INDIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Indian delegation is in full agreement with the statement made by the Distinguished Delegate of Iran on behalf of the Asian Group. As regards the working document on education and research exceptions, this suggested by Iran it should be like this: Legal textual comments to be the main part of the document. And the normal textual comments will be in the footnote and any general comments given should be at the end of the document.
So it is in the spirit of the normal procedure to be followed. Otherwise it's very difficult to understand the document which is a legal language which is the normal textual language and which is the normal general comments. If everything is mixed together at one topic so very difficult to go at it. Apart from this we would like to suggest we should follow the spirit of the decision made in 2011 SCCR -- that's the Twenty Third SCCR on libraries and archives. Similarly we sat here in the Twenty Third SCCR be and decided these 11 topics and then time was given to Member States to go back and then come and give any additional legal textual comments as such so the proposal from the Indian delegation is that so this document along with any further legal or textual or other comments or any corrections made to the comment already mentioned in the document and all of the three main topics mentioned maybe sent from the Member States to the WIPO Secretariat by September of 2012 so this could be incorporated and can be further -- in the document and can be further discussed in the 25th SCCR to be held in the month of November. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: U.S. then Egypt.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the efforts of the Chair and the Secretariat and Friends of the Chair and we think the document has moved in the direction of something we all can work with. Nonetheless we're attentive to the concerns raised by the Distinguished Delegate of Iran speaking on behalf of the Asia group and the Distinguished Delegate of India and so I guess for us we want to point out to everyone that we are moving in the right direction. We have a right spirit to make this document workable as a working document.
For our delegation and others, there are still some topics that are mentioned. And as they are mentioned that we came into the SCCR believing that this was not the range of things that were in educational teaching and research institutions and persons with other disabilities. But we believe that we'll all find the right result on this.
For us there are three components in figuring this out. One, the structure of the document. Two, the title of the document. And if you said to anyone outside of this committee the title of the document was critical they might laugh but we have all known how many hours we've spent over titles of documents. And three, how the document is addressed in the conclusion. And if everyone is flexible on those three areas, we believe we'll get to an acceptable result for us. Thanks very much.
>> CHAIR: Egypt then EU.
>> EGYPT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would like to note the statement made by Indonesia, Iran for the Asian Group, India and the United States. The African Group initially stated that as a principle we should be working towards separating the textual proposal from documents on this textual proposal.
While we thank the Friends of the Chair, the Chair and the Secretariat for the effort exerted in this process, we would like also to say that we found the RFF to an extent complex to deal with.
First of all, I mean, the structure is not clear. You'll find that there's a start with some subtitles referring to generally applicable considerations. And then you'll have underneath proposals represented. And then topics. And then followed by general comments. And then topics.
So there is a separation even -- I mean there's a mixture or integration between the comments, general comments, and the topics and textual proposals.
Complex to the extent that it's difficult to deal with them.
Also, we note that while some paragraphs were titled proposals, they were in fact either expression of position, for instance a delegation is supporting something or explaining their national experience. For instance a delegation saying in my national law we have these provisions that say so on and so on. So these are not proposals. These are statements of national experience. So we think we should distinguish between those issues. As India stated we should start with the textual proposal itself and then if there's any specific comments to it, they can be captured as part of footnotes. Or in a separate part appended to the document perhaps.
And also we note the three issues Hyderabad by Indonesia and the United States the title, the structure and the conclusion and we also think they should title -- the title needs to be addressed we just need to think about a more intelligent title to the document that captures exactly what this document is trying to achieve. And we think also we may need to have some sort of informal discussion as proposed by the delegation of Iran to try to figure out the best structure for the document. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: EU.
>> EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And let me start by thanking the work of the Secretariat and of the Friends of the Chair to try to advance this document so we can have constructive discussions on this matter.
Provisional working document is an effort to try to get some structure that would help our discussions. But I agree with those that have made remarks as to the lack of clarity of parts of them.
This has nothing to do, however, with the discussion as to what our textual suggestions are or not. We are here under mandate to discuss on the basis of text-based work. And we should not get into creating new categories of text-based work such as legal texts as proposals.
