The day started brightly, picking up on the remaining elements of the ‘Other Matters’ agenda items from the previous day with Copyright in the Digital Environment, Artist’s Resale Right and a new proposal from Canada for a Study on Copyright Protection of Technical Standards as the main topics.

Copyright in the Digital Environment was presented and discussions began, before beinginterrupted for Professor Sam Rickteson to finally deliver his presentation of part 2 of the WIPO Toolkit on Artist’s Resale Right (his flight from Australia hadn’t made to Geneva in time last time round because of floods in Dubai). His presentation and the toolkit were broadly welcomed although the long-standing positions of Member States on whether this deserves further discussion as a standing item or whether the toolkit is enough did not budge. Perhaps as a third way, Morocco suggested a regional conference on the issue, which Member States seemed willing to consider.

With that the Chair, Vanessa Cohen, called a break and a coordinators meeting with the English interpretation suggesting an urgency in the ‘immediately’ in the request.

The discussion on Copyright in the Digital Environment resumed. Yesterday’s Information Session was a constant touchpoint in Group and Member State remarks.  GRULAC (the Group for Latin America and the Caribbean) continued to call for this issue to become a standing item, underlining the urgency due to the technological advances with AI and Brazil offering to revise their work plan proposal ahead of the next SCCR in the hope of including items of interest from Members from other Groups. The same logic on the advances in AI was used by other Groups to underline the need for general discussions and information exchange to continue.

DDG Forbin’s announcement yesterday of a forthcoming AI infrastructure announcement had also clearly piqued Member States’ interest.

On returning to plenary, Canada briefly presented its proposal for a Study on Copyright Protection of Technical Standards and expressed its willingness to continue discussions with Member States about this study and why it had chosen the SCCR as the most appropriate forum.

That brought the session up to lunch time with the break set to precede the final discussions over the Chair’s Summary and next steps.

While that was happening, IPA also had an eye on the Festival du livre de Paris, where we announced the six-strong shortlist for the 2025 IPA Prix Voltaire, our prize that celebrates brave publishers who uphold the freedom to publish.

Back in Geneva, the negotiations had begun. The observers started to drift out. Six o’clock came and went. So did seven o’clock… Member State delegates and Coordinators came into the Conference and went. The screen still showed ‘Plenary Session at a time to be announced’…

The discussions and negotiations proved to be a marathon. Midnight came and went and the session finally resumed shortly before 3am.

The Chair thanked Member States for their engagement and proceeded to deliver the Chair’s summary, which is summarised further as:

Broadcasting will still be on the agenda for the next session with a revised text based on this week’s discussions. Are we inching closer to a Diplomatic Conference?

Limitations and Exceptions discussions will continue and will build on the documents approved and put before the Committee so far. Preservation and Education were identified by some Member States as priority areas. There will be no intercessional work but the Chair and Vice Chair will remain open and available to receiving inputs from Member States and committed to preparing a document with concrete suggestions to find common ground which will be presented at SCCR47

Copyright in the digital era (with a new proposal from GRULAC) and the rights of audiovisual authors (and possibly performers) will be discussed again at the next SCCR, as will the artist’s resale right, theatre directors, and the Canadian proposal on copyright applying to standards.

Public Lending Right is now considered closed and will not feature on the next agenda.

The gavel finally came down at 3:12am following statements from a handful of Groups and Member States (should we read anything into who spoke and who did not at 3am?) where the thanks were reserved for the Chair, Vice Chair, secretariat, interpreters and WIPO conference services.

SCCR 47 promises to be interesting. Keep 1-5 December free in your diaries.

This week’s blog titles were brought to you by Booker Prize winners.

Now SCCR is over, find a nice book to read (perhaps after some sleep).