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The agenda of the 17th Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, that took place between 3-7 November 2008 at the WIPO headquarters in Geneva, included the following topics: the limitations and exceptions, the protection of audiovisual performances and the protection of broadcasting organizations. In particular, the rights of visually impaired persons were in focus.

This article shortly presents the events of the last day, during which the conclusions of the meeting were agreed among the Member States, based on proposals prepared by the chairman Mr. Jukka Liedes. This article concentrated specifically on Limitations and exceptions and the rights of the visually impaired.

The title "Wrangling Over the Rights of the Blind" formulated by Sherwin Siy of Public Knowledge, sums up well the discussions of the last day. The discussions concerning the rights of the visually impaired during the morning session were based on the following draft conclusion:

"The Committee acknowledged the special needs of visually impaired persons and stressed the importance of dealing with without undue delay, those needs of the blind, visually impaired, and other disabled persons. This should include both analysis of limitations and exceptions and the possible establishment of a stakeholders' platform at WIPO, through which technological, contractual and other arrangements could be facilitated to secure access for the disabled persons to protected works."

The formulation was close to the proposal given by IFRRO, the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations. The draft conclusion had no reference to the proposal of World Blind Union (WBU). Both the limitations and exceptions and the contractual arrangements (voluntary licensing) between rights holders and visually impaired were mentioned. However, due to the debate in the morning session, the chair prepared a new draft conclusion during the lunch break. The new formulation was the following:

"The Committee acknowledged the special needs of visually impaired persons and stressed the importance of dealing, expeditiously and with appropriate deliberation, with those needs of the blind, visually impaired, and other reading-disabled persons, including discussions at the national level on possible ways and means facilitating and enhancing access to protected works. This should include analysis of limitations and exceptions, including their application to the international exchange of materials in accessible formats. This should also include the possible establishment of a stakeholders' platform at WIPO, in order to facilitate arrangements to secure access for disabled persons to protected works. The SCCR took note of the paper presented by the WBU and many delegations expressed interest in further analyzing it."

Most importantly, the paper presented by WBU was mentioned and the following two sentences were added: ".., including discussions at the national level on possible ways and means facilitating and enhancing access to protected works." and ".., including their application to the international exchange of materials in accessible formats."

During the afternoon session, France, acting on behalf of the EU Member States, suggested the word "platform" to be changed to the word "mechanism". Nevertheless, the word platform remained in the final conclusions. Instead, the word "expeditiously" was changed to the phrase "without delay" and the phrase "to secure access" to "facilitate access". Those were still minor things.

Then started the real debate. During the afternoon session, France required the reference to the WBU proposal and sentences ".., including discussions at the national level on possible ways and means facilitating and enhancing access to protected works" and ".., including their application to the international exchange of materials in accessible formats" to be taken off. Nevertheless, Pakistan (on behalf of Asian Member States), and Algeria (on behalf of African Member States), and other countries such as Brazil, pushed the European Member states to accept many of the proposals. After chop and change, finally the reference to international exchange was left out and the reference to WBU proposal was slightly modified.

The final conclusions on the rights of the visually impaired were the following:

"The Committee acknowledged the special needs of visually impaired persons and stressed the importance of dealing, without delay and with appropriate deliberation, with those needs of the blind, visually impaired, and other reading disabled persons, including discussions at the national and international level on possible ways and means facilitating and enhancing access to protected works. This should include analysis of limitations and exceptions. This should also include the possible establishment of a stakeholders platform at WIPO, in order to facilitate arrangements to secure access for disabled persons to protected works. A number of delegations referred to a paper presented by the World Blind Union (WBU) and expressed interest in further analyzing it."

As a European citizen I was mostly confused about what happened during the afternoon session. It is not clear to me why France (on behalf of the European Member) opposed so aggressively the rights of the visually impaired. James Love of KEI (James Love, 7 November 2008) wrote a felicitous remark on the issue on the A2K-list:

"I will close with the comments from one delegation at the end of the evening. The delegate, from a high income country, had been silent the entire meeting, but is a country one expects to provide some moral leadership. I said, 'why didn't you speak up? - this is a human rights issue. She said, 'this isn't the human rights commission, - this is WIPO.' She wasn't being ironic or critical of WIPO. She thought it was natural that the collection society would come first on this issue. That pretty much summed things up."

On the WIPO-websites one can find the following description with the headline "What is WIPO"?:

"The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest."

One could think that the rights of the visually impaired could easily fit in "a balanced and accessible (IP) system, which safeguards the public

 interest". In some discussions with more experienced SCCR attendees I was

told that the starting point is always that the economic interests of rights holders have to be safeguarded. It is worth considering whether there really is a profitable market for works of visually impaired? According to WBU only 5 % of written works are accessible for visually impaired. That could also be seen an indication that the market is not profitable enough. So, if the answer to the aforementioned question is negative, there has to be some other reason for the resistance of EU Member States for the rights of the visually impaired.

There is currently a Green paper from European Commission on exceptions available for comments (deadline: 30 November 2008). The rights of disabled people are also covered by the Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society contains an exhaustive list of exceptions to copyright protection.

The delegations debated on what was really said during the 17 SCCR Session. It is good that the SCCR reached at least a consensus on what was discussed during the meeting. That is a starting point for further work. It is also good that the reference to the WBU treaty proposal remained, as it is a truthful fact that "A number of delegations referred to a paper presented by the World Blind Union (WBU) and expressed interest in further analyzing it." Leaving the reference away could have been considered as modification of facts. It remains to be seen if consensus on the factual content can also be reached at some point.

After all, the conclusions of SCCR 17 can be seen both from a positive and a negative point of view. The interpretation finally relies on the Member States. In a world of limited resources choices have to be made. The broadcasting treaty will be maintained on the Agenda of the next session of the SCCR. Let's hope that the work on limitations and exceptions will, however, continue without (undue) delay or even expeditiously.

World Intellectual Property Organization, SCCR Seventeenth Session, Geneva (5-7.11.2008)
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_17/sccr_17_www_11253...

Member States Review Key Copyright Issues (10.11 2008)
http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2008/article_0059.html

Unpacking the WIPO SCCR Limitations and Exceptions (to copyright) agenda
http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2008/11/11/unpacking-lne/

Wrangling Over the Rights of the Blind
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1874

GREEN PAPER - Copyright in the Knowledge Economy COM(2008) 466/3
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/copyright-infso/gre...

What is WIPO ?
http://www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/what/

(Contribution by Anniina Huttunen - doctoral student - Helsinki University of Technology, EDRi representative at the WIPO SCCR meeting)