Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 26, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The USA is working together with its largest trading partners on a worldwide anti-piracy agreement. This is intended to guarantee better protection of intellectual property in future, the US newspaper Daily Variety reports. As announced by the US government on Tuesday, the agreement has set itself three main objectives: improved cooperation among the individual countries, the establishment of a code for optimal handling of the subject as well as legal frameworks for enforcing rights to protect intellectual property.
However, the two largest countries of origin for pirated content – China and Russia – apparently do not want to join the cooperation. In addition to the USA, participating countries include Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand as well as Switzerland and the member states of the EU. “Worldwide counterfeiting and piracy steal billions of dollars from workers, artists and companies every year and endanger the health and safety of many citizens around the globe,” says US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab. The United States therefore wants to work with as many countries as possible to combat the global problem. However, even stronger educational work is needed to counter piracy successfully. This is because companies themselves often neglect the protection of intellectual property and offer counterfeiters and pirates an ideal basis.
The new agreement is intended to function as a supplement to the existing TRIPS Agreement (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual-Property Rights). This international treaty was introduced by the World Trade Organisation in 1994 and regulates, among other things, areas of law such as copyright, trademark law and patents. The introduction of the new agreement is not intended to change anything in the existing TRIPS Agreement. Rather, it is intended to set a higher reference point for the enforcement of rights by which the individual countries can voluntarily orient themselves and participate.
Many representatives of rights holders welcomed the announcement of the agreement. “This agreement has real potential to improve the protection and enforcement of rights to protect intellectual property in major markets around the world,” says Dan Glickman, head of the Motion Picture Association of America.
