The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, abbreviated as the WIPO Copyright Treaty or WCT, is an international treaty on copyright law adopted by the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1996. It provides additional protections for copyright deemed necessary due to advances in information technology since the formation of previous copyright treaties before it. It ensures that computer programs are protected as literary works (Article 4), and that the arrangement and selection of material in databases is protected (Article 5). It provides authors of works with control over their rental and distribution in Articles 6 to 8 which they may not have under the Berne Convention alone. It also prohibits circumvention of technological measures for the protection of works (Article 11) and unauthorized modification of rights management information contained in works (Article 12).
There have been a variety of criticisms of this treaty, including that it is too broad (for example in its prohibition of circumvention of technical protection measures, even where such circumvention is used in the pursuit of legal and fair use rights) and that it applies a 'one size fits all' standard to all signatory countries despite widely differing stages of economic development and knowledge industry.
Read more about World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty: Implementation
Famous quotes containing the words world, intellectual, property, organization and/or treaty:
“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“At the outstart of discussions of women’s intellectual attainments, it is well to remember how few are the men of the first rank.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.”
—Henry George (1839–1897)
“No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)