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The EFF submitted this letter in response to the request for public comments regarding the ACTA. The letter focuses on the legitimacy of the ACTA itself. The EFF argues that the lack of transparency surrounding the creation and negotiations of the ACTA is highly suspicious. It questions who the true supporters of the ACTA are (authors vs. companies) and the genuine motives of the agreement. The EFF then analyses the available information regarding the ACTA and makes recommendations. Thee recommendations include respecting each country’s own legal regime and not imposing secondary liability, making sure that any prosecutions for breaking the rules of the ACTA go through judicial review, and creating a precise and narrow definition for “commercial-use.”
This document also gives a unique perspective for my research paper, because it questions the general purpose of the ACTA as well as the process through which it is being negotiated. It is the only document so far that discusses the implications for Fair Use in this new multinational agreement. The letter also talks predominantly about the rights of users and argues that the United State should take extreme care to ensure that civil rights will be preserved. The EFF discusses another interesting aspect: prosecution of individuals who committed piracy for personal uses compared to those who truly operated significant commercial networks and gained profit from infringement. In order for the ACTA to be an effective agreement, it should set realistic rules and standards that are enforceable, instead of labeling every type of copyright infringement as prosecutable. This means that the ACTA should concern only large-scale profit-seeking infringers since they have committed greater harm then someone who has downloaded a song to his/her personal computer. For example, the ACTA should affect online music and movie torrents as well as street vendors – these are the people who use piracy for profit and not just for personal pleasure.
tagged copyright counterfeit enforcement infringment piracy by nikolovb ...on 25-NOV-08
Red lights mean green for GOP
MORE THAN 90,000 motorists have been nailed for running red lights in the first three years of Philadelphia's camera-enforcement program. At $100 a shot, they've paid $9.1 million in fines.Backers of the red-light program say the main beneficiary has been public safety.
"Incidents of death, injury and property damage are dramatically down at the intersections where cameras are installed," the Parking Authority's board chairman, Joseph T. Ashdale, said in a news release last month.
Other beneficiaries include Republican Party officials and their kin.
Like the explosive growth in the Parking Authority's staff and salaries, reported last year by the Daily News, the red-light-camera program has created more jobs for Republican ward leaders, committeemen and their families.
It has also led to thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for GOP organizations and candidates.
More than anyone else, the contributions have flowed to state Rep. John Perzel, the Northeast Philadelphia Republican who engineered a GOP takeover of the Parking Authority in mid-2001.
Daniel Chow chose to focus exclusively on counterfeiting, which is a subset of IPR violations. Counterfeiting can infringe on both copyrighted material and patented material but necessarily violates trademark law. Therefore, counterfeiting is an extremely important subject matter for IPR studies. In his article, Chow leads the reader through the different stages of enforcement for counterfeit goods. He starts with the process of seizing and confiscating goods and paraphernalia and proceeds to describe the process and result of fines against offenders. He then poses reasons for why these fines are inadequate; for example, monetary values are based on the price of the counterfeit goods, not the price of the brand products.
Next, Chow explains how criminal liability is enacted in Chinese law, and discusses the problems, such as the burden of proof lying upon the prosecutors and not the counterfeiter. For example, to prove criminal liability the prosecutor must show that the counterfeiter made profits of at least $6000. This is extremely difficult because illegal businesses don’t keep legitimate records, and therefore criminal liability would be nearly impossible to prove. Chow follows by exploring whether manufacturers, distributors, or landlords of retailers are prosecuted most and who should be targeted more. Chow then discusses how civil action works in China. Finally, he presents some problems for future enforcement against counterfeiting.
This article contains a large amount of useful information and is presented in a very methodical and simple manner. The information is useful because it demonstrates from an empirical and not theoretical perspective how IPR enforcement works in China. This becomes important for the project's thesis when one considers the practical nature of taking any approach other than a gradual increase in IPR protection.
tagged China Counterfeiting Enforcement IPR by rogerlm ...on 31-JUL-06
Yet, despite the lack of in-depth analysis provided, this article hints at some of the basic themes of more insightful works. Examples of these are that China has historical traditions that impede its compliance with international standards of intellectual copyright protection and that China has too many administrative bureaucracies to effectively enforce IPR. The article also presents an interesting view that unfortunately has no support: an assertion that because China has joined the WTO, its institutions will adapt in a positive manner.
The statistics in this article include the numbers of criminal prosecutions in China for IPR infringement and estimates of the amount of money lost by US businesses because of piracy. Also, there is a comparison over time of changes in these statistics. These numbers, although vague, can be used to present a case with nearly any goal in mind and, therefore, are valuable in research about IPR in China.
The last important aspect of this article is that it places China in the context of the larger developing world. It points out that China represents the single largest market (in numbers of people) in the world, and because it is considered to have a developing economy, China plays a large role in determining the stance of other developing economies. This is an important message and illuminates the significance of understanding the IPR situation in China and, therefore, the significance of China taking a gradual approach to strengthening its IPRs in a broader, global sense.
tagged China Enforcement IP by rogerlm ...on 31-JUL-06