IFLA has joined likeminded organisations in signing onto an open letter to the members of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), ahead of its 46th session on 7-11 April 2025.

IFLA engages in the work of SCCR in order to build awareness of the impact of decisions about copyright on libraries’  ability to fulfil their missions, and to call for changes that safeguards our role.

14th January, 2025

We write on behalf of the undersigned members of the Access to Knowledge Coalition, representing educators, researchers, students, libraries, archives, museums, copyright academics, and other knowledge users and creative communities around the globe. We wish to share with the Committee our views on certain agenda items of the 46th session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights that will take place in Geneva from April 7-11, 2025.

Balanced agenda: Broadcasting and Limitations & Exceptions

The SCCR has two long-standing agenda items: (1) the Broadcasting Treaty and (2) Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries, Archives & Museums; Educational &; Research Institutions; and People with Other Disabilities. These items together achieve a balance of interests before the Committee, each of which is subject to General Assembly mandates to engage in the drafting of instruments.

States should insist on the balance between the agenda items, and make any progress on the Broadcasting Treaty conditional upon equitable progress toward an instrument (or instruments) on L&E.

Comments on the implementation of the limitations and exceptions program

Little progress has been made on the implementation of the Work Program on Exceptions and Limitations adopted at (SCCR/43/8), despite discussion at SCCR/44 and submission of comments. (See A2K Letter for earlier comments, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yfOg-h5iuYK2tc-B1D_-vnLOn1jchImR/view?usp=sharin ).

We call for the L&E implementation plan to be streamlined and focused on advancing an instrument/s that meets the 2012 GA mandate. The Committee can begin with summaries of proposals from the Chairs’ Charts SCCR/26/8, SCCR/27/8, and SCCR/34/5 and with the US proposed provisions on principles and objectives. It should then work expeditiously toward a Committee instrument/s.

Comments on the Broadcasting Treaty

The SCCR needs to make significant changes in the draft text that would narrow its scope and ensure that it includes sufficient limitations and exceptions to address predictable problems before the SCCR recommends movement toward a diplomatic conference. (See A2K Letter for earlier comments, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yma1-J_lfq3SSR0XYJzOIxqjkqH9Lz2risX4Y0h-fgY/edit?usp=sharing).

Other matters

Proposal for Analysis of Copyright Related to the Digital Environment White Paper 

The Access to Knowledge Coalition supports the agenda item for a White Paper on Digital Copyright. We encourage the Committee to adopt a work plan for this issue similar to the Committee’s work plan for the L&E agenda that provides a process to move the agenda forward. The agenda item should be holistic. We urge that the Committee address topics beyond remuneration for streamed music. The agenda item should include discussions of artificial intelligence, such as the relations between copyright, AI and competition, platforms’ economic power, diversity in training tools, etc. The item should also include the long-standing attention of the Committee, framed in the Agreed Statement to Article 10 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, of updating limitations and exceptions for the digital environment. 

Proposal for a Study Focused on the Public Lending Right

We call on members of the Committee to conclude the agenda item on a Proposal for a Study Focused on the Public Lending Right without any further work on this topic. It is highly unlikely there will be any political will to harmonize “public lending rights,” which increase costs of public libraries to share works with the public to the primary advantage of multinational publishing monopolies. See IFLA, Public Lending Right: A Briefing for Libraries.

Theater Director Rights

We call on members of the Committee to conclude the agenda item on Theatre Director Rights without any further work on this topic. It is highly unlikely there will be any political will to harmonize Theater Director Rights, which lack the key element of fixation needed to receive copyright protection in many countries.

Signed,

Library Copyright Alliance

Creative Commons 

Fundación Karisma

Red en defensa de los derechos digitales

Creative Commons Italy Chapter

Biblioteca y Ruralidad 

Education International 

ISUR – Centro de Internet y Sociedad de la Universidad del Rosario

COMMUNIA Association for the Public Domain

ARTICLE 19, Oficina México y Centroamérica 

Datysoc – Laboratorio de Datos y Sociedad

IFLA – International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

Australian Libraries and Archives Copyright Coalition

SAA – Society of American Archivists

Centre for Internet and Society, India

IBDAutoral – Instituto Brasileiro de Direitos Autorais

Fundación Vía Libre, Argentina 

EIFL – Electronic Information for Libraries

InternetLab

Library Futures

Hiperderecho

ICA – International Council on Archives

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Wikimedia Colombia 

Corporación Innovarte

Canadian Association of Research Libraries

CFLA, Canadian Federation of Library Associations