FTAA: CPT, EFF, EPIC, NetAction, NWU on IP/Info Policies

From: James Love <love[_at_]cptech.org>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 17:17:16 -0400

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Info-Policy-Notes | News from Consumer Project on Technology

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June 31, 1998

July 29, 1998 comments by CPT, EFF, EPIC, NetAction and National Writers Union to United States Trade Representative (USTR) regarding negotiations on Free Trade Area for the Americas. These comments focus on the sections of the treaty which concern intellectual property and information policy.

(This document is on the web at:
http://www.cptech.org/treaty/ftaa/ftaa-info2.html)

July 29, 1998

Ms. Gloria Blue
Executive Secretary
Trade Policy Staff Committee
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Rm. 501, 600 17th St., NW
Washington, DC 20508

Ms. Blue:

We are writing to provide comments to help U.S. trade negotiators determine the objectives for the initial September 1998 negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Our organizations represent the interests of citizens, consumers and authors. We present 13 points that will assist the U.S. negotiations team in ensuring that the intellectual property and electronic commerce provisions of the treaty protect creators and consumers, while promoting competition and innovation, while avoiding anticompetitive practices.

Comments for the Working Group on Intellectual Property

1. The Internet and other digital information technologies pose new issues for copyright and neighboring rights.
2. Legislation to protect copyrights or neighboring works should seek solutions that are least invasive of personal privacy.
3. Legislation to protect copyrights or neighboring works should avoid barriers to the development of new information technologies.
4. Avoid problems associated with overbroad patent or copyright protection, and anticompetitive barriers to the development of interoperable works.
5. Legislation to protect copyrights or neighboring works should protect non-commercial and commercial fair use. Countries should be given wide latitude to define fair use rights for educational and research purposes, including non-commercial distance education programs.
6. Efforts to protect "sweat of the brow" investments in databases should not create ownership of facts, create excessive levels of marketing exclusivity, authorize anticompetitive licensing practices, or exclude fair uses of data.
7. Efficient development of information technologies are enhanced by policies which promote interoperability of computer and telecommunications software and hardware.
8. Competition authorities should discourage anticompetitive software licensing practices and other monopolistic practices.
9. Mass market "shrink-wrap" or "click-on" licenses should not be permitted to include anticompetitive provisions. For example, mass market licensees should not be permitted to contain restrictions on reverse engineering, nondisclosure clauses, or restrictions on the use of the product that stop the customer from creating a competing product (except to the extent that this use would involve copying some of the product to an extent that would exceed normal fair use limits).
10. Trademark, copyright or other intellectual property rights should not be used to discourage criticism, parody, or free speech.
11. Mass market licenses should not be permitted to ban the consumer from expressing grievances against the product.
12. Copyright should not be extended to government documents and data.
13. Legislation to protect copyrights should preserve and enhance the moral and economic rights of individual authors, as distinct from large content owners.

Signed,

Consumer Project on Technology (CPT)

        http://www.cptech.org/
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

        http://www.eff.org/
National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981)

        http://www.nwu.org/nwu/
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)

        http://www.epic.org/
NetAction

        http://www.netaction.org/

                         APPENDIX 

Excerpts from the 1996 Federal Trade Commission staff report, Anticipating the 21st Century: Competition Policy in the New High-Tech, Global Marketplace.

[s]hrinking product lifecycles and the

        increasing  global character of high-tech
        competition, in combination with expanded
        Intellectual Property protection, creates a
        situation to warrant a closer examination to
        ensure that companies do not wield their IP
        rights to stunt competition." (pg. 2233.) 

                . . .

        Some participants expressed concern that
        overbroad copyright scope might either create
        disincentives for, or erect roadblocks against,
        follow- on innovation. One computer industry
        representative found overbroad copyright scope
        "harmful to progress because software, more
        than anything, is a series of inventions piled
        on top of each other."[*] Another emphasized
        that broad copyright scope can create a risk of
        "overcompensation" in the sense that "[a]n
        author or inventor with too broad a monopoly
        over a work can seek compensation from authors
        of inventors of [*] works, driving up the cost
        of such works, [and ultimately] resulting in
        fewer works being produced."[*] \

        . . .

        "[Computer industry representatives] suggested
        that broad scope [of copyrights] could thwart
        efforts to enhance interoperability, which
        would in turn impact the growth of computer
        networks, the anticipated source of substantial
        innovation in the near term.[*] Some


        [representatives] suggested that the owner of

        a software copyright should be prevented from
        enforcing its copyright as to the interface,
        especially once that interface has become a
        standard,[*] or they advocated compulsory
        licensing of interface standards that dominate
        the market.[*] 

• footnotes omitted

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INFORMATION POLICY NOTES: the Consumer Project on Technology http://www.cptech.org/, 202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5127. Archives of Info-Policy-Notes are available from http://www.essential.org/listproc/info-policy-notes/ Subscription requests to listproc[_at_]cptech.org with the message: subscribe info-policy-notes Jane Doe

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Received on Fri Jul 31 1998 - 21:22:02 GMT