p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Rights holders have, “undue influence over US policymakers to the detriment of consumers,” says a new report.

According to Hollywood, Canada is one of, if not the, worst countries in the world.

The corporate movie industry`s favourite American politician, Hollywood Howard Berman, was, “leading hearings at the Foreign Affairs Committee on Global IP Theft that quickly became ‘Blame Canada,’ blogged Ottawa law professor and Net commentator Michael Geist recently.

“As implausible at seems, there is a regular sport in the U.S. of claiming that Canada is the source of evil when it comes to IP laws,” he said.

Conversely, Canada it isn’t even mentioned in a new Watch List report, which says the influence of lobby groups representing rights holders could “severely damage consumer interests”.

As IT News sums it up »»»

A study shows US scorn for other countries` IP protection law is matched by some relatively lax laws at home.

Compiled by intellectual property academics, the IP Watchlist released today was produced to counter the annual 301 Report released by the United States Government which criticises the deficiencies it sees in the IP laws of other countries, with a strong bias towards producers of content as opposed to consumers.

The IP Watchlist is a list put together from the consumer’s point of view, balancing 60 factors that determine the overall benefits awarded to consumers.

This year’s list found that India and South Korea offer consumers the most benefit, the United Kingdom offering the worst.

The story refers to the inaugural edition of the Consumers International IP Watch List.

It’s a, “survey that examines the intellectual property (IP) laws and enforcement practices of a range of countries, from the perspective of the world’s only global consumer advocacy body, Consumers International (CI),” says the report site, going on:

“This first IP Watch List focuses on copyright, because of all the forms of monopoly rights that are commonly described as intellectual property, it is copyright that has the most immediate impact on consumers’ access to knowledge, and thereby on their educational, cultural and developmental opportunities.

“The intent of this IP Watch List is to assess how well the copyright laws and enforcement policies of the surveyed countries support the interests of consumers, by allowing them fair access to the fruits of their society’s culture and science. The results of this survey will illustrate that strict copyright laws, enforced rigidly, can seriously harm the interests of consumers.

“The survey finds that what is more important than a strict copyright system, is a fair copyright system; one that balances the economic interests of rights holders with the compelling economic, social and cultural interests of consumers. As will be seen, such systems can be found in countries that one might not expect.”

It’s often the case that by ’strengthening’ intellectual property law and enforcement, heedless of the interests of consumers or of national circumstances, consumers and rights holders alike suffer harm, says the study, concluding »»»

In contrast, the introduction of mflexibilities into copyright law, including exceptions and limitations for personal use of copyright material, along with, provisions that promote the development of the public domain, benefit not only consumers, but society as a whole.

For example, a 2009 report from the Netherlands found that file sharing, partly in reliance on the personal use exception in Dutch law, has strong positive economic implications for welfare in the Netherlands over the short and long terms, substantially outweighing the loss of revenue by rights holders.

Similarly, studies have found the economic value of the public domain,and of the ‘fair use’ exception in American copyright law, to be extremely high in the latter case, contributing an incredible $4.5 trillion to the US economy in annual revenue.

In fact, there is a case that the monopoly rights granted to copyright and patent owners actually harm rather than foster economic growth.

Copyright flexibilities, together with innovative non-commercial licensing models, can also spur the production of new content, driven by users rather than multinational corporations, as found in the burgeoning digital ecosystem of mashups, remixes and user-generated content that is transforming cultural expression as we know it. The OECD has acknowledged the potential of such content to ‘provide citizens, consumers and students with information and knowledge.’

Challenging powerful rights holder interests

Why then has the USTR disregarded these developments in pushing through its Special 301 Report for uniformly strong global protection of the interests of rights holders, and ignoring provisions and innovations that could benefit consumers?  This can largely be attributed to the influence of lobby groups representing rights holders, who advocate for levels of intellectual property protection that, if adopted worldwide, would severely damage consumer interests.

This is a symptom of the larger problem that rights holders  possess  undue influence over US policy makers to the  detriment of consumers. As just one recent example, in a snub to consumers who had been barred from the closed- door negotiations over a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the world’s largest and richest industry lobby group, the United States Chamber of Commerce, was permitted to host an exclusive luncheon for delegates during the Washington DC round of negotiations in July

United States policy makers are not alone amongst developed countries in privileging the interests of rights holders over consumers. During 2008 negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over the development of copyright flexibilities for the blind, France sought to end further consideration of a proposal brought by the World Blind Union (WBU) for the introduction of uniform global copyright limitations and exceptions for the benefit of vision-impaired users.

Neither is the USTR Special 301 Report the only annual national survey of copyright laws and enforcement practices that betrays partiality to the interests of rights holders. Two private surveys, the Global Intellectual Property Index (GIPI) and the International Property Rights Index (IPRI), do the same. Thus it comes as no surprise that the three countries ranked lowest in the GIPI China, Russia and India also feature in the Special 301 Report’s Priority Watch List

Amongst the countries common to the GIPI and the IP index of the IPRI, those same three are ranked lowest again.

“It is in this context that CI considers its IP Watch List as having a vital role in contributing a note of balance from a consumer perspective into global debates on intellectual property law reform and enforcement, which are currently dominated by powerful rights holder interests,” states the organisation.

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worst countries – Hollywood Howard on Canada`s case, April 7, 2009
Michael Geist – U.S. Congressional Hearing Blames Canada, Again, April 6, 2009
IT News – Watchlist reveals US hypocrisy on IP laws, April 30, 2009