The WIPO Copyright Treaty 1996, Articles 1 to 14

In one line

The WIPO Copyright Treaty updates Berne for the digital age by confirming that computer programs and databases are protected, adding rights of distribution, rental and communication to the public, and requiring States to outlaw the circumvention of technological protection.

In exam wording: the WIPO Copyright Treaty, adopted at Geneva on 20 December 1996 and in force from 6 March 2002, is a special agreement within the meaning of Article 20 of the Berne Convention, requiring contracting parties to comply with Articles 1 to 21 of that Convention and the Appendix, and adding protection for computer programs and compilations of data, rights of distribution, rental and communication to the public including making available, and obligations concerning technological measures and rights management information.

Why it was made

Because Berne could not be revised. Article 27(3) of Berne requires unanimity, so nothing could be added to it.

Because digital transmission raised three questions the existing text did not answer. Is a transmission over a network a reproduction, a distribution, a communication to the public, or none of them? Is a computer program a literary work? Is a database a protected collection?

And because technological protection needed legal backing. A lock on a file is useless if breaking it is lawful.

The negotiation also failed on one point, and that is examinable: a proposed provision on the reproduction right in the digital environment was not adopted, and an Agreed Statement concerning Article 1(4) was adopted instead, saying that the reproduction right in Berne Article 9 fully applies in the digital environment, in particular to the use of works in digital form, and that the storage of a protected work in digital form in an electronic medium constitutes a reproduction.

Articles 1 to 5: the framework and the subject matter

Article 1(1): this Treaty is a special agreement within the meaning of Article 20 of the Berne Convention, as regards contracting parties that are countries of the Berne Union, and it has no connection with treaties other than Berne and shall not prejudice any rights and obligations under any other treaty.

Article 1(2): nothing derogates from existing obligations under Berne.

Article 1(4): contracting parties shall comply with Articles 1 to 21 and the Appendix of the Berne Convention. So a State that joins this Treaty accepts the substance of Berne even if it is not a Berne member.

Article 2: copyright protection extends to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such. This is the same rule as TRIPS Article 9.2.

Article 3 applies Berne Articles 2 to 6 mutatis mutandis to the protection provided under the Treaty.