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IP: Hague Convention, Intellectual Property Control
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 21:42:28 -0400
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 21:33:21 -0400 To: dave () farber net From: Dave Burstein <daveb () dslprime com> Subject: Hague Convention, Intellectual Property Control Dave About to quietly slip through, The Hague Treaty is important because it will enforce in dozens of countries laws many of us question constantly: DMCA, arbitrary contracts, extraordinarily strong protections for corporate rights, foreign jurisdiction even if the laws conflict, the ability to sue half a world away under different law. Because it's being done with little publicity, even a few individuals can have a significant impact. That's why Jamie Love, Richard Stallman, and I are testifying in DC next Tuesday, alongside the MPAA, AT&T and the usual suspects. (below) The best discussion of the issues, and what to do, is at http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html The American Library Association urged U.S. negotiators "to remove intellectual property cases, including copyright cases, from the scope of the draft." I wrote this note to the other panelists, after Richard Stallman got the speaker's program as an attachment, and replied "You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format, so I cannot read it. If you send me the text in ASCII, HTML, or PDF, then I could read it." My additional thoughts: Just as we should not implicitly force the use of U.S./Microsoft software, neither should Americans have imposed on them foreign laws. In particular, I as a writer do not want to fear court proceedings if my work, not considered libelous under U.S. law, is unacceptable in Singapore, Croatia, or Spain. They don't have the precedents of Times vs. Sullivan, or the rule of "absence of malice", and the practicalities of defending myself would have a severe chilling effect.The corollary is that we should not impose our laws, about which we have major disagreements, on other nations. I'm an author, and want to collect royalties. But I don't think protecting my royalties requires imposing on other nations policies they disagree with. In particular, if Brazil wants to set the price of textbooks at a figure that allows poor children to go to school, or Sweden believes in streaming radio without additional royalties beyond those already paid by the radio station, that should be their right. In this country, we have strong disagreements about many of these issues, and in a decade may choose to reverse some of the legislation. For example, the Chief Technologist of the FCC, Dave Farber, calls the DMCA "one of the worst laws I have ever seen. It will have a chilling effect on research around the world." While many on this panel disagree with that point of view, the absence of national consensus is clear. How then America insist it be incorporated into international law? Similarly, our likely royalty rates on streaming music will make Internet Radio generally impractical as a mass medium in a country as rich as the United States. It is clearly not right in many other nations. Rights need to be weighed. I believe the lowering the price of schoolbooks in a poor nation is a noble government effort; my publisher, Wiley, probably disagrees. I place the efficiency of the public library, where books - now electronic - are available to all higher than my own royalties. Honorable people can disagree with my opinions; they should not be imposed on nations by fiat. We do not want to become again "ugly Americans." We will pay a price for extending our rules around the world that is much greater than the incremental royalties. We will pay a second price, chilling freedom of speech in America, as well. Dave Burstein PUBLIC HEARING ON DRAFT CONVENTION ON JURISDICTION AND FOREIGN JUDGMENTS IN CIVIL AND COMMERICAL MATTERS September 11, 2001 9:30 a.m. 5:00 p.m. Patent Theater, Crystal Park 2 2121 Crystal Drive, 2nd Floor Arlington, Virginia SCHEDULE 9:30 Opening Remarks Robert L. Stoll, Administrator for External Affairs Jennifer Lucas Attorney Advisor 10:00 Marc E. Hankin American Bar Association Intellectual Property Law Section Committee On Draft Hague Convention 10:15 Judith Sapp International Trademark Association (INTA) 10:30 James Love Consumer Project on Technology 10:45 Michael Sondow International Congress of Independent Internet Users Ltd. (ICIIU) 11:00 Kathryn A. Kleiman Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 11:15 Sarah B. Deutsch Verizon Communications 11:30 Ed Black Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) 11:45 Barbara Wellbery Yahoo! 12:00 1:00 Lunch Break 1:00 Alan Kasper American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Patent and Trademark Section 1:15 Judith Saffer American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Copyright Section 1:30 Dave Burstein DSL Prime 1:45 Mark Bohannon Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) 2:00 Emery Simon Business Software Alliance (BSA) 2:15 Richard Stallman Free Software Foundation 2:30 Break 2:45 Laura Kaster AT&T 3:00 Shira Perlmutter AOL Time Warner Inc. 3:15 Troy Dow Motion Picture Association of America 3:30 Vergil Bushnell Computer Science Student, University of Maryland Special Correspondent, The Personal Computer Show, WBAI-99.5FM, 8 p.m. Wednesdays Three time winner of Best Radio Show from the Computer Press Association; Editor,DSL Prime; Co-author with Jennie Bourne of "DSL: A Wiley Tech Brief" forthcoming "The power of the printing press belongs solely to those who own the presses" A.J. Leibling - The Internet is the cheapest printing press ever invented
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