The World Intellectual Property Rights Organisation, meeting in Geneva, was said to be on the verge of coming up with a revised draft treaty last week, after numerous submissions were put forward by delegations from the US to Pakistan and most places in between. There was something called a partially consolidated draft handed out at 6pm last Thursday, with amendments to article 7, 10 and 12 that deal with temporary copies, the responsibilities of individual and service providers to ensure that copyright is not breached. But there was a rift emerging between Germany and the US, and African, Latin American and Asian countries who felt that their suggestions were not being given enough credence. The biggest hurdle it seems is that of the so- called New Instrument. That’s the bit that affects the rights of performers and record companies. It’s proving extremely controversial, according to Barbara Doley, executive director of the Commercial Internet Exchange Commission, which is working with the Ad-Hoc Copyright Coalition to get the treaty sorted out. One observer noted that there was a greater sensitivity among the European countries to the fate of the telecommunications companies and Internet service providers than in the US, perhaps because many of them are still state-owned companies. The element dealing with copyright protection of any information stored in an electronic database doesn’t look like being resolved in Geneva and will be put back to the meeting in Helsinki next June.
