After two and a half years of calls for more public
scrutiny, the current draft of the once-secret Anti-counterfeiting trade
agreement (ACTA) agreement has been released to the public ,
as the tech press has
reported .
The name notwithstanding, ACTA has little to do with
counterfeiting and everything to do with copyright in the digital age. In a misguided effort to improve global
IP enforcement, ACTA proposes to mandate familiar and occasionally controversial
parts of U.S. intellectual property law – statutory damages, criminal
liability, anticircumvention (legal protection for “digital rights management”)
and DMCA-like notice-&-takedown.
What ACTA does not do is mandate the limitations and
exceptions to copyrights that, according to a 2007
study released by CCIA, are relied upon by industries that add $2.2
trillion in value to the U.S. economy.
As a result, ACTA will make foreign markets more hostile to U.S. businesses,
rather than more hospitable.
CCIA’s first take on the text is here , and more
information is available on CCIA’s ACTA
Resource Page . Additional
analysis comes from Canadian law professor Michael Geist on his blog .
Co-writing today’s post is Jonathan Band of policybandwidth , with CCIA’s Matthew
Schruers, on the recently-announced retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens:
JUSTICE STEVENS INVENTED THE INTERNET
Justice John Paul Stevens’s announcement that he will resign
from the Supreme Court at the end of this term has caused a flood of newspaper
articles and blogs about the most significant opinions he authored during his
34 years on the Court. With the
exception of an insightful piece
by Joe Mullin at Corporate Counsel, the media has largely overlooked one of his
opinions that has had a direct daily impact on virtually all Americans: the
majority opinion in Sony v.
Universal
The case involved the lawfulness of the Betamax
video-cassette recorder manufactured by Sony. The motion picture studios took the position that the
Betamax contributed to copyright infringement by allowing consumers to tape
over-the-air broadcasts of television programs. After a five-week trial, a federal district court in
California ruled that Sony was not liable for contributory infringement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit reversed the district court, and found that Sony did contribute to
infringement.
By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth
Circuit. Justice Stevens in his
opinion for the majority explained that copyright law’s fair use doctrine
permitted a consumer to tape an over-the-air broadcast for later viewing – what
Justice Stevens called “time-shifting.” Interpreting the fair use doctrine to permit
widespread, systematic copying by consumers for private use was truly
revolutionary...
Read
on for more information about Justice Stevens...
