IPI Publication Press Release
IPI Issue Brief
Related Publication Title:
A Bad Trade: Will Congress Unwittingly Repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Violate Our Trade Treaties?
Released by Sonia Blumstein on 06/26/2006
IPI Issue Brief
Related Publication Title:
A Bad Trade: Will Congress Unwittingly Repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Violate Our Trade Treaties?
Released by Sonia Blumstein on 06/26/2006
Full Text
Press Release (06/26/2006)
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Will Congress Unwittingly Repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
and Violate our Trade Treaties?
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Sonia Blumstein, soniab@ipi.org or 703.912.5742
Washington, DC: According to a new study released today by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), international trade agreements will require renegotiation or complete dissolution if intellectual property protections granted by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) are altered.
“Since the passage of the DMCA in 1998, the United States has included language that parallels the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA in trade pacts,” says Dr. Lee Hollaar, author of IPI Issue Brief, “A Bad Trade.”
Such agreements mirroring the DMCA and benefiting the US include the recently-adopted Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), as well as agreements with Australia, Bahrain, Chile, Morocco, Oman, Singapore, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru.
The most notable effort to change the DMCA is H.R. 1201, a bill sponsored by Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA). The bill purports to ensure proper labeling of “copy-protected compact disks” to protect consumers and to restore balance to copyright law.
According to Bartlett Cleland, IPI director of technology, “H.R. 1201 would actually destroy the provisions which give the DMCA teeth, effectively repealing the Act and drive a wrecking ball into intellectual property protections."
In addition, the IPI paper finds that adopting H.R. 1201 would likely mean the US would no longer be in compliance with trade agreements containing other provisions that substantially benefit the US.
Dr. Hollaar concludes, “H.R. 1201 should not be the mechanism for putting the US in violation of its trade agreements. If such a far-reaching decision is to be made, it should be after careful debate based on an understanding of the anticircumvention provisions. It should not happen by the passage of a misleading bill that repeals the provisions through stealth.”
The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is a free-market think tank. The author is available for interview. Contact Sonia Blumstein at soniab@ipi.org or 703.912.5742.
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