Our commitment and our mandate is text-based work and each Member State has its stage -- each stage the prerogative to decide in which form to provide such text-based contributions to the work.
I recall, as well, the point of the quality, which has been raised as well by the Iranian delegate and in that respect I should say that's a part of equality in all Member States but this has been said from the delegate of Egypt it's correct in my view that despite the efforts made during the Friends of the Chair work there is still some degree of clarity as to some of the topics, even for topics which are covered by Section 1 the one entitled users.
If for instance I read on Page 17 of the document which is under the Section users and under the subsection outside classroom, I can see references to limitations such as recordings of works made by Broadcasting Organisations, reverse engineering or the compilation for the purposes of interoperability or transmissions in a network between third parties by an intermediary.
I could continue if you read on Page 18 there are limitations and exceptions which we all know are very classical but are not necessarily related to educational research and there are similar concerns in other parts of the document. So in that respect we agree with those that think there is a need to do a further work on this document. I don't know how you intend to do it. Clearly if we were to identify these subjects that we want to discuss in a similar manner to the way we did it in the document on libraries and archives it will greatly help our work going foortd am thank you.
>> CHAIR: Cameroon
>> Cameroon: Thank you Mr. President for giving me the floor Cameroon wishes to agree that Cameroon should be removed I have come from the capital to see a working text adopted for this topic. Research and education is very important. Unless we have a text that is clear thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, colleagues for the comments on the document. It is appreciated that the document obviously needs a lot of work. It is a compilation of what the Secretariat received. There's no question about that. I think the question that's lingering in the room is what is textual suggestions.
When I had invited those delegations that had made statements that were placed at the end of the document, I invited the delegations to make the specific textual suggestions from their statements into that document so that we can have them on specific topics. of course it was not in my mandate to do the drafting for them but this is what they give us. And Secretariat just replaced them -- placed them under the respective topics that were indicated.
On this matter I note the discussion that's -- suggestion that's been made by Iran and also India and African Group that we may have to have some informal discussion on this matter.
There is in the work programme for today a slot to have an informal. And I wish that -- I suggest that we take up this item during that time.
In terms of timing, we will announce the specific time.
So that is my suggestion. It is so agreed.
So we will take up this matter on education informal that we're going to have later in the day.
Broadcasting. Yesterday the committee considered the Chair's non-paper, which was revised of course after consultations. The question was put to the committee as to whether this Chair's non-paper could then be adopted as a working document for future work of the committee on the subject of protection of Broadcasting Organisations.
There was -- there was broad consensus on the question that it should be adopted as a working document. But I must note that there was an objection from one delegation.
I did have informal consultations on the matter. And I can confirm that the consensus was still very strong in the informal consultation that this becomes the working document of the committee on the issue of broadcasting -- protection of Broadcasting Organisations.
I'm reporting back to have this adoption formally done in plenary as we had broken into informals and I needed to bring back the issue for formal adoption.
So reflecting the discussion of yesterday and the consultation, I take it we can adopt this document as a working document for the committee on broadcasting. India?
>> INDIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Let me begin with placing on record on behalf of the delegations deep appreciation on the effort you've been making on this particular issue and the two proposals that were put forward, one by South Africa and Mexico and the other by Japan.
We still do not have the text of the working paper you proposed to adopt in front of us. We need to really look at it before we do that. And I would also like to remind you, Mr. Chair, that yesterday the Indian delegation had made a request that the clarifications that they had given as a response to the non-papers should actually be brought up in the text if at all there's a working paper on it.
I would like to reiterate that request and I will hope that you will certainly consider it and grant it.
I also feel that there's a need to go through the text. If this is going to be adopted as a working paper text it needs a certain amount of clarification.
For instance, if you take Article 6 of thisdocument, the non-paper document, where Alternative B, Section 4 it says the provisions of this treaty shall not provide any protection with respect of one, mere restrictions by any means of transmission referred to in Article 2A, B and D. But Article 2A, B and D of which document is not at all clear. And I think there are several other things which are there which needs to really be looked at and actually addressed before this document is really circulated for adoption.
