Two Wipo Treaties Moving Closer To U.s. Ratification

WASHINGTON, D.C.--U.S. ratification of two international World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties moved a significant step closer to reality with the House Judiciary Committee's passage of enabling legislation April 1. The WIPO treaty implementation bill now moves to the House floor for further tinkering later this spring.
Under U.S. law, enabling legislation signals to Congress that a majority of its members approve the treaties, thereby opening the gateway for Senate ratification. The Senate is the governmental body that ratifies international treaties.
The Clinton administration has placed a high priority on passage of the WIPO treaties, which grant U.S. copyright holders greater protection in the digital age and will bring the U.S. in line with other WIPO trade partners. Approximately 30 countries are expected to become WIPO signatories.
Lawmakers and representatives of copyright industry groups say that the Senate Judiciary Committee will take action on nearly identical enabling legislation as early as April 24, raising hopes that Senate ratification of WIPO could come before summer.
A major stumbling block on the road to ratification was removed as House lawmakers folded a controversial bill on online copyright-infringement liability, H.R. 3209, into the WIPO treaty implementation bill, H.R. 2281.
The bill shows the results of intensive, months-long negotiations between content-provider organizations such as the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Assn. of America and Internet and network access groups such as telephone companies.
In fact, the rounds of negotiations between the parties went past a March 27 deadline set by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and past midnight April 1.
This modified version grants further concessions to online service providers and telephone companies--as well as universities and libraries--that will ensure that innocent parties are not liable when service providers are simply storing or passing on data as "conduits," or when libraries and others temporarily deal with copyrighted goods under fair-use provisions.
Rights holders got concessions, too--that "repeat offenders" on the Internet would have their service terminated by online service providers and that service providers would have to incorporate copyrighted goods "tags" to help track down pirates.
"No one said this was going to be easy," says Hilary Rosen, RIAA president/CEO. "From the start, once the decision was made to link the WIPO treaty and the [online service provider] liability issue, a complex set of interests definitely became more interdependent, and it makes legislation that much more difficult. I think we have made tremendous progress on the liability side. There is a pretty good meeting of the minds about what is achievable there."
Judiciary Committee members were mostly comfortable with the amended bill, which strengthens the probability of House passage of the enabling legislation. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., remarked that content providers had come to realize that "the WIPO bill, without the Internet liability bill,
doesn't work well" and said he was glad that copyright community representatives "have allowed the [bill] to go forward."

PENDING ISSUES
According to the bill's author, Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., aspects of the agreement not yet incorporated into the amended bill will be brought up and voted on when the legislation goes to the House floor as part of what is termed a "bill manager's amendment."
For example, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., says she hopes that the concerns of search engine companies such as Yahoo!, though not yet addressed, will find a sympathetic ear with Coble during the upcoming floor action. Routinely, such companies temporarily store data that may include copyrighted material.
Broadcasters are also concerned that the standard industry practice of making temporary, customized copies of copyrighted material may become illegal under the enabling legislation and subsequent treaties. The National Assn. of Broadcasters (NAB) revealed at the markup session that it now opposes the bill because "it doesn't allow us to do in the digital age what we've been doing in the analog age," says NAB legislative director Jim May.
As examples, May mentions "studio practices" such as a DJ talking over the intro of a song or a TV station announcer giving a news "bumper" over rolling program credits.
"This is the first I've heard of this," Coble says. "But I'm a friend of the broadcasters, and I'm 99% confident we can work something out."