Jordan Times
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Copyright treaty comes into effect today
By Rami Abdelrahman
AMMAN — A World Intellectual Property Organisation's (WIPO) Copyright Treaty (WCT)
will come into effect as of today in the Kingdom, making Jordan the first Arab
country to activate the agreement.
Bassam Talhouni, UNESCO Copyright Chairholder in Jordan, told The Jordan Times
the activation of this agreement, which was signed by the government three
months ago, will help secure local copyrights outside Jordan, and foreign
copyrights inside the country.
“This treaty was designed in 1996 to help fight copyright violations, especially
by means of information technology such as the Internet or satellite,” Talhouni
said, adding that the Jordanian Copyright Law was amended to include the
provisions of the WCT.
Talhouni, who is also an attorney and a university professor, explained that the
treaty secures all production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain,
“whatever the mode or form of its expression.”
According to the WIPO website, computer programmes are protected as literary
works and also compilation of data or other material, in any form, which by
reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual
creations, are protected as such.
“Now any person can report on infringements, like illegal satellite cards,
illegal downloading of copyrighted works or using Internet articles without
permission,” he said.
Talhouni said a WIPO Phonograms and Performers Treaty (WPPT) will come into
effect next May.
Also signed by the government three months ago, the treaty is aimed at securing
the works of “performers,” such as actors, singers, musicians, dancers, and
other persons who act, sing, deliver, declaim, play in, interpret, or otherwise
perform literary or artistic works or expressions of folklore, according to the
Berne Convention.
It will also secure what it refers to as “phonogram,” which means the fixation
of the sounds of a performance or of other sounds, or of a representation of
sounds, other than in the form of a fixation incorporated in a cinematographic
or other audiovisual work.