The book explores the WIPO journey so far and looks at how relevant the treaties are in contemporary world after 25 years of their existence. It revisits the WIPO Diplomatic Conference, narrates briefly how the Internet Treaties came into being, describes all the developments germane to the Internet Treaties over the last twenty-five years and examines at length how well these treaties withstood the creative gales of destruction having a bearing on the production, distribution and consumption of digital content. The retrospective consists of two parts. The first part looks back at the conference, its course of events, its negotiation dynamics, the doctrinal differences and sharply conflicting economic interests underlying the stands taken by the main parties to negotiations and the national and transnational interest groups that sought to influence the negotiation process and outcomes. The second part reflects on the outcomes and assesses with the wisdom of hindsight, how appropriate the outcomes were and how well they withstood the passage of time. This second aspect is the main focus of this book. The retrospective is limited to the digital agenda of DipCon; but for the digital agenda, the DipCon is convened so soon and the Internet Treaties concluded so fast. The book provides rich material for researchers studying the WIPO journey and also the practitioners by throwing light on discussions that led to a treaty that has in general withstood the trials of time.

R.V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar was Member of the Indian Administrative Service (1966-2003) and Secretary to Government of India in the Ministries of Culture (1997-2001) and Human Resource Development (2001-2003). After superannuation from the government, he took to teaching policy praxis at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, as Visiting Professor (2003-2009). He has rich and varied experience in policy and program development and implementation, particularly in the areas of education and culture, has several policy and program innovations to his credit, has extensive experience of dealing with a variety of international organizations and has negotiated many agreements in a number of fields. He has extensively explored the interface of law, education, culture, technology and economics. He led the Indian delegation to the historic WIPO Diplomatic Conference (1996) which concluded the Internet Treaties; he was also Chairman of the Drafting Committee of that conference. Over the years, apart from authoring several articles in reputed journals, he is Author of four books: Public Policymaking in India published (2009), The Holy Grail: India's Quest for Universal Elementary Education (2016), History of Education Policymaking in India, 1947-2016 (2017) and Present at Creation: The Making of Internet Treaties, 1996 (2021).