The WIPO Copyright Treaty
By Catherine Sansum Kirkman
At the end of last year, a new international copyright treaty was adopted with important implications for cyberspace. The treaty was drafted at a Diplomatic Conference in December, 1996, organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (
WIPO), with the participation of the United States and other major countries. The WIPO Copyright Treaty was created as a special add-on agreement to the existing Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which governs copyright relations for most countries.
The new Treaty is the result of growing concern over the impact of information and communication technologies on the creation and use of literary and artistic works. Many copyright holders in the entertainment industries, for example, were concerned that the Internet could allow uncontrolled use of copyrighted works without accountability by those involved in infringements.
White Paper Trail
The cyberspace copyright-accountability concern was addressed by the Clinton Administration in 1995, in its famous (or infamous, depending on your opinion) White Paper on Intellectual Property Rights. The Clinton Administration's Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF) Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights released the white paper in September 1995 under the title "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure."
