Professor Michael Carroll Participates in World Intellectual Property Organization Conference
Oct. 24, 2019
American University Washington College of Law Professor Michael Carroll participated in a panel discussion on copyright exceptions and limitations to benefit education and research at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s International Conference on Copyright Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries, Archives, Museums and Educational & Research Institutions on October 18-19, 2019.
The conference was the culmination of a consultative process that included three regional meetings in Singapore, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic to consider options for encouraging reasonable exceptions and limitations in the law. Professor Carroll spoke in favor of a harmonized international framework that builds on the success of the Marrakesh Treaty, which requires Member States to create an exception in national copyright law that permits users to make and to import accessible-format copies for visually-impaired readers.
The conference outcomes were reported to the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), the policymaking body on copyright at WIPO. AUWCL’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property is an accredited non-governmental observer to the SCCR. PIJIP Director Sean Flynn regularly provides public-interest input at SCCR meetings, along with members of the Global Network on User Rights, comprised of copyright experts from around the world whose activities are coordinated by PIJIP.