US Didn't Sign The WIPO Treaty For The Blind
from the ah,-look-at-that dept
We were happy to see that the WIPO treaty for the visually impaired was finally completed and signed following the negotiations in Marrakech, where the MPAA did everything it could to try to kill or water down the agreement, with the US negotiating delegation acting as the MPAA's happy lap dogs. So, I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise to see that while 51 countries signed the agreement in Marrakech, the United States was not among them.Now, you can argue that the US should have time to look over the agreement, or maybe run it through Congress first -- but, of course, when it comes to agreements that simply expand copyright, such as ACTA, the US stepped right up to sign right away, without having any open discussion or asking Congress to approve it. Furthermore, merely signing the document is different from ratifying it, so the US could have signed the document, and decided whether to fully ratify it later if it was really concerned. But, instead, the US simply decided not to sign at all, even as other countries decided to do so.
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Filed Under: blind, marrakech, treaties, us, wipo treaty
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- Toph Beifong
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Re: Consequences of not signing
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Re: Consequences of not signing Take 2
By signature, the State has not expressed its consent to be bound by the treaty, which does not occur until the State ratifies, accepts or approves the treaty. Signature does mean that a State is obliged, in good faith, to refrain from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the treaty (articles 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969).
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The thing that is desperately needed is a legal quantitative de minimus use of copyrighted material. That would go a long way in making the system less intolerable.
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unless the nsa CAN SEE IT
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