WIPO Copyright Treaty

The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) is an international treaty that adapts copyright protection to the digital environment. Adopted in 1996, it supplements the Berne Convention by clarifying authors’ rights over digital uses of literary and artistic works and by requiring protection against certain forms of technological circumvention.

Works and rights covered

The Treaty protects works covered by the Berne Convention while expressly addressing computer programs and original compilations of data. It treats digital dissemination as an activity requiring effective copyright control.

• Computer programs are protected as literary works, regardless of their mode or form of expression.
• Databases and other compilations are protected when the selection or arrangement of their contents constitutes an intellectual creation; protection does not extend to the data itself.
• Authors receive rights relating to distribution, rental and communication to the public, including making works available online at a time and place individually chosen by users.

Protection in the digital environment

The WCT combines exclusive rights with safeguards intended to make those rights effective when works can be copied and transmitted digitally.

• Contracting parties must provide adequate legal protection against circumvention of technological protection measures used by authors to restrict unauthorized acts.
• They must provide remedies against unauthorized removal or alteration of rights management information, and against dealings in works whose information has been improperly removed or altered.
• Limitations and exceptions must satisfy the three-step test: they must cover certain special cases, avoid conflict with normal exploitation and not unreasonably prejudice authors’ legitimate interests.

Relationship with the Berne system and India

The WCT is a special agreement under Article 20 of the Berne Convention and does not reduce existing Berne obligations. It protects authors and works, while performers and phonogram producers are principally covered by the separate WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. India became a contracting party in 2018, strengthening its participation in the international framework for digital copyright protection.