One of the major criticisms of the plaintiffs of The Pirate Bay trial is the heavy involvement of the United States. In Canada, many have said that the United States is exerting major pressure onto the country (some go as far as to say it’s bully tactics) to reform it’s copyright laws. Now, a new piece of legislation in the United States says that enforcing intellectual property rights in other countries could become enshrined in US law.
There’s definitely heavy involvement from the United States in the case against The Pirate Bay, but could such a thing be more common if a new piece of legislation in the United States becomes law? Who knows? What we do know is this, IP Watch is reporting on H.R. 2410, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY 2010-2011 – mainly the section on enforcing intellectual property.
The legislation states that “The Secretary of State shall ensure that the protection in foreign countries of the intellectual property rights of United States persons in other countries is a significant component of United States foreign policy in general and in relations with individual countries.”
It further states, “The Secretary of State, in consultation with the Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, shall appoint 10 intellectual property attaches to serve in United States embassies or other diplomatic missions. The 10 appointments shall be in addition to personnel serving, on the date of the enactment of this Act, in the capacity of intellectual property attaches from any department or agency of the United States at United States embassies or other diplomatic missions.”
That’s right, “Subject to paragraph (2), in designating the embassies or other missions to which attaches are assigned under subsection (b), the Secretary of State shall give priority to those countries where the activities of an attache may be carried out with the greatest potential benefit to reducing counterfeit and pirated products in the United States market, to protecting the intellectual property rights of United States persons and their licensees, and to protecting the interests of United States persons otherwise harmed by violations of intellectual property rights in those countries.”
No really, this is what you think it is, “The activities of intellectual property attaches under this section shall be carried out in coordination with the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator appointed under section 301 of the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 (15 U.S.C. 8111).”
As IP Watch says, the “bill [was] introduced into the US House of Representatives by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (Democrat, California) that would “enhance State Department resources and training for intellectual property enforcement efforts in countries not meeting their international obligations,” the Chamber said.”
Surely some people in other countries would object to the very idea that another country can dictate what the countries laws should be and how those laws should be enforced. We know there are plenty in Sweden that dislike the United States involvement in the daily affairs of Sweden. In Canada, Michael Geist noted that the language of the bill suggests that “Canada would be a likely target.”
So in the end, if (very likely) the legislation is passed, the next time United States representatives come in to your country and start pressuring lawmakers to pass seemingly draconian copyright laws, you can thank the law of the land in the United States for that.
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another Iraq war?
fighting battles from 4500 miles is not a very easy thing.
the US will soon call this
“The War on Cyber Terrorists”
The U.S. better watch out, the more they push the more countries will be fed up and ignore it. Should the people of the world fight back, it could spell the demise of U.S. economic forc.e.
Ah yes! Blame the US or better yet the bogeyman for everything that goes wrong. Sorry but this is a cliché commonly employed by other intellectually defeated efforts. Take some personal responsibility for your actions. That concept defies association with a particular country.
@mountain_rage
The only reason most of these countries listen to what the Big Bad US says is they are depenant on the US for financial and military support.
Well, after reading this story: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86279/congressional-anti-piracy-caucus-unveils-piracy-watch-list/
I’m kinda leaning towards the idea of China, which is one of the countries they are targetting, isn’t dependent on the US… more like the US being dependent on China thanks to all those debt obligations.
Canada, another country they are targetting, is more like an even 50/50 relationship rather than one depending on the other as we give (yeah, after all the trade disputes, it’s just about like giving this stuff away at this point) the US all the raw resources for them to manufacture and sell stuff. That’s already getting close to half the countries the US copyright industry is now targetting.
True, but that is slowly becoming less and less of a reality. Before we got into the conservative minority, the other Canadian political parties were discussing the possibility of expanding trade with other countries than the U.S. to increase are bargaining abilities. Should the conservatives fail to uphold their weak minority government, you could see things shift in the coming years.
Ok, politics aside, why is it OK for people to steal other people’s work though? that is what this is boiling down too!
Why would someone be allowed to steal my photos that I spent time creating? or music, or movies etc? why should STEALING be allowed?
Alex, dont be a moron, copyright infringement is just that: copyright infringement, not stealing, not voodoo not genies in bottles.
Dont belive me?
Heres something to fill that gap inbetween your ears:
http://ezee.se/articles-blog/2008/03/20/downloading-is-stealing/