Michael Geist

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The US Intellectual Property Watch List: The Global Perspective

The USTR released its Special 301 report on Monday with the unsurprising inclusion of Canada on the Priority Watch List. The list is designed to bully countries around the world to cave to U.S. demands on intellectual property reform and enforcement. In fact, this year’s report indicates that the U.S. is willing to make everyone the proverbial offer they can’t refuse:

USTR is announcing that it invites any trading partner appearing on the Special 301 Priority Watch List or Watch List to work with the United States to develop a mutually agreed action plan designed to lead to that trading partner’s removal from the relevant list. Agreement on such a plan will not by itself change a trading partner’s status in the Special 301 Report.

This year’s list includes Canada along with several Western European countries (Finland, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Norway) and dozens of other countries around the world. The total population of the 40 countries on the list exceeds 4.3 billion. Many of these are poor countries with per person GDPs of a few thousand dollars per year, yet the primary complaint tends to revolve around patent protection and approval for pharmaceutical drugs.

May 4, 2011 — 2 comments — News

The Conservative Majority: What Next for Digital Policies?

Last night’s election results have left many online speculating about the future of digital policies in Canada. I think it is hard to project precisely what will happen – we don’t even know for certain whether Tony Clement and James Moore will remain in their portfolios or move elsewhere (there are a fair number of open cabinet positions which could mean changes). Assuming they stay the course, however, the Conservative positions on digital policies are strong in a number of areas.

For example, a majority may pave the way for opening up the Canadian telecom market, which would be a welcome change. The Conservatives have focused consistently on improving Canadian competition and opening the market is the right place to start to address both Internet access (including UBB) and wireless services. The Conservatives have a chance to jump on some other issues such as following through on the digital economy strategy and ending the Election Act rules that resulted in the Twitter ban last night. They are also solidly against a number of really bad proposals – an iPod tax, new regulation of Internet video providers such as Netflix – and their majority government should put an end to those issues for the foreseeable future.

On copyright and privacy, it is more of a mixed bag.

May 3, 2011 — 45 comments — News

Polls are Open: Get out and Vote!

May 2, 2011 — 29 comments — News

Wikileaks on New Zealand Copyright: US Funds IP Enforcement, Offers to Draft Legislation

This week I published multiple posts Wikileaks cables revelations on the U.S. lobbying pressure on Canadian copyright including attempts to embarrass Canada, joint efforts with lobby groups such as CRIA, and secret information disclosures from PCO to U.S. embassy personnel (posts here, here, here, here, here, and here). Wikileaks has also just posted hundreds of cables from U.S. personnel in New Zealand that reveal much the same story including regular government lobbying, offers to draft New Zealand three-strikes and you’re out legislation, and a recommendation to spend over NZ$500,000 to fund a recording industry-backed IP enforcement initiative. Interestingly, the cables regularly recommend against including New Zealand on the Special 301 list, despite the similarities to Canadian copyright law that always garner vocal criticism.

April 30, 2011 — 21 comments — News

A Wikileaks Cable to Call My Own

Among the Wikileaks cables released on Canada, is one devoted to summarizing a meeting I had with embassy officials in April 2007. At the meeting I noted the shift away from DRM, doubts about camcording claims, and calls for fair use.

April 29, 2011 — 9 comments — News