ZwillGen adds information security and incident response lawyer Allison Bender, ex-Hogan Lovells, as counsel ... Monument Policy Group additions include Matt McAlvanah, ex-assistant U.S. trade representative, as principal ... Mintz Levin intellectual property practice adds Marc Morley, ex-Foley & Lardner, as member ... House Commerce Committee's Matt Schumacher moves to Democratic Caucus as digital director ... Neustar Chief Financial Officer Paul Lalljie retiring, effective Oct. 23 ... CBS' Jed Kapsos moves to chief financial officer at CBS/Lionsgate's Pop.
Industry groups plan to seek stronger digital trade laws during a House Digital Commerce Subcommittee hearing Thursday on barriers to trade and cross-border data flows, according to prepared testimony. Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield outlined top administration priorities Congress should support: Negotiate new rules preventing barriers to digital trade; enforce existing trade agreements; and designate a senior official at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative responsible for digital trade. ACT|The App Association President Morgan Reed says Congress should update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to "ensure U.S. companies doing business abroad do not face conflicts between law enforcement requests and foreign laws." BSA|The Software Alliance CEO Victoria Espinel wants a "modernized" North American Free Trade Agreement that will ban barriers to market access for e-commerce and digital trade. NAFTA should promote cooperation among trade partners on cybersecurity and prohibit measures that require technology transfers, such as source code or algorithms, as a condition of market access, Espinel says. American University associate law professor Jennifer Daskal is to back a “multipronged strategy” to address privacy and security concerns of foreign governments without endorsing “protectionist impulses.”
Fair use and safe harbor provisions should be included in a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement, the Re:Create Coalition said in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Thursday. If NAFTA is going to include copyright provisions, it must include enforcement measures and provisions like fair use in order to support the American economy and jobs, the letter said. Safe harbor provisions such as those included in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act helped internet growth, and fair use adds $2.8 trillion to the economy annually, the group said. It took issue with music industry groups that fear safe harbors would permit trading partners to be havens for piracy for those who illegally infringe on American content (see 1709200038).
The MPAA identified close to two dozen linking and streaming websites, direct download cyberlockers and streaming video hosting services, website portals for piracy apps, peer-to-peer networks, advertising networks and hosting providers that it says represent the scope and nature of online content theft. A letter to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative spelling out "notorious markets" outside the U.S. made public Tuesday said streaming piracy enabled by piracy devices preloaded with software for viewing of movie and TV programming is "an emerging global threat." It said the most popular such software is Kodi, and the growth of such piracy is "startling," with 6 percent of North American households having a Kodi device configured to access pirated content. Kodi didn't comment Wednesday. Streaming sites named include Sweden's Fmovies.is and Russia's Movie4k.tv, and direct download cyberlocker sites named include Ukraine's Nowvideos.sx. Website portals singled out in the MPAA letter include Thailand's IpPlayBox.tv and related sites, P2P networks include ThePirateBay.org and Switzerland's 1337x.to, hosting providers include Netbrella, and ad networks include Canada's WWWPromoter.
The U.S. Trade Representative office received more than four dozen comments on its investigation into the Chinese government's tech transfer, IP and innovation policies and practices, which many filers said put U.S. companies and others at a disadvantage (see 1708150039). Comments were filed last week. The interagency Section 301 committee plans a 9:30 a.m. hearing Oct. 10 at 400 E St. SW, with post-hearing rebuttal comments due Oct. 20. BSA|The Software Alliance said the Chinese government's IP-related and market access policies and practices prevent foreign businesses from operating there "efficiently, or at