But primarily my delegation will request that the footnotes which shb very -- have been reflected in this document should be brought up in the text because they are all essentially by way of a legal text. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: U.S.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The United States supports the delegation of -- delegation of India's request to move the footnotes up into the body of the text. We believe that in the interest of consensus and our ability to move forward in a constructive way, that would be a useful step for the committee to take. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, Iran.
>> IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman with the understanding that this document is still open for any kind of suggestions and in anyways these suggestions can be proposed later as well so if these comments are legal textual proposals we support their inclusion in the text. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Brazil. Then Switzerland.
>> BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair and good morning to everyone. Brazil also supports the inclusion of the textual suggestions by India in the text. And I have also a question just on the procedure we are following.
After this text being adopted by the committee with the suggestions made by India, will it be open for comments by delegations for a period of time just like we had in the preceding meeting? It's important to know because then I have to inform my capital base. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Switzerland to be followed by Japan.
>> SWITZERLAND: Thank you, Chair. Our delegation is not going to speak on the substantive matter of the to say whether it is in favor or not of elements which are as footnotes in the main pages. We will follow the decision of this assembly. I would just like to speak here to give concerns on how the work has been carried out this week. Since we decided on working methods, you launched consultations, which were done following clear roles on who participated. You indicated this. And the discussions were also followed by a number of decisions. Decisions -- delegations, decisions were taken and after the decisions were taken in a plenary or in different consultations things were questioned each time and if we continue to work like that then we wonder how we can really make progress in this committee so we would like to say we are not opposing the decision of the committee to include these provisions in the text or not but we would just like to note that there was a procedure followed in the framework of the consultations. Delegations were asked what they would like to see in the principle text. Decisions were taken in this regard and I don't think that it's a good idea to question all of the decisions which were taken throughout as time passes. When we take decisions, we should hold to these decisions and we understand that this is negotiating document, it's going to continue to develop throughout the next meetings. And it is with this in mind that we should consider it at this stage.
So I will stop there. But this is a call to all delegations to show better discipline in their work in the future work of this committee. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Japan to be followed by Nigeria.
>> JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we stated repeatedly, it's important to have the progress towards the treaty is to focus our discussion on serving substantial issues such as scope of application as it's close to the mandate of 2007 General Assembly. As the Distinguished Delegate of India pointed out yesterday.
So we would like to emphasize the importance to start that substantive discussion. Not in this session but as soon as possible. And we can discuss the substantial issues based on any document regardless of the nature of the document as long as that document is organised in well -- in a well manner so Japan are flexible on the general text. But I would like to point out the fact that the document should be open for the further contribution as the Distinguished Delegate of Iran pointed out.
At least this -- that point, I mean, that document should be open for further contribution is consensus. So we work on a contribution at any time.
So I would like to support the Indian delegation's proposal. And I also would like to point out that the fact that informal consultation is informal obviously. And a number of the participants in the informal consultation is hugely limited and of course the purpose of informal consultation is to discuss the issues in order to reach anonymous -- unanimous consensus in plenary instead of consensus of majority.
So I think the proposal from the Distinguished Delegate of India made in this plenary should be considered with -- considered in this plenary. Or we will discuss in the propose from the Distinguished Delegate of India. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, Nigeria to be followed by the EU.
>> NIGERIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the delegation of Nigeria, we wanted to support the proposal by India I think that in the interest of consensus and moving this process forward, we got to some positive steps yesterday. It would be I think helpful to add those comments into the text so that everyone's views can be meaningfully discussed. So we just want to support that and hope that this will move the process forward. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: EU to be followed by Mexico.
>> EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. While we share the concern of those that believe we have not made or had much time for technical discussions, we also believe that we need to keep going and work needs to advance in a manner that all Member States feel involved. And for that purpose and in order to reach a consensus that will help our future work, the European Union and it's Member States can support the request by the Indian delegation to have their comments reflected as well in the working document.
It is, of course, also understood that as we progress in our discussions this remains a working basis to which all Member States can contribute with further suggestions. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: Mexico.
