EBU Focus 'The Marrakesh Treaty'

The road to Marrakesh was a long, winding, and tough one that took 4 years to travel and 26 more to pave. At first, asking WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) member states to work on a treaty on exceptions and limitations was seen as unnatural by most of them. They found it hard to understand why such a treaty was necessary, and they failed to understand that nothing in the proposed text would harm the international copyright regime. In the final stages of the negotiation, some wanted to see the treaty as an «incentive for publishers», while others humorously saw it as a «treaty to protect rights holders against persons with a print disability».

There is a great deal going on in the world with respect to the Marrakesh Treaty, and exciting events loom near. First of all, members of the EBU are certainly well aware that the European Union and its 28 member states are well on track to ratify the Treaty, and that should occur by October of this year.

The project, led by the EBU member in Montenegro, the Union of the Blind of Montenegro, has as its main objective to raise awareness in Montenegro and the Western Balkans countries about the Marrakesh Treaty, its significance and the opportunities it offers for visually impaired persons.

The Russian Federation has joined the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are blind, partially sighted or Otherwise Print Disabled - and ratified it in 2018.
In this regard, the Government of the Russian Federation in cooperation with the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation have taken a number of measures to bring Russian legislation into compliance with this Treaty.

The Swiss federalist system requires that new laws or major law revisions pass through a democratic process in which not only the parliament but all important stakeholders are involved, such as cantons, parties, associations and interest groups. This request for opinions, arguments and alternatives on a broad scale makes the law changing processes quite slow. This is also true for copyright law.