IPOPHL renews push for broadcasting treaty
Philippine authorities are renewing calls for the passage of the long-delayed broadcasting organizations treaty, which seeks to curb cross-border signal piracy by granting broadcasters copyright-like protections over their content.
The Intellectual Property Organization of the Philippines (IPOPHL) said Philippine Mission Consul General Felipe Cariño III had raised the issue on the sidelines of a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) forum in Geneva in December.
In a statement delivered by Cariño and developed with the IPOPHL, the Philippine delegation warned that continued delays in finalizing the treaty could disproportionately harm broadcasters in developing countries.
“The world is watching whether WIPO can still deliver balanced agreements,” Cariño said on the sidelines of the 47th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. “Twenty-eight years is long enough. Let us finish what Manila started.”
Negotiations on the broadcasting organizations treaty began in Manila in 1997.
This proposed agreement aims to replace the 1961 Rome Convention, which still governs international broadcasting rights despite having been drafted when cable television was only starting and long before the rise of the Internet.
Although WIPO adopted a work plan for a new treaty in 2011, progress has stalled for more than a decade due to unresolved issues, including the scope of limitations and exceptions and the duration of protection.
IPOPHL Acting Director General Nathaniel Arevalo said the treaty was increasingly necessary to address more modern challenges.