>> MEXICO: Thank you very much, Chair. I would once again like to commend the effort which you have brought to developing the work of this committee. And I would also like to thank the Secretariat for their work on us having this document on broadcasting. I think that the contributions which you have made to this committee have been very valuable am and we believe that many delegations have shown their interest in making comments on this document. But my delegation believes that in order for all of the delegations to be able to consider this object an -- on an equal footing this document has to be adopted by the committee and then receive comments from each and every one of the delegations. Let us bear in mind -- we are bearing in mind today that many of the delegations will in fact have to leave today in the evening and we will have to resolve not only this topic but all of the other topics and time is short, sir. So my delegation believes it would be very prudent for us to first and foremost to adopt the document and then in the form in which you believe relevant the comments received from the delegations. Thank you very much, Chair.
>> CHAIR: South Africa.
>> SOUTH AFRICA: Thank you very much, Chair. This is not necessarily to oppose the views expressed by other Member States regarding the inclusion of India's comments on the text. But I think just a matter of procedure for our future workings of moving our discussions forward.
Because the reasons why informal consultations are held is so that all of us can get to a certain level on how we can proceed.
And it is said that sometimes we agree to say these are the working modalities and all of the people that were in the room and the delegation of India was in the room as well when the modalities were outlined and we agreed on the modalities. And one of the principles that we agreed to was that this is not a final document. Member States are still open to make suggestions. And we all agree with that.
And I even said that from my own country I still have to go back to get approval on the content of the document so we didn't discuss the content of the document at all but just the matter of how can we accept this document so we can move forward. And every Member State that was in the room was given an opportunity to present any other item and later on you even said: Is there any member who wanted to include anything. And no one said that their issues had been taken into account and we thought we agreed to that now we have to go back and look at the document like the delegation of Mexico said that I think now we have to go back and look at the document and the question is whether other Member States that haven't or were not part of the informal consultations will be allowed to make additional comments into that.
We are not saying that the document is closed. But what we are saying is that from this session, if we take that as a basis, India's comments will be accommodated along everyone else. When we get back in the next session we are going to start the document from scratch. It's not like there's anything that has been agreed to or anything that was closed. For now I think the important thing is to say to the committee this is the basis nothing in that document has been agreed but it's just a principle argument and if we go back on our principles I think this will have serious consequence. I thought I should share that in the same way Switzerland and Mexico did to say in the future we should agree on something working methologys. If we are going to change this then it will affect our way I don't have any problems with the comments of India being included but for me it's just the concern for our effort to drive a way just to say as a matter of principle sometimes we need to stick by a principle that's been agreed but not to change it along the way. That's all I wanted to say, Chair.
>> CHAIR: Colleagues, I think that my understanding in the room is that we would want to adopt the Chair's non-paper as a working document of this committee. With of course agreement to the request by India that their textual comments be incorporated. So I take it that the document is adopted. With the textual proposals that are in the footnotes in that document to be included in the body of the document.
The Secretariat is going to do this inclusion. And the document will be posted on the Web site. But the document is adopted as a working document. Unless there are other objections. I see no objection. It is so adopted. India.
>> INDIA: Just to thank the Chair for being considerate for a cause which is correct and also to support other delegations who supported it. We do believe that the document by way of a working paper will reflect a balance. And that is what the effort was on our part as on the part of several other countries and obviously this suggests a basis to have interdiscussions. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR: Thank you very much. Of course delegations have also reemphasized the principles which we have all been talking about that this is a work in progress. The document is open. And at the next session, we will be making our contributions to the document to try to improve the text until we reach to some level of agreement on the treaty.
So I have not had any discussions regarding deadlines. So I take it that the committee will remain open to receive suggestions between now and the next session and during the session.
So we have not discussed any deadline. I think that addresses the issue of Brazil.
India.
>> INDIA: Thank you Mr. Chair Indian delegation suggested that any further textual comments for the educational exceptions deadline be for 30th of September and also for Broadcasting Organisations the same timeline be given the 30th of September.
>> CHAIR: Well, I think that we can discuss that as part of our conclusions. For now we have adopted this document with the clear principles in regard thereto.
Colleagues, I now would like to present the document on VIP.
Colleagues, shall we settle down?
