A February 14, 2000 memo written by the Congressional
Research Service of the Library of Congress stated that United States trade
agreements with China have been hurt by China's failure to protect intellectual
property rights. They wrote:
"Intellectual
property rights piracy in China is estimated to cost companies in the United
States $2.6 billion dollars in lost sales in 1998. While China
enacted new IPR laws and beefed up enforcement (in response to a trade
agreement with the United States), piracy remains a serious problem, especially
illegal
reproduction of software, retail piracy and trademark counterfeiting"
(Memo by C. Hanaran, W. Morrison, distributed by the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State Website www.usinfo.state.gov)
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| In an article by the Assistant
Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Commissioner of Patent
and Trademark Office, in May 1998, he said that:
"The rapid growth of the internet has brought "cybersquatters"
and "cyber pirates". They
have hijacked trademarks,
registered them as domain names and demanded payment from legitimate trademark
owners before giving up their rights.
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"In large part due to World Trade Organization agreements, countries are
improving intellectual property agreements. These issues cannot be solved
without international cooperation."
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"Any two dimensional work can be digitized
-
translated into a series of zeros and ones that are digital code. .. This
dramatically increases the ease and speed with which it can be copied,
the quality of the copies, the ability to manipulate and change the work,
and the speed with which copies of it - both authorized and unauthorized
can be "delivered" to the public."
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"Works can be combined into a single medium such as a CD-ROM can contain
text, sounds, still and moving images.
Is it a literary work or an audiovisual work or something else entirely?
Answers to these questions will have effects on the availability of protection
internationally"
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"New information and communication technologies ...change the way works
are created, owned, distributed, reproduced,
displayed, performed, licensed, managed, presented, organized, sold, accessed,
used, and stored." The international
community well understood its obligation to find a solution to address
this massive global piracy...."
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'It is conceivable that one lax legal regime
in one country could provide a haven for pirates
who could undermine the market for legitimate goods throughout the world.
It is imperative that industries and governments around the world share
in the work that still needs to be done to put the principles set into
the treaties into practice."
*
"Fair use is by no means the same as free
use. Just because so much can be made
available on the information infrastructure, does not mean it will be,
absent adequate protections for authors and purveyors of such works.
We should not loose sight of the benefits to society and creativity that
flow from maintaining a fair balance between
protections given to the rights of copyright owners and the uses allowed
of copyrighted works for education, instruction and research.
Any imbalance favoring one group over another will upset the delicate equilibrium
achieved in the copyright law and endanger creativity and innovation.
... if we want the internet to be more than a global mailbox and message
system with advertising and public domain information, then we have only
one choice to make it so - strong copyright protection"
(From an Article by Bruce Lehamn "Protecting Intellectual Property in
a Global Economy"
From the U.S. Information Agency of the Department of State
"Economic Perspectives" Vol.3, No.3, May 1998)
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| In an article called "The Challenge of Copyright in the Digital Age"
from the Register of Copyrights of the Library of Congress in May 1998,
she wrote
"Digital
transmissions for works over networks entail temporary copying. The
work is reproduced in the RAM memory of the sending computer before it
is broken up into packets of binary information (ones and zeros) and transmitted
on the network. As packets transverse computer networks, temporary
copies are made as they move along the way from source to destination.
Finally a temporary copy or permanent one is made on the receiving computer."
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"In
some cases, it is unclear whether a license from an author or copyright
owner grants rights to exploit a work in a way that did not exist when
the license was granted. This question has arisen with the emergence
of radio, television and video cassette recorders."
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"In the United States, it became necessary to preserve copyright owners
exclusive reproduction rights by requiring technological controls on multi-generational
copying and imposing a levy (taxes) on devices and blank tapes to compensate
copyright owners for an inevitable amount of private copying."
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"Time and time again, over the last two centuries, the subject matter of
copyright has embraced new forms of authorship. Photography, cinematography,
electronic data-bases, computer programs, radio and television broadcasts.
A new right was added to the copyright bundle of rights, "rights
of communication to the public" were added
in response to the advent of broadcasting."
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"The
exploitation of public performance rights in musical works is a classic
example in the United States. Typically, the value of any single
public performance of a musical work is small. The class of user which
includes broadcasters, bars, restaurants, supermarkets and the like, is
extremely large. (As a solution, The Office of Copyrights collects
a levy (tax) on the sale of music discs and tapes to give to copyright
holders for their "right of public performance")."
(From an Article by Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights, United
States Copyright Office
From the U.S. Information Agency of the Department of State
"Economic Perspectives" Vol.3, No.3, May 1998)
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