US Government Praises Italy For Implementing SOPA Features The US Public Vehemently Rejected

from the questions-to-ask dept

Tue, May 6th 2014 2:15pm — Mike Masnick

It's no secret that the USTR has been pushing for copyright maximalist policies over the past few years (mostly done by a guy who recently went through the revolving door to become an MPAA lobbyist). However, one thing they keep claiming is that they're only looking to get other countries to match existing US laws, rather than expand them. That's clearly untrue if you look through the actual language being negotiated (only available via leaks). But, even so, it's pretty clear that the USTR is pushing an extreme maximalist approach. Last week, it released its latest Special 301 report, in which it names which countries are "naughty" about intellectual property. "Naughty" is not defined by any objective standard. Rather, the USTR asks various industry lobbyists to tell them which countries they dislike the most, and the USTR rewrites it into the list. The Special 301 process has long been a complete joke that even many maximalists recognize as silly (we heard the former head of the US Copyright Office once mock it).

The latest version of the report is more of what we've come to expect in previous reports. China has been naughty. India and Spain have been called out of class for a special extra review. Blah blah blah. But, it also notes that both Italy and the Philippines were removed from the Watch List "in recognition of their intellectual property rights accomplishments." Both countries have certainly become much more aggressive on copyrights recently -- and they've done so by being a lot more aggressive than the US. In fact, as we've been reporting, Italy made a dangerous move to allow an administrative agency to issue censorship bans on websites without any judicial process. And, in fact, it's already begun issuing questionable death sentences on sites, forcing ISPs to block access.

If this sounds like the approach originally considered in SOPA (actually, it's going even further than that), that was then massively rejected by the public, you'd be exactly right. So you would think that the USTR would, perhaps, chastise Italy for such an abuse of intellectual property for censorship in a manner that the American public (who the USTR is supposed to represent) have rejected. But, nope. The USTR praises this very approach:

Italy is removed from the Watch List in the 2014 Special 301 Report in recognition of the Italian Communications Regulatory Authority’s (AGCOM) adoption, on December 12, 2013, of long-awaited regulations to combat copyright piracy over the Internet.

In other words, here you have the USTR basically admitting that it approves of countries moving to an approach even more extreme than SOPA. Of course, the reality here is pretty transparent. If Italy and others implement SOPA, down the road, it can be negotiated into various international agreements, so that the US will claim that it has to implement SOPA to "comply with our international obligations." It's been done before. That's exactly how we got the DMCA. Congress initially rejected it, and so Bruce Lehman specifically went to WIPO to get the DMCA put into the 1996 Copyright Treaty... and, voila, two years later Congress said it had to pass the DMCA to comply with that treaty.

The USTR has long been a supporter of maximalist policies. Praising Italy for implementing an even more extreme version of SOPA just highlights how little concern the USTR has for the interests of the American public. Instead, it appears almost entirely focused on the interests of the most powerful lobbyists (who, not surprisingly, are also the USTR employees' likely future employers).

USTR 2014 Special 301 Report to Congress FINAL (PDF)USTR 2014 Special 301 Report to Congress FINAL (Text)

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Filed Under: agcom, censorship, copyright, injunctions, italy, sopa, ustr

23 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 2:25pm

It's all true. 'Free Trade' is nothing more than a backdoor being used for policy laundering.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 2:30pm

Mikey just hates it when copyright law is enforced.
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Kronomex, 6 May 2014 @ 2:54pm

Our Attorney General, in Australia, George Insert Corporate Brandnamehere must be so proud that we aren't on the USTR's naughty list. LNP = US and corporation sock puppets.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 2:59pm

The usual routine
If they can't get something through their own homeland, they'll just implement an even worse version elsewhere.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 3:17pm

These assholes won't be happy until they can cut the judicial system completely out of the loop.

Alleged infringement automatically becomes actual infringement, because due process and careful deliberation are just too damn slow. Besides, the US Constitution is a hindrance to proper enforcement of the law, and, in any case, international treaties are more important.
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That One Guy (profile), 6 May 2014 @ 3:49pm

Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?
I hope they at least send a 'Thank you'/'Good boy' card, maybe a fruit basket or something similar to governments who are sufficiently 'compliant', as just removing them from the list seems like a pretty lousy reward for dancing to the US's tune and screwing over their citizens.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 4:00pm

Liber8
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Anonymous, 6 May 2014 @ 4:01pm

I would think that some or many countries could turn the Watch List in the 2014 Special 301 Report on its tail by touting that they are honored to be on that report.
Press conference and all that, saying, "We couldn't be more pleased to be in this report. We accept the praise of the US with pleasure."
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That One Guy (profile), 6 May 2014 @ 4:02pm

Re:
Exactly so, being on that list is something every country should be proud of, as it indicates that they're refusing to back down to the USG's demands.
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That One Guy (profile), 6 May 2014 @ 4:03pm

Re:
*bow down
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 4:56pm

Mike Masnick considers *any* enforcement of copyright as "maximalist" lol.
I'm sure that'll be a super effective strategy...
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 5:48pm

Re:
I'm sure they are probably still on the list. Heck, if anything, compliance to the naughty list will encourage the USTR to keep putting more countries on that list so that they can get them to keep expanding IP law even more. IP extremists are never happy. Just look at copy protection lengths.
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Hibby the Hoovy (profile), 6 May 2014 @ 5:49pm

Re: The usual routine
And then they go bawling to Congress about how other countries are more ahead of the game than we are and we need even tougher, more oppressive copyright laws.