Colleagues, let's proceed.
May I take this opportunity to present the revised working document on an international instrument on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons, persons with print disabilities.
You will recall that in plenary we had received textual proposals from various delegations to the Document 23/7.
Those textual proposals were compiled in a separate paper, which formed the basis of discussions in the informal setting.
The informal discussions looked at each and every textual proposal that was put forward. And in some cases, laiption was developed with brackets or without brackets in some instances. But the idea was to move to incorporate the textual suggestions that have been made by various delegations into the body of the document so as to facilitate the revision.
I did indicate that we would go through all of the textual proposals. And then come to revise the document.
In the informals we went through substantially all of the proposals saved for the preamble and the definition of a reasonable price for Developed Countries and reasonable price for Developing Countries which is an issue which still remains open but there were of course suggestions of alternative language there as we shall see.
This document reflects the discussions that took place in the informal discussions. I would want to give opportunity to Secretariat. That puts the structure together to explain how this structure was arrived at. Secretariat.
>> SECRETARIAT: Thank you. As the Chair just said, this document reflects the informal discussions that have taken place during the meeting of this committee. Walking through the document -- and right now it's a provisional working document with the hope that it it can be adopted as a working document of the committee.
For the preamble we were requested by delegations and we did this. We simply left all of the original preambler provisions in the document followed by the new proposals from Member States that were made on the floor of the plenary as there was no discussion of this in the informals we left the text for that in that form.
Starting with Article A, the definitions, where there was discussion in informals and bracketed text was arrived at, we kept.that form in this document.
So for instance, for the definition of work, the first one, you can see that there is a bracketed definition there that includes a number of suggestions. Wok was done in the informal. Obviously there's still work to be done on brackets. As we go through the definitions in some places, there are alternatives given if that's where we got to as far as the discussion in the informal.
When we go through to other articles, you'll see similarly that in some cases there are there's one proposal with brackets in it and others there may be multiple alternatives after Article B as requested in the informal discussions, we added Article B Bis for the nature and scope of obligations. That was the placement requested by the African Group. This particular article did not undergo extensive discussion there was some discussion that Member States would in the future discuss this and thought they could agree on some of the principles in it so the placement of that one was changed but the text has remained the same. Then we go through in order to Article C with it's multiple provisions. Article D, Article E, Article E Bis has been added in this document in order this was a proposal by the European Union you will see there were discussions in informal and you'll see two alternatives under consideration and in addition because there hasn't been yet agreement on including this provision at all the entire text is also bracketed and for instance because there hadn't been discussion yet of E bis -- sorry; B bis, that's still the case with that provision, as well.
Then we go on to Article F, which has multiple alternatives. Article G which has alternatives. Article H in which -- was the only one in which there were no suggestions in plenary so the text for that has remained the same and there's no brackets in that one and no commentary. Article I is entirely in brackets because there hasn't yet been a determination as to whether that will ultimately end up in the document and Article J is entirely in brackets for the same reason. So this document reflects the various stages. The informal Working Group got to as far as discussing the different provisions when there wasn't discussion what you see is the same as what was in the previous text 23/7. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> CHAIR: Thank you, Secretariat. The question to the committee is whether we would adopt this document as a working document considering the amendments that have been made and the revisions that we've gone through on various articles. Iran then Egypt.
>> IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate your effort in holding informals. And also the good work done by the Secretariat. In fact all of us worked hard and showed our commitment for a treaty for the benefit of the blind we think it's a good basis for the next negotiations and now the document is more clearly and we can easily understand and we can find also the meaning of text-based work which shall be also replicated for the other Exceptions and Limitations because we believe that all of the Exceptions and Limitations as a principle we accepted in SCCR 21 are of equal value and equal importance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> CHAIR: Egypt to be followed by India.
>> EGYPT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And of course as one of the delegations who have worked on this day and night throughout the past week, we are also delighted to seeing this progress taking place and happening. We just request some time to work on the document with experts. To have an overview. And perhaps we can come to it perhaps in the afternoon. I thank you.
>> CHAIR: India to be followed by Australia.
>> INDIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Indian delegation appreciates your effort especially in taking initiative in finalizing this document especially the informal 6.29 it was really tireless many of the delegations especially the friends who had ram Dan they stayed late and then contributed in cleaning this document and it's got some shape of course. There are more alternatives and bracketed tebs but still it looks like a particular document and with consensus maybe it can adopted thank you.
>> CHAIR: Australia and then Peru.
>> AUSTRALIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and we would also like to thank the Secretariat for it's work in compiling this document and we think it's pretty close to the mark and are happy to adopt the document but there are one or two areas which might need a little bit of clarification first. And -- for example, in Article F, there are three alternatives in the text there. Alternatives A and B they are alternatives for Paragraph 2 of the text whereas Alternative C is intended to be an alternative provision. So as it stands at the moment that's not very clear. So I think we're open to the way in which it's differentiated. But we just think it's not clear at the moment.
>> CHAIR: Peru to be followed by the U.S.
>> PERU: Thank you very much, Chair. Firstly, on behalf of the Peruvian delegation, we would like to thank the Secretariat for the large amount of work that they did finishing last night after 9 the session of the informal group. We would also like to support the revised document as a working document for the future and Australia in fact noted a topic linked to the so-called Alternative C which being a proposal from our delegation is a totally alternative proposal to the first three paragraphs. And through making this clear I have no problem in supporting the adoption of this document. Thank you very much, Chair.
>> CHAIR: U.S. to be followed by Chile.
>> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To echo the remarks made by our distinguished colleagues from Iran, India, Australia and Peru the United States also thinks this would be a good basis to become a working document for the committee. We are mindful of the request made by the Distinguished Delegate of Egypt and certainly if they would need some time to review it, we would respect that. Should the committee adopt this as it's working document we would also ask the Chair to entertain to the committee the question of whether or not everyone is comfortable with the substitution of the preambles which seems to be the case. But we would ask the Chair to entertain that question, if this looks like the right working document. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Chile to be followed by EU.
>> CHILE: Thank you, Chair. Very briefly I would just like to once again thank you for the informal sessions we had this week and I would like to thank the Secretariat for putting together this document. It seems to ask that this is -- it seems to us this is some excellent work that's been done throughout the week. We're also able to support this document. Finally I would just like to stress for delegations the importance next time -- the next time that we will return to discussing this document whether it's formally or informal the trend towards making it converge rather than continuing to add new brackets or options. I think this is something which may be mentioned in the informal sessions but I would just like to expressly bring this up in the plenary. Thank you. 
>> CHAIR: EU to be followed by Switzerland.
>> EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me, first of all, thank the Secretariat for the speed in putting this document together after having finalized discussions yesterday at 9:30 in the evening. 
We join those that consider that this is a document that should be the basis for our discussion and therefore support it's adoption. We are flexible if there's a need to have a quick check in case there are some of the representational mistakes that were first identified by the Australian delegation. I've seen a couple of double brackets that are not warranted, either. But subject that just the undertaking of the text we can support it's adoption. 
And we believe that even if there is more brackets in this text than we had wanted to have, it's also a work that reflects an effort of all parties involved in the discussions. 
Going forward I would like to join the previous speakers in saying we do have to make an effort, we should make an effort to converge in this text and not to add new issues or new matters for discussion that may distract the progress of our negotiations. Thank you very much. 
>> CHAIR: Thank you, Switzerland to be followed by Iran and then Brazil.
>> SWITZERLAND: Thank you, Chairman. Our delegation would like to echo comments made by previous speakers in saying that we, too, can accept this document. 
We would like particularly to thank you for the way in which you conducted our consultations you really pushed us so we could discuss all of the provisions and that was very important and we thought it was indeed valuable to be able to do that on this occasion. We've seen that the text has evolved and is getting us closer to our ultimate goal. 
As has been said by a number of delegations, it is important that we now move towards further convergence and that no new topics be added to this instrument. 
It's also important that we're very clear about what we're doing and we will focus on the issue before us. We must all do that because this is a matter that has to be resolved as quickly as possible. Thank you. 
