Intellectual Property Owners Association Against Helping The Blind Because It Would 'Set A Dangerous Precedent'

from the encouraging-rights-for-the-public-would-do-what-now? dept

We've been covering the latest efforts by copyright maximalists to screw over the blind in the decades-in-waiting WIPO treaty process to help them get more access to content by creating clear carveouts in copyright law that protect the rights of the blind and of those who are transforming works for the blind. Basically, it's about protecting the fundamental rights of the blind to have access to information that others have because they have sight. This process has gone on for ages, in large part because copyright maximalists absolutely fear the idea that anyone might put forth an agreement that ever so slightly pushes back on the maximalist agenda.

The amazing thing is that they're not even subtle about this. Last year, we noted that in a video by Jamie Love showing Alan Adler, a VP for the Association of American Publishers, Adler was quite upfront about the fact that they're against this agreement for the blind not because of the blind folks who need the help, but rather because they're afraid of even opening the door to expanding things like fair use -- which he claims is some sort of attack on copyright.

Jamie Love has now called our attention to a letter sent by the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) to Teresa Stanek Rea, the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and the Director of the USPTO, concerning this treaty, in which the IPO is equally explicit that its main complaint is any expansion of user rights like fair use is simply not acceptable. From the full letter, which is also embedded below:

IPO supports international action that addresses the needs of the visually impaired in meaningful ways, but we are concerned about the VIP treaty as currently drafted, focused exclusively on L/Es and not on the rights holders whose copyrights are at stake. We are also concerned about the potentially negative, precedential effect that a one-sided, exceptions-focused VIP treaty may have on parallel developments at WIPO and in other international negotiations

This is all sorts of hilarious. After all, the folks at IPO have long supported incredibly one-sided agreements that only focus on the expansion of copyright, and they're among those who have actively fought any attempt to include user rights (they prefer to call them "limitations and exceptions") in such agreements. So for them to suddenly step up and complain that this one small, narrowly focused agreement is a problem because it "only" focuses on such things, without regards to their "rights holders whose copyrights are at stake" is pretty funny. Why has IPO never been concerned about the rights of the public and users in every other such agreement?

Our main concern about the VIP treaty, as currently drafted, is that it addresses L/Es to copyrights in isolation, without parallel provisions addressing IP holders’ rights. The proposed VIP treaty would create specific L/Es to copyright protection, with the aim of broadening access to print works for the visually impaired. However, it would not reflect the importance of protecting the copyright of those who created the work.

Okay, so simple question for the IPO folks: in all future agreements that it supports, will it agree to support a "balance" that addresses user rights, rather than focusing on "copyrights in isolation without parallel provisions addressing users rights?"

The idea that the "rights" here are only one way and must be constantly ratcheted up is disingenuous and somewhat sickening. It's this position that has kept the blind community from having access to all sorts of works for decades. And during those decades, folks like IPO have supported all sorts of incredibly one-sided expansions to copyright law without concerns for any public or user rights.

Filed Under: blind, copyright, fair use, ipo, precedent, treaty for the blind, user rights, wipo
Companies: intellectual property owners association

Even US Intellectual Property Organization Concerned About ACTA Being Too Broad & Changing US Laws

from the that's-not-how-it's-supposed-to-work dept

While those involved in the ACTA negotiations have mocked the concerns raised about the ACTA draft, and said that those who are complaining are merely repeating "wild internet rumors." Of course, we've seen that's not the case at all. A recent filing about ACTA, put together by a bunch of industry groups, highlighted many of the very real problems with ACTA. Of course, ACTA defenders still dismissed this, because they claimed that the report came from those industries who benefited from weakened IP laws.

I wonder how they'll try to belittle this one. The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) recently sent its own letter to the US government complaining about the scope and specifics of ACTA (pdf). The Intellectual Property Owners Association is not exactly the sort of organization you can accuse of wanting weaker intellectual property. It's also not an organization that I agree with very often (as you might imagine). But, in this letter, the group points out that ACTA appears to be way too broad and that, contrary to claims from ACTA negotiators, it seems clear that it would require changes to US law.

The letter first points out that ACTA should focus on the real problem of counterfeiting, but that the language (without any good reason) is made much broader with a focus on all "intellectual property":

As currently drafted, given the expansive use of the broadly-defined term "intellectual property," ACTA goes far beyond addressing the subject matter of counterfeiting. This broad definition encompasses issues that are most appropriately handled as civil infringement causes of action in most jurisdictions around the world, and especially so in the case of the United States.

Separately, the letter goes on to highlight multiple cases where ACTA would, in fact, change US law:

We believe ACTA potentially changes United States law by transforming what are the commonly occurring non-counterfeit-types of civil action infringements into activity that is to be punished under federal criminal law.

Among the examples of how it changes US law as currently written is the following:

ACTA is unwittingly broadening the scope of the seizure power of Customs and Border Patrol forces to encompass civil action trademark infringement and raising the specter of potential abuse in many countries around the globe. The determination of whether marks are similar and whether there is a likelihood of confusion should not be conducted hastily and in an ex parte manner by a border official, but should instead be based upon the appropriate legal analysis (possibly resulting from extensive pre-trial preparation and discovery where allowed).

Elsewhere, it notes that other language choices in the document clearly turn civil infringement into criminal infringement, and that it potentially makes keyword buying on trademarked terms on search engines infringing (even as US courts have mostly found that it is not infringing). As a final recommendation, the IPO suggests that ACTA actually be about what it's supposed to be about, which is counterfeiting:

Thus, IPO urges USTR to review ACTA to ensure that the scope of the Act is appropriately limited to its stated purpose of addressing the limited, though important, subset of infringement known as "counterfeiting."

So here we have a major pro-intellectual property trade group complaining about the scope and nature of ACTA -- and specifically highlighting that it will change US law, despite insistence by negotiators that it would not. Are we now going to be told that the Intellectual Property Owners Association is a "front" for the anti-IP interests, as we were told about the groups who signed onto that last anti-ACTA document? In the meantime, on the question of whether or not it will change laws, it's worth noting that both the US and the EU keep insisting that ACTA won't change any laws (which makes some people question why it's being done at all). Glyn Moody points us to a recent note from the EU negotiators insisting that ACTA won't change EU law either (despite pretty clear evidence that it would). Yet, other negotiators have admitted that some countries might need to change their laws, but won't say who. It must be Morocco...

Filed Under: acta, copyright, counterfeiting
Companies: intellectual property owners association