Pro-IP senators concerned anti-counterfeiting treaty may be too broad

Two senators known for their support of stringent intellectual property enforcement expressed concern on Thursday that an anti-counterfeiting treaty currently being drafted may be too far-reaching.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) sent a letter on Thursday to U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab saying that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement currently under negotiation "could limit Congress's ability to make appropriate refinements to intellectual property law in the future."

The speed of the negotiations and their lack of transparency compound the risk that the treaty will unnecessarily constrain Congress, the letter says.

Leahy and Specter authored the recently passed Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act. Before the legislation was approved by Congress, it was stripped of a controversial provision opposed by the Bush administration that would have given the Justice Department authority to pursue civil copyright infringement cases.

"We are disappointed that the Administration has been resistant to this effort and has opposed additional enforcement authority, such as civil enforcement in copyright cases where the violation rises to the level of criminal activity," the letter says.

As chair and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the two senators also support funding to assist foreign countries in combating U.S. intellectual property infringement.

Even though they applaud the USTR's efforts to bolster intellectual property protection, the senators said, they were concerned "about the breadth of the issues" the trade agreement could cover "and the specificity with which it could be written."

The USTR tried to allay concerns over the treaty at a public forum last month that gave some indication of what would be included in the agreement. Representatives of the USTR emphasized that the treaty would focus on the enforcement of policies already in place, rather than creating new, substantive policy agreements with other countries.

However, many at the forum still expressed their misgivings over the agreement. A representative from Google said the treaty should not include any provisions regarding Internet policy, since U.S. Internet policy is still in its nascent stages. The senators' letter mirrored those sentiments.

"Regarding the potential breadth of ACTA, we strongly urge you not to permit the agreement to address issues of liability for service providers or technological protection measures," it said. "The contours of the law and liability exposure in these areas continue to be debated in the courts."

[Lerianis]

There is no such thing as 'intellectual property'. Frankly, you make a product and sell it at a REASONABLE PRICE, there would be no or very little problems with 'piracy' and 'criminal copyright infringement'. That is the problem today: PEOPLE ARE NOT CHARGING A REASONABLE AMOUNT FOR THEIR PRODUCTS.

At least not for music, computer games/console games, movies, etc. The only part that they are charging a reasonable amount, by and large: computer HARDWARE or complete desktop or mobile PC's.

[ralfthedog]

Lerianis ,

By far, the largest cost of music, games movies, etc are the development costs. Lets start with games. Lets say it takes an average of 20 people 2 years to make a game. Lets say the average salary with taxes is $150,000. That gives you a development cost for a game of about 3 million dollars. That is a cheep game. Many cost well over 20 million. Games have a short time to make their development costs back. Many do not.

The cost for a pirate game is a twelve year old kid locked in a basement with a DVD duplicator, some food, and the cost of the blank disks.

IP law lets developers get back the money and effort it takes to develop the software you use. Without IP protection we will only have software from people willing to give it away for free.

[Some Techie]

You clearly have not copied many games. It takes a bit more no how and software than a burner and media. But I digress.

While the first comment was simplistic it is the truth. The thing you neglected to take into your equation is that the revenues a game make are based on quantity*cost. With IP there is very little additional cost to each additional sale. The mistake so many are making is that they assume a limited sales base from the start. Adobe assumes that only designers want or need photoshop rather than realizing that if priced appropriately everyone who owns a digital camera would want photoshop. Instead they release mediocre products like Elements that my Mom wont even use, I know I bought a copy for her, it didnt have the flexibility she enjoyed with Photoshop.

PC Game publishers have demolished their market in the battle against piracy. Instead of listening to their demographic they took a ridiculous stand of if we cannot stop some from copying we will not sell you games. And now they have no market. If instead they made games $19.95, the majority would happily buy them. At that price its not worth the hastle of copying them. Sure there will still be some 12 year olds who have no allowance that will copy, but that pricing just makes the purchase decision easy. DVDs should be under 10 and CDs around 5.

The media industry has been overcome in the last decade with its fight against its customer base. Rather than focusing on its product after the Internet bubble burst and their profits retracted, like every other company, they decided to blame piracy and go after the consumer. Meanwhile the product declines, the number of releases decline and profits decline further so they fight harder. If they would return the focus to the product, price it appropriately, and deliver it the way that people want it they would see their profits return.

Over the past two decades the cost of digital duplication has declined sharply. Not one cent of this has been returned to the customer. Instead they have degraded the quality of packaging reducing further the value of the purchase to create even greater cost reductions and still not reduced the price. Cassette Tapes retailed for under $10 and were always much more expensive to duplicate than CD's. What happenned, did the music get better? I do not remember the last time I heard new music and said WOW that is great I have to have that disc.

The one exception to all of this is counterfitting. When someone makes a copy that looks and feels like the real deal without any license agreement, that is clearly wrong. That is where the piracy battle should be focused.

I totally agree with Lerianis if they would sell the discs for a price that people were willing to pay they could win the war on piracy in short order.