The 2010 Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement (PDF) issued by US. IP Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel yesterday has drawn a wide range of reactions from the public and business sectors.
Entertainment Software Association (ESA) President Michael Gallagher said that the trade group was “grateful for Ms. Espinel's hard work to date, and appreciate the extent to which she has consulted with a wide range of stakeholders, including our industry.”
Gallagher added:
We also applaud the numerous federal departments and agencies that are committed to protecting intellectual property rights, here and in foreign markets - both of which are critical to our industry's continuing growth and ability to deliver innovative entertainment experiences.
We look forward to reviewing this plan, and to doing our part to help the U.S. government succeed in its vital mission of protecting intellectual property. Because by protecting intellectual property, we're protecting jobs.
Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow, however, wasn’t so impressed with the IP enforcement plan, specifically calling out three areas of the doctrine where the “U.S. is completely out to lunch.” The three sections in question are “secret treaty negotiations, watchlists of ‘pirate nations,’ and evaluating claims of losses due to piracy.”
Addressing the first area, Doctorow quotes a passage in which transparency, public engagement and outreach are mentioned countless times when referring to IP enforcement policy-making, all negated by a paragraph ending sentence that reads, “…including consideration of the need for confidentiality in international trade negotiations to facilitate the negotiation process.”
By including that last sentence, Doctorow wrote, “Espinel's office is giving a free pass to the US Trade Rep to go on making obligations on behalf of the American government without Congressional oversight, public transparency, or access by the press.”
Doctorow calls the report’s acceptance of the 301 process “equally grave,” and of the report’s apparent acceptance of figures thrown around meant to assign a dollar value to losses from piracy, he writes:
I don't see how the US government can propose to fix a problem if they don't know how grave the problem is in the first place. If Espinel's office spends millions of taxpayer dollars on this issue and the MPAA makes up a fresh set of imaginary piracy losses, do we have to start over again?
Meanwhile, a section in which Espinel refers to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as the “USTR’s premier enforcement-related initiative,” caused Politico to wonder if such verbiage signaled that the “Obama administration plans to sail full-speed ahead on the treaty, despite the beckoning of some of its biggest tech allies.”
Comments
Re: Reactions Split on IP Enforcement Strategy
Hmmmm...
“…including consideration of the need for confidentiality in international trade negotiations to facilitate the negotiation process.”
For the life of me, I cant think of anything that would need to be done in a confidential manner regarding this topic if the foundation of the goal is the protect the public interest to be frank. Copyright is a contract between the public and private entities - right? Or has something changed?
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Re: Reactions Split on IP Enforcement Strategy
All Doctorow's articles should be required reading. He nails everything that's wrong with this mess clearly and concisely.
Re: Reactions Split on IP Enforcement Strategy
Of course it's split. Some parts of the industry don't care as they have a lot to gain, while some parts of the industry recognize supporting it will heavily damage their image.
In any case, the industry has a lot to gain, but their consumers, whome they continue to rample on, have a HELL of a lot more ot lose.
Re: Reactions Split on IP Enforcement Strategy
Pro business enforcement is bad for consumers and the public in general.....it assumes to much..... and establishs rules to create thought police. Instead focus on whos trying to make money off the IP in question and grind them int the ground for trying to do it illicitly.
But with that said can you make links to a file from a place not exempted illegal? What I am getting it a site that makes money off adds,ect that eventually links to infringing material sites like google get a pass as thats not the focus of their search system and some EDU sites can be exempted but if they are not exempted by the IP X,Y,Z panel they either have to fall under fair use or not make a dime off any kind of unlicensed copyright item trade. This is what we need to focus our efforts on not sweeping the public under the rug....
mega edited-zip
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
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http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/