I'm still waiting for them to declare copyrights to be permanent...
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That One Guy (profile), 6 May 2014 @ 5:58pm

Re: Re: The usual routine
There's permanent, and then there's effectively permanent.

At least in the US I doubt they'll ever try and get the first in place due to the 'limited times' wording in the clause that enables copyright, but as it is they don't need to, copyright is already effectively permanent, given nothing that is made in your lifetime will enter the public domain until decades after you die, if it ever does.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 6:44pm

Re: Re: Re: The usual routine
At least in the US I doubt they'll ever try�

See Oren Bracha's Commentary on the U.S. Copyright Act 1831
Perhaps it is possible to read [Noah] Webster's demand for a legislative recognition of "the principle that an author has, by common law, or natural justice, the sole & permanent right" as an initial bargaining position. Alternatively, Webster may have been seeking merely a declaratory recognition of the perpetual nature of copyright as a natural right, while admitting that the positive legislation prescribing the "mode by which it should be ascertained, secured and enjoyed," could impose a limited duration, albeit one which is longer than the existing one. However, the plain and most probable meaning of Webster's early plea is that he sought, at this stage, a firm legislative recognition of perpetual copyright.
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That One Guy (profile), 6 May 2014 @ 7:15pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: The usual routine
Oh greedy individuals and companies like that will always push for the 'perpetual copyright' that they feel they are 'owed', I merely meant that I doubt the government itself will push for perpetual copyright duration, both because it would be redundant, and because it would likely draw a bit too much attention from the public to just how insanely long copyright already is.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2014 @ 11:42pm

Figures the above would get censored in an article like this. Oh the irony.

"Mike Masnick considers *any* enforcement of copyright as "maximalist" lol.
I'm sure that'll be a super effective strategy..."
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Andypandy, 7 May 2014 @ 1:51am

flip flop or whatever!!!
It only takes one country to completely delete copyright laws for others to follow. A lack of copyright would give a country an unfair advantage and make the specific country rich in content and possibly a market that could destroy Hollywood.
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Ninja (profile), 7 May 2014 @ 4:24am

Re:
As I said before, let it be. Make it so extreme and broken that it starts badly hurting the own companies behind these horrific laws and the economy. Make infringement a crime with capital punishment and start beheading industry execs for those infringements even the MAFIAA incurs often.

Then we'll see how long such maximalist approach holds.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2014 @ 5:48am

I for one would welcome the most extreme of laws
I have often thought that things won't change in the US until somebody locks down things so much that if screws up peoples' TV. Then by God maybe the American people will get up off the couch and *do* something. Until then, I don't see much hope. Sorry.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 May 2014 @ 5:54am

Re:
The LNP does everything the US wants, but the ALP does 90% and then tells everyone that at least they didn't go that extra 10%.

Sure, the ALP are better, but that isn't much of an achievement.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 May 2014 @ 6:14am

Re: flip flop or whatever!!!
Supposedly there was a report in the 90s from IP Australia (the agency responsible for registrations, exemptions, etc. of trademarks and copyright), which said that in the Australian market there was little evidence that copyright was beneficial for anything other than books.

The domestic software industry was (and largely still is) either in-house or contract development, or some form of SAAS, and there copyright licences could be replaced by NDAs and basic corporate self-interest.

For periodicals, pirating articles isn't really worthwhile - people won't pay for stale news, and trashy magazines which just rehash each other's content are so common that letting them just recycle articles as-is wouldn't be any real loss to the community.

Domestic film and TV production is heavily dependent on state subsidies and local-content mandates, and even if the licence revenues from local content had to be replaced by government funding, the benefit to the balance of trade would be worth it.

Music is a funny one, because successful acts tend to go to the US or UK before they see any income from copyright, and the labels are mostly foreign-owned, so it is almost totally worthless to the Australian economy.

The report also said that even if foreign governments were to retaliate by voiding Australian copyrights, that wouldn't do any real harm compared with the savings. However, because other trade sanctions would be applied, and they would do real harm, the recommendation was to do nothing to strengthen copyright and to try to persuade similarly-situated countries to agree to change the WIPO and WTO rules. Needless to say, the report was ignored.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 8:21pm

Re:
When the problem with a law is how draconian it is, making it more draconian isn't a solution.
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