11 Additional Reading

nternational treaties and agreements

• The most important of those international agreements is the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)—negotiated as part of the agreements that gave birth to the World Trade Organization in 1994. TRIPS is a very broad agreement that includes other rights such as trademarks and patents. Its subject exceeds the scope of this course, but it’s worth noting here: TRIPS made copyright a matter of international trade, including commercial sanctions on countries that do not abide by some principles set up in TRIPS (which draw from previous international agreements, such as Berne). For example, if a change in a national copyright law to introduce a limitation and exception doesn’t follow the Berne’s three-step test (referenced in Section 2.4), the country trying to implement the limitation and exception could be commercially sanctioned. TRIPS has lasting impacts on important public policy considerations, such as access to knowledge or access to medicines. It also contributed to further standardization of some crucial copyright protection concepts, blurring the lines of national copyright laws.
• Another manner in which copyright policy is made is through bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. As of 2017, there are several negotiations underway. These include the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). A major drawback of multilateral trade negotiations is that they are typically conducted in secret with little or no participation from civil society organizations and the public.”
• The Marrakesh Treaty (formerly known as “Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities”) is the first international treaty that is focused on balancing copyright protection to grant rights to the public, in this case, people with print disabilities. As of June 2020, at least 80 countries are now signatories of the agreement.

—Map of the countries where the Marrakesh Treaty is currently in force (as of August 2020), by Scann, CC0.

• The agreement sought to solve what has been coined by the World Blind Union as the “book famine”, where less than 10% of printed materials are produced in accessible formats. The agreement provides a concrete set of limitations and exceptions for people with disabilities.³
• However, this important international agreement still needs to be made into national copyright law in the countries where the agreement has entered into force. The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) is monitoring the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty around the world here, providing an updated version of the current status in different countries.
• Until the ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty in 2016, there was no international treaty that provided standard minimums for limitations and exceptions.⁴ Unlike copyright protection, that has been signed in to international copyright law to expand scope and terms of copyright protection globally. There are no international treaties that give limitations and exceptions at the global level for activities as significant as education or research, or for sectors as crucial as libraries, archives, and museums.

Limitations and Exceptions

The extent of activities that countries allow under limitations and exceptions can vary dramatically. WIPO generally commissions studies that offer an overview of limitations and exceptions around the world. These do not reflect WIPO’s position, but they are useful as a way to understand the status in other countries. For example, the study on limitations and exceptions for libraries of 2015 found that of 188 countries signatories of the Berne Convention (at the moment of the study), 32 countries do not provide any exception or limitation for libraries. A similar study conducted on museums that same year found that of the 188 countries, only 45 countries had provisions in their laws that specifically permit museums to make certain uses of works in their collection. This is without the prior authorization of the rights holder.

—Map of the countries that have some type of exception in favor of museums as of 2015, based on the “Study on copyright limitations and exceptions for museums”, by Jean-François Canat and Lucie Guibault, in collaboration with Elisabeth Logeais. Map by Scann, CC0.

Despite varying national laws, typically most countries include limitations and exceptions in the following areas:

• Right to quote: this is an exception to allow inclusion of other works into one’s work to exercise criticism, commentary, or illustrate a point.
• Educational activities: to allow for educational activities to take place without imposing a burdensome process to obtain permission.
• Libraries, archives, and museums: to allow these important institutions to carry out their activities without infringing copyright, such as preservation activities or providing access to knowledge and information to patrons.
• People with disabilities: most countries include some type of exception for blind people.

It is always critical to check your national copyright law to check what limitations and exceptions it provides. And remember: the principle of territoriality referenced in Section 2.2 also applies to limitations and exceptions, meaning that limitations and exceptions are always country-specific.