Comments of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association on the Anti- Counterfeiting Trade Agreement March 21, 2008 The Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) supports efforts to secure the U.S. drug supply from counterfeit medicines. Currently, due in great part to the vigilance of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the quality of America’s prescription medicines is the [...]
International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) - ACTA Public Comments Via email ACTA@ustr.eop.gov Ms. Rachel Bae Director for Intellectual Property & Innovation Office of the U.S. Trade Representative 600 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20508 Dear Ms. Bae: Re: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA): Request for Public Comments 73 Fed. Reg. 8910 (Feb. 10, 2008) The International [...]
National Electronics Manufacturers Association (NEMA) - ACTA Public Comments Original Source Document as PDF.
Internet Technical Body an Authority on Morality? ICANN announced the "biggest extension of the DNS [domain name system] in 40 years" after its decision last week to finish implementation of a new policy for introducing new top-level domains (TLDs). According to the timeline presented at the ICANN meeting in Paris, new TLDs to compete against the existing .com, .biz or .museum TLDs will be open for application in the second quarter of 2009. ... But the most discussed and criticised reason for an objection clearly is “morality and public order.†This objection criterion would allow any government to veto strings (domains), ICANN director and US law professor Susan Crawford warned before the vote on the new TLD policy. This could undermine ICANN’s mission to act as a private self-regulatory body, she said, by giving such influence to governments. “It’s allowing governments to censor,†Crawford said, adding that the idea of having a private internet governance model was also “to avoid having the domain name system used as a choke-point for content.†Together with her colleague Wendy Seltzer, who acts as liaison of the ICANN At-Large User Community to the board, Crawford asked for clear-cut and narrow rules for the morality objection....
Today in Paris the ICANN Board passed the GNSO's controversial recommendations to censor top level domains based on notions of "morality and public order", and broadly defined "community" wishes. However, 2 ICANN board members, law professors Wendy Seltzer (on behalf of the At-Large Internet Users) and Susan Crawford, made very powerful and compelling statements to protect free expression on the top level of the Internet. Hopefully Professor Crawford is right and this harm can be mitigated through narrowly tailored implementation.
United States Trade Representative (USTR) Section 301 Annual Reports (2001-2007) Section 301 of 1984 Trade & Tariff Act (which amended 1974 Trade Act) gave the US President authority to deal with states that failed to provide “adequate and effective” protection for US intellectual property rights. Under Section 301, punishment for a foreign country that fails [...]
Sean Spicer of USTR on ACTA: "The main focus of the discussion was border measures, particularly how to deal with large-scale intellectual property infringements, which can frequently involve criminal elements and pose a threat to public health and safety. ..."
Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Program, Agenda and Format of the Hyderabad Meeting I. Introduction This paper aims to provide an update to the planning on programme, agenda and format of the third IGF meeting, which is to take place in Hyderabad on 3 – 6 December 2008. The paper is conceived as a rolling document [...]
US Congressmen are up to their old tricks of pretending to care about free expression publicly, while undermining it's practice with their policy decisions -- especially when it comes to free speech on the Internet. Congressman Edward Markey, the Chairman of the Congressional Sub-committee on Telecommunications and the Internet sent a letter urging the US Government to refuse to relinquish unilateral oversight of ICANN, the US Commerce Department created organization set up to manage the Internet's root server. Although the reason given by the politicians for needing the US to dominate Internet policy is to protect freedom of expression on the Internet, it is worth noting that ICANN and the US Congress have consistently refused to respect freedom of expression principles in its Internet policy-making choices. (Remember the new ICANN plan to prohibit top-level domain names that are offensive, immoral, disorderly, and desired by 'established institutions'?) The Internet Governance Project Blog discusses in more detail the irony of using freedom of expression arguments in order to continue to engage in censorship at ICANN. The post is worth a read to anyone who cares about freedom of expression on the Internet....
"IPR protection has always been given to creators and inventors in exchange for some benefit to the public. These are usually included in IP law as exceptions and limitations that can provide a benefit to the public. For example, when copyright owners permit the copying of their materials for private and educational use, they contribute to the general pool of knowledge available on the Internet. The practice of remixing, re-using, editing, and combining of audio-video and text to comment on culture and create transformative works depends upon a system of robust exceptions and limitations to exclusive rights. This coalition supports innovation and the creation of wealth through IPR incentivization, but we also seek to support alternative models for creating knowledge goods, including free and open source software, or open scholarly and scientific journals, and on-line access to scholarly research, publicly funded research, and essential documents such as legal information. The A2K@IGF coalition welcomes a discussion in Hyderabd that explores best practices for promoting sharing of knowledge and access to information and that explores a variety of business models designed to encourage creativity and innovation. We welcome participation from all stakeholders in this ongoing discussion to build an open and inclusive Internet to promote human development and individual empowerment...."