<incom> Hugenholtz & Okediji, Report on Copyright's Limitations and Exceptions

[Soenke Zehle]

CONCEIVING AN INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENT ON
LIMITATIONS AND EXCEPTIONS TO COPYRIGHT†
FINAL REPORT - March 06, 2008
by: P. Bernt Hugenholtz & Ruth L. Okediji

http://www.ivir.nl/publications/hugenholtz/limitations_exceptions_copyright.pdf

"The task of developing a global approach to limitations and exceptions 
(“L&E’s”) is
one of the major challenges facing the international copyright system 
today. As mechanisms
of access, L&E’s contribute to the dissemination of knowledge, which in 
turn is essential for
a variety of human activities and values, including liberty, the 
exercise of political power, and
economic, social and personal advancement. Appropriately designed L&E’s 
may alleviate the
needs of people around the world who still lack access to books and 
other educational
materials, and also open up rapid advances in information and 
communication technologies
that are fundamentally transforming the processes of production, 
dissemination and storage of
information. As new technologies challenge copyright’s internal balance, 
and as the costs of
globalization heighten the vital need for innovation and knowledge 
dissemination, a
multilateral instrument that can effectively harness various national 
practices with regard to
L&E’s, and that can provide a framework for dynamic evaluation of how 
global copyright
norms can be most effectively translated into a credible system that 
appropriately values
author and user rights, is a necessity. This paper examines policy 
options and modalities for
framing an international instrument on limitations and exceptions to 
copyright within the
treaty obligations of the current international copyright system. We 
consider this
international copyright acquis as our general starting point, and 
evaluate options for the
design of such an instrument, including questions of political 
sustainability and institutional
home."

[...]

"Increasing efforts in this area have been, however, directed at the 
delineation of a core
set of explicit L&E’s to be integrated within the current multilateral 
system which would
counteract the ever-expanding panoply of proprietary rights of copyright 
owners.15 The
activities of the key institution responsible for the development of 
substantive standards of
international copyright law, the World Intellectual Property 
Organization (WIPO), which has
recently commissioned several studies on limitations and exceptions, 
reflect some of these
efforts. The WIPO Development Agenda, which seeks broadly to support a 
balanced
international IP system with public interest considerations to bridge 
the knowledge and
technology gap between wealthy and poor nations is also a promising 
achievement. 16
Nonetheless, the importance of limitations and exceptions to the global 
public interest cannot
be reduced to a question merely of geo-political significance, nor is it 
limited to any one
subject matter of intellectual property. Limitations and exceptions to 
exclusive rights granted
to encourage innovative endeavor are an indispensable part of the global 
economic system
upon which the production of knowledge goods is predicated."