>> CHAIR: Thank you. Colleagues, I have Iran, Brazil and China. And I would want us to address one more issue before we break up. So that's my list. And it is closed at these three delegations and we can move to the next item. 
Iran and then Brazil. 
>> IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman regarding the question raised by the U.S. delegates, we think that since we have not -- we have no chance to review alternative texts in bracket and we also insist on keeping some paragraphs which have been deleted from alternative texts, we would like to retain the preamble of the SCCR/23/7 and adopt the text as it is. The thank you. 
>> CHAIR: Brazil. Then China.
>> BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, first of all I would like to thank you personally for all of the hard work and the Secretariat because we have been in many meetings over the weekends late hours in the evenings it's been hard work but also for a very good reason we are also happy to see that throughout all of these sessions we have seen a very positive, strong and instructive commitment of all delegations in trying to address the text and trying to find convergence and solutions for what's being discussed. Brazil is supporting the adoption of this document as a basis for future work and we sincerely hope that this work will pave the way for a diplomatic conference on this subject. I thank you.
>> CHAIR: China. 
>> CHINA: Thank you, Chairman. The delegation of China would like to express support for the adoption of this document. We believe that this document should be adopted as a basis for our future work. 
China is of the view that during this meeting in the work that we have done on limitations and exceptions for VIPs, the Secretariat, the Chair and all delegations have done a considerable amount of work and should indeed be applauded for that we have managed to enhance our mutual understanding of the issues and move closer to the issues of convergence and consensus. 
We believe that what's been done here reflects the spirit that prevailed at the diplomatic conference in Beijing and we are delighted to be able to note that. 
In conclusion we would like to thank the Secretariat, the Chairman, and all delegations for their contributions. 
We thank them for what they have done, for all of the suggestions they have made. They have been very instructive suggestions indeed and I can assure you that in future China will adopt a flexible attitude in the work to be done on these issues. 
We believe that the committee in it's future work should make further progress on this and should allow us to take forward what has already been done so we can achieve consensus on the outstanding issues that remain. 
We also believe that in doing so, we will really lay a sound basis for future progress. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Colleagues, I thank you for all the statements that have been made, particularly in supporting to adopt this document as a working document for our future work. 
I also take into account the request made by the African Group. I just want to inquire as to when you wanted to come back to the committee on this issue. 
>> Thank you, Chair. I think in the nearest possible time. Perhaps in the afternoon. 
>> CHAIR: I would suggest that we deal with this issue before we start conclusions so that we consider the issue of adoption of this document. So we will come back to it this afternoon to just allow the African Group to consider the document. 
the stakeholders platform and request the committee takes note of that document SCCR/24/2 
I will give . . . 
Colleagues I note there's a request from the floor for WBU. This agenda item remains open until we hear from the African Group this afternoon. So I will give opportunity to some NGOs that want to address this issue at that particular time. 
We have before we break I would want the committee to now turn to Item 8 of our agenda. And that's the SCCR's contribution to the Development Agenda. I would invite comments from delegations. The floor is open. Brazil.
>> BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can we address this after break just for some consultations before addressing this issue? 
>> CHAIR: With that request from Brazil, I suggest that we reconvene in plenary at 3 p.m. and begin with the issue of VIP and deal with the Development Agenda issue and we will then break for informal to start considering the conclusions and also the education document. 
You'll recall that -- or some delegations will recall that the issue of management of meetings was raised in our consultations. This morning I endeavored to try to start the meeting on time. At 3 p.m. I'll open the meeting with whichever delegations will be in the room. So I'll be here at 3. 
Are there any announcements to be made? From coordinators. EU.
>>.
>> EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, the EU will meet at 2:30 possibly in Room B. I have to check the room but there will be a meeting at 2:30. Thank you. 
>> CHAIR: Brazil. 
>> BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman I'm taking the floor on behalf of the DAG the DAG will meet at 2:30 at Room 13.2 on the 13th floor. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Egypt. 
>> EGYPT: Thank you the African Group will meet at 1:00 o'clock to go through the document on VIP. Thank you. 
>> CHAIR: Any other announcements? I see none. We will adjourn the plenary to 3 p.m. sharp.