Council of Europe takes steps to create the Broadcast Treaty that WIPO Member States rejected in 2007.
See the below announcement from the Council of Europe website here. Interestingly, CoE calls the rejection of the treaty at WIPO as "deadlock" rather than admitting that the only ones who wanted the treaty were a handful of European broadcasters and the treaty was REJECTED, not deadlocked.
"… Further, in view of a standstill in WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) negotiations on a convention on neighbouring rights of broadcasting organisations, the Committee of Ministers has asked the Council of Europe body entrusted with developing standards on freedom of expression, media and new communication services - the Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication Services (CDMC) - to take stock of the situation and, if justified, to elaborate a draft Council of Europe convention designed to reinforce the protection of those rights (near copyright of broadcast signals). Such a convention would add to existing Council of Europe instruments on this and related subjects, which include a number of recommendations and declarations as well as a 1994 conventionrelating to questions on copyright law and neighbouring rights in the framework of transfrontier broadcasting by satellite and the 2001 conventionon the legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access.
Meeting of the Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication Services (CDMC) (27-30 November 2007)
(18/02/08) During its last meeting (the report of which is now available), the Council of Europe body entrusted with developing standards on freedom of expression, media and new communication services finalised draft texts on: protection of children’s dignity, security and privacy with regard to the traces they leave when creating content on the Internet; management of the digital dividend (spectrum capacity freed due to digital broadcasting following switchover from the more spectrum-thirsty analogue transmission) and the need to take due account of the public nature of this resource and the public interest in its management; freedom of expression and filtering measures on the Internet; and the independence and functions of regulatory authorities of the broadcasting sector. These texts will be examined by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in the coming weeks.
The CDMC also pursued discussion on, and noted emerging agreement as to, the desirability of a specialised mechanism designed to promote the implementation in practice of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Council of Europe freedom of expression and media related standards. It also considered desirable to resume work discontinued in the late 1990s and to elaborate a Council of Europe Convention on the protection of the neighbouring rights of broadcasting organisations (following a WIPO deadlock in negotiations on the subject). The pursuit of work on these two fronts will be conditional upon Committee of Ministers decisions."
Read above from the Council of Europe’s website here.