US Trade Representative Ron Kirk responds to written questions from Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), telling him that “we are not seeking any obligations that go beyond US law concerning termination of repeat infringers, monitoring of online behavior, or expeditious receipt by copyright holders of information concerning alleged infringers.”
US Trade Representative Ron Kirk has responded to questions from Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) regarding the highly controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in a letter recently published on the USTR’s site for public viewing.
Senator Wyden, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, had asked Kirk for details on variety of copyright infringement proposals currently being discussed.
Specifically, he asked what sort of “legal incentives” he’s seeking to encourage ISPs to cooperate with copyright holders to deter illegal file-sharing.
“We are seeking legal incentives similar to, and consistent with, those found in relevant US law,” is his reply.
Kirk says that while it is seeking the right for customs officials to be able to seize suspected counterfeit or pirated goods – including goods in transit – the US does “not support extending that provision to include suspected patent infringement.” This was in response to a question about legitimate generic drugs in transit held up over suspicion of patent infringement.
Also discussed is if there is any effort to require ISPs to monitor their networks for copyright infringement or to terminate the accounts of those accused.
“We are not seeking any obligations that go beyond US law concerning termination of repeat infringers, monitoring of online behavior, or expeditious receipt by copyright holders of information concerning alleged infringers,” he continues.
As for efforts by copyright holders and ISPs to join forces to fight piracy – a la voluntary inter-industry cooperation as sought by the RIAA – Kirk insists that his office is “not currently proposing any provisions.”
So despite the frustrating lack of transparency of the ACTA discussions it would seem that so far file-sharers, at least in the US, are provided the relative safety of current DMCA and Copyright Act laws.
People in other countries might not fare so well. Case in point is in South Korea where the govt enacted one of the most draconian “three-strikes” regimes in the world in the name of “free trade” with the US.
Copyright imperialism at its finest.
Stay tuned.
I’m not convinced the US is safe from three strikes as plainly writting in ACTA. Many officials around the world have been arguing, “Oh no, we would never ask for three strikes law! That’s a big misconception and it’s not in ACTA whatsoever.”
Guess what, I have the text of the internet chapter and it’s in black and white that three strikes are in there. If you don’t impose three strikes on your customers as an ISP, you are liable for all copyright infringement happening on your network. That’s what is in ACTA. Three strikes law, footnote 6 about disconnecting repeat infringers. I wrote about this multiple times.
The only problem is that the leaks put third-party liability on ISP’s unless they implement a process by which they cut off someone ACCUSED of infringement. So, the treaty won’t make it mandatory for ISP’s cut anyone off (unless, of course, they want any safe harbor protections from liability for the actions of their customers. Why the secrecy, Mr Kirk?