USIS GENEVA DAILY BULLETIN Friday, December 13, 1996 Mission of the USA 11, route de Pregny 1292 Geneva Switzerland Tel +41 22 749 4358 Public Affairs Counselor: Fax +41 22 749 4314 Cornelius C. Walsh USIS Geneva on the Internet - http://www.itu.ch/MISSIONS/US/ [snip] EUR419 12/12/96 STATEMENT FROM U.S. DELEGATION TO WIPO CONFERENCE (Seeks to apply "fair use" doctrine to Internet) Washington -- The following is a press statement issued December 12 by the U.S. delegation to the World Intellectual Property Organization Diplomatic Conference in Geneva: (begin text) In a public statement to the diplomatic conference of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United States has stressed that the doctrine of "fair use" of copyrighted materials should apply on the Internet and elsewhere within the digital environment. Bruce Lehman, U.S. assistant secretary of commerce and commissioner of patents and trademarks, said the United States wants it to be clear that two new copyright treaties under negotiation in Geneva "will permit application of fair use in the digital environment." Commissioner Lehman told the WIPO conference the United States believes the two new legal instruments under negotiation "should be understood to permit contracting parties to carry forward and appropriately extend into the digital environment limitations and exceptions in their national laws which have been considered acceptable under the Berne Convention." "Similarly these provisions should be understood to permit contracting parties to devise new exceptions and limitations that are appropriate in the digital environment," he said in a December 10 statement to a plenary session of the WIPO Diplomatic Conference. "We are responding to the concerns of librarians, educators, and on-line service providers in the United States," Commissioner Lehman said later. "We want to make it clear that the treaties we are negotiating are not going to restrict their appropriate use of copyrighted works." The United States hopes countries at the WIPO diplomatic conference will endorse a joint statement extending "fair use" and related exceptions into the digital environment. The statement would be made part of the reported proceedings of the conference and would be made publicly available along with the treaty text. Jim Neal, director of libraries at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the U.S. delegation representing the America Library Association, "applauds the very positive endorsement of the `fair use' doctrine advanced by the America delegation and Commissioner Lehman" and "looks forward to the conference embracing a statement which powerfully extends the concept of appropriate extensions in the digital environment." The following is the text of the December 10, 1996, statement on "fair use" by Bruce Lehman at the WIPO Diplomatic Conference on certain copyright and neighboring rights questions: The United States supports inclusion of article 12 with changes to two words in the first paragraph to make the text mirror article 9(2) of the Berne Convention. The first change we propose is to delete the word "only" in the second line of the paragraph. The second change we propose is to change the word "the" to the word "a" in the third line of the paragraph, so that the phrase "conflict with the normal exploitation" would read "conflict with a normal exploitation". The United States also wishes to make clear certain understandings with respect to article 12. It is essential that these treaties permit application of the evolving U.S. doctrine of fair use in the digital environment. In particular, the provisions of article 12 should be understood to permit contracting parties to carry forward and appropriately extend into the digital environment limitations and exceptions in their national laws which have been considered acceptable under the Berne Convention. Similarly, these provisions should be understood to permit contracting parties to devise new exceptions and limitations that are appropriate in the digital network environment. (end text)