Documentary History of the Limitations and Exceptions in the SCCR

The objective of this study is to systematically map all meetings of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) and the General Assemblies (GA) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to extract, compile, and organize all relevant statements made by Member States regarding the Limitations and Exceptions (L&Es). The analysis was based on publicly available data from the WIPO website, particularly the official pages dedicated to each SCCR and GA meeting. Our primary focus was on statements recorded in the official "Report" document of each session. When available, we also examined supplementary documents, such as the "Summary by the Chair" or "Conclusions". When analyzing the GAs, we focused on the “Report” and “Report on the SCCR” documents. Links to documents containing relevant information on L&Es were also included at the beginning of each section. To maintain the specificity of this study and avoid overlap with separate historical research on the protection of broadcasting organizations, for example, we primarily extracted statements from the sections titled "Limitations and Exceptions for Educational and Research Institutions and for Persons with other Disabilities”, “Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives”, and other related topics. Except when relevant for context, we did not add content for SCCR meetings or GAs where no relevant statements were made under the specific agenda item on L&Es, even if the topic was referenced in discussions under other items. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all statements included in this document are direct quotations from official WIPO records. The mapping of documents, as well as the extraction and compilation of information, was carried out in March 2025. At the time of completing this work, no report was available on the SCCR/46 webpage, and no content was available on the WO/GA/58 webpage.