US right holders against countries with copyright issues

Various organisations representing America’s copyright industries — including the Recording Industry Association of America — regrouped in the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) have filed a petition under the “Special 301” provision of US trade law asking the United States Trade Representative to designate Ukraine as well as Chile, China, India, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam as countries that need to improve their legal and enforcement tools to deal with organised copyright infringement online.
The USA’s “Special 301 Report” is set up by the USTR to identify the countries that do not provide “adequate and effective” copyright and IP protection and create trade barriers to US companies because of their intellectual property laws. In the petition, the IIPA asked for Ukraine to be designated as a Priority Foreign Country, the highest level of scrutiny; recommended that six countries — Chile, China, India, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam — be placed on USTR’s Priority Watch List; identified nine countries – Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Mexico, Switzerland, Taiwan, and United Arab Emirates as countries to be placed on USTR’s Watch List, and asked for a formal review of Spain’s performance in the field of copyright protection.

In the submission, the IIPA stressed that “the US economy loses vital economic and export opportunities every year because of trade barriers in overseas markets. These barriers, including insufficient legal and enforcement tools to deal with organized copyright infringement enterprises online, stand in the way of growth of a legitimate digital marketplace for US and foreign creators alike.”

The petition also identifies what it called “Collective Management Organization Issues.” The IIPA is asking the USTR to ensure that “collective management should, as a general matter, always be voluntary” and that right holders “have access to efficient, transparent, and accountable collective management services” and are “in a position to set up and govern their CMOs themselves with regard to [their] rights, with government interference limited to ensuring efficient, fair and non-discriminatory operations (through enabling legislation combined with antitrust law, and other disciplines).”

With this regard, the IIPA expressed “serious concern about these issues” in countries such as Ukraine (“failure to rein in blatantly rogue entities”); Russia (“serious problems with the operation of the sole government appointed sound recording rights CMO”); Canada and Taiwan (“tariff rates set without regard to market benchmarks”); and Brazil (“proposed regulations empowering CMOs to undermine direct licensing”). IIPA is also concerned about developments in Korea, where the government “is introducing statutory license fees for digital music services” and in Malaysia, where the government “intends to force music CMOs to operate through a government controlled collection body”.

“Developments in technology have transformed markets for music and other cultural materials, creating unprecedented opportunities to reach global consumers and fuel creativity and employment,” commented Neil Turkewitz, EVP, International for the RIAA. “Unfortunately, too much of this potential continues to be lost due to suffocating levels of theft and other unfair practices. This report details many of the inadequacies in key global markets that have hindered growth.”  

He added: “Record labels remain confident that the problems undermining today’s marketplaces can be addressed to create tomorrow’s opportunities, but the time to act is now. We hope that this report will serve as a catalyst for governments around the world to meaningfully tackle the issues that prevent a flourishing online cultural marketplace from operating. Impediments to the development of vibrant legitimate online markets are not restricted to countries traditionally associated with failure to adequately protect intellectual property. While today’s report identifies barriers in markets like Ukraine, China and Russia, it also highlights problems in markets like Switzerland, Spain and Canada.”  

Turkewitz concluded, “We know that meaningful and practical steps can be taken. This will require governments to be creative, nimble and thoughtful in how they approach these issues. The only inexcusable act is to not try.”

Meanwhile, two advocacy groups, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted a petition in which they “caution” the USTR “against the use of the Special 301 process to impose intellectual property laws upon other countries that would be detrimental both to the interests of U.S. constituencies and to the interests of other countries.” They also invited the USTR “to recognise the principle of proportionality in enforcement and allocation of resources for intellectual property infringements.”  

PK and EFF concluded by asking the “USTR to consider the importance of allowing countries flexibility in implementing international intellectual property law, both to respect the sovereignty of its negotiation partners and to preserve the socially beneficial balance between the rights of creators and users in intellectual property law.

Source: Music Week