Macao gets some special treaty treatment

If you were a little surprised to receive a media release from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) entitled "WIPO Copyright Treaty: Declaration by the People's Republic of China", don't worry: your memory won't be failing you. You probably thought, hey, hasn't China been a fully-fledged and active party to the WIPO Copyright Treaty since 2007? And indeed that is the case. But the recent media release, accompanied by a further release called "WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty: Declaration by the People's Republic of China", is actually a bit of fine-tuning, designed to bring the Macao Special Administrative Region (population c.591,000) within the ambit of both 1996 treaties with effect from 6 November 2013.

The treaties were extended to another Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong with effect from 1 October 2008.