The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) are organized, on 29 May 2009, a side event to the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR). The side event focused on innovative ideas of how to promote creativity in the digital environment and to strike an appropriate balance between the interests of copyright holders and users.

Background

This issue of limitations and exceptions to copyright has gained significant attention in the WIPO SCCR. Since 2003, Chile has raised the issue in the committee and was subsequently joined by a number of countries in proposing a programme of work in this area including the possibility of elaborating an international instrument on exceptions and limitations which would include a mandatory set of exceptions and limitations common to all WIPO member states.

WIPO’s SCCR offered a timely opportunity to present the analysis and research in this area to an informed audience of policy makers, negotiators and experts. Therefore UNCTAD and ICTSD invited a number of distinguished scholars and experts to present work new ideas and developments in the area of copyright and exceptions and limitations which would contribute toward a better understanding of the issues and stake and be a useful input into the SCCR s discussions.

Keynote speakers were Professor Reto M. Hilty, Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property, Munich, who presented the “Munich Declaration on a Balanced Interpretation of the ‘Three-Step Test’ in Copyright Law” (see http://www.ip.mpg.de/shared/data/pdf/declaration_three_steps.pdf) and Professor Jerome H. Reichman, Duke University School of Law, who spoke on “Sustainable Innovation in the Digital Environment: The Crucial Role of Copyright Law’s Limitations and Exceptions”.