In-Reply-To: <list-1674691[_at_]cni.org>
"Denise Nicholson" <Nicholson.D[_at_]Library.wits.ac.za> wrote:
> ...
> Why then have developing countries had to sign the WIPO Treaties, when
> according to the lists on WIPO's website, the EU countries are
> conspicious by their absence?
It is my understanding that the EU countries will sign en bloc in the near future.
Member countries' governments have taken their time incorporating into national laws the EU Directive "on (C) and related rights in the information society" (2001/29/EC of 22 May 2001), which _inter alia_ sets an EU-wide framework for compliance with the two treaties you mention.
For example, in France the government came under heavy pressure from publishing interests to pass a law that went well beyond the Directive, weakening the rights of actual authors in favour of publishers.
As regular readers will know: in France, as in most other non-Anglo-Saxon countries, actual authors including employed authors have inalienable rights to credit and to defend the integrity of their work; and in general have a right to recompense for further use of their work. The publishers wanted to move to Work for Hire. They failed. This took time. The same battle over the Directive itself explains in part why it took so long to be agreed.
So the failure so far to sign isn't discrimination against developing countries _per se_. It's due to the battle between authors and publishers, a feature of the copyright and authors' rights landscape that tends to get forgotten by those who rant about monopolies.
Mike Holderness Received on Wed Nov 19 2003 - 21:10:18 GMT
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