WIPO standing committee meeting, Geneva, 16-20 November 1999

摘要

SUMMARY AND COMMENTS The main issues to be considered by the Standing Committee were Protection of Audiovisual Performances, and Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations. These issues are of marginal interest to libraries, and therefore only reported here in a summary fashion. Protection of Databases was a minor issue at the meeting. Only European countries support the idea fully. The USA is somewhat undecided as to what form a protection should have, and Third World countries are against it. Many Third World countries link the question of protection of databases to the question of protection of expressions of folklore. It is extremely difficult to define the concepts of folklore and how folklore might be protected, not to mention whether it is desirable. I talkedwith some delegates informally on this subject, and they regarded it as a purely political move, whose main function is to block (or delay) a database treaty, and eventually be the necessary quid pro quo if industrialized countries are sufficiently eager to have it. The required study on the economic impact of the protection of databases on developing countries serves the same purpose. PROTECTION OF AUDIOVISUAL PERFORMANCES The USA presented a new proposal on the central issue, Transfer of Rights. The US proposal was that once a performer has consented to the fixation of his or her performance in an audiovisual work, the performers' exclusive rights of authorization would be exhausted. Moral rights and remuneration rights, however, should remain. This was unacceptable to the EU and many other countries. On other details there had also been no change in views. On the whole the delegations just repeated what theyhad said at the meeting in May. The Chairman proposed that a Special Session of the Standing Committee should be held in the week of 27 March with Protection of Audiovisual Performances as the only item on the agenda.