The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WIPO Copyright Treaty or WCT) is an international

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

copyright law A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, e ...

adopted by the member states of the

World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...

(WIPO) in 1996. It provides additional protections for

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

to respond to advances in information technology since the formation of previous copyright treaties before it. As of August 2023, the treaty has 115 contracting parties. The WCT and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, are together termed WIPO "internet treaties".

History

During the earlier stages of negotiations, the WCT was seen as a protocol to the Berne Convention, constituting an update of that agreement since the 1971 Stockholm Conference.Mort SA, 'The WTO, WIPO & the Internet: Confounding the Borders of Copyright and Neighboring Rights' (1997–98) 8 Fordham Intell Prop Media & Ent LJ 173. However, as any amendment to the Berne Convention required unanimous consent of all parties, the WCT was conceptualized as an additional treaty which supplemented the Berne Convention. The collapse of negotiations around the extension of the Berne Convention during the 1980s saw the shifting of the forum to the GATT, resulting in the TRIPS Agreement.Peter Drahos, John Braithwaite, ''Information Feudalism: Who owns the knowledge economy'' 112 (Earthscan Publications: 2002) Thus, the nature of any copyright treaty by the

became considerably narrower, being limited to addressing the challenges posed by digital technologies.

Protection granted by the Treaty

The WCT emphasizes the incentive nature of copyright protection, claiming its importance to creative endeavours. It ensures that

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. It is one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and other intangibl ...

s are protected as literary works (Article 4), and that the arrangement and selection of material in

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

s is protected (Article 5). It provides authors of works with control over their rental and distribution in Articles 6 to 8, which they may not have under the Berne Convention alone. It also prohibits circumvention of technological measures for the protection of works (Article 11) and unauthorized modification of rights management information contained in works (Article 12). The treaty has been criticised for being too broad (for example in its prohibition of circumvention of technical protection measures, even where such circumvention is used in the pursuit of legal and fair use rights) and for applying a "one size fits all" standard to all signatory countries, despite their widely differing stages of economic development and knowledge industry.

Implementation

The WIPO Copyright Treaty is implemented in United States law by the

Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

(DMCA). By Decision 2000/278/EC of 16 March 2000, the

Council of the European Union The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and less formally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven institutions of the European Union (EU) a ...

approved the treaty on behalf of the European Community.

European Union Directive A directive is a legal act of the European Union that requires member states to achieve particular goals without dictating how the member states achieve those goals. A directive's goals have to be made the goals of one or more new or changed n ...

s which largely cover the subject matter of the treaty are: Directive 91/250/EC, creating copyright protection for software; Directive 96/9/EC on copyright protection for databases; and Directive 2001/29/EC, prohibiting devices for circumventing "technical protection measures", such as

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

(also known as DRM).

References

External links and references

*The full text of th
WIPO Copyright Treaty (adopted in Geneva on December 20, 1996)
in the WIPO Lex database – official website of

WIPO The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...

.
Parties to the Treaty
* Summary: https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/summary_wct.html {{Intellectual property laws of the European Union Copyright treaties Copyright Treaty Treaties concluded in 1996 Treaties entered into force in 2002 Treaties of Albania Treaties of Algeria Treaties of Armenia Treaties of Argentina Treaties of Australia Treaties of Azerbaijan Treaties of Bahrain Treaties of Belarus Treaties of Belgium Treaties of Benin Treaties of Botswana Treaties of Brunei Treaties of Bulgaria Treaties of Burkina Faso Treaties of Burundi Treaties of Canada Treaties of Chile Treaties of the People's Republic of China Treaties of Colombia Treaties of Costa Rica Treaties of Cyprus Treaties of Croatia Treaties of the Czech Republic Treaties of Denmark Treaties of the Dominican Republic Treaties of Ecuador Treaties of El Salvador Treaties of Estonia Treaties entered into by the European Union Treaties of Finland Treaties of France Treaties of Gabon Treaties of Georgia (country) Treaties of Germany Treaties of Ghana Treaties of Greece Treaties of Guatemala Treaties of Guinea Treaties of Honduras Treaties of Indonesia Treaties of Ireland Treaties of Italy Treaties of Jamaica Treaties of Japan Treaties of Jordan Treaties of Kazakhstan Treaties of Kyrgyzstan Treaties of Latvia Treaties of Liechtenstein Treaties of Lithuania Treaties of Luxembourg Treaties of North Macedonia Treaties of Madagascar Treaties of Malaysia Treaties of Mali Treaties of Malta Treaties of Mexico Treaties of Moldova Treaties of Mongolia Treaties of Montenegro Treaties of Morocco Treaties of the Netherlands Treaties of Nicaragua Treaties of Oman Treaties of Panama Treaties of Paraguay Treaties of Peru Treaties of the Philippines Treaties of Poland Treaties of Portugal Treaties of Qatar Treaties of Romania Treaties of Russia Treaties of Saint Lucia Treaties of Senegal Treaties of Serbia and Montenegro Treaties of Singapore Treaties of Slovakia Treaties of Slovenia Treaties of South Korea Treaties of Spain Treaties of Sweden Treaties of Switzerland Treaties of Tajikistan Treaties of Togo Treaties of Trinidad and Tobago Treaties of Turkey Treaties of Ukraine Treaties of the United Arab Emirates Treaties of the United Kingdom Treaties of the United States Treaties of Uruguay 1996 in Switzerland Treaties extended to Greenland Treaties extended to the Faroe Islands Treaties extended to Hong Kong Digital rights management

History

Protection granted by the Treaty

Implementation

See also

References

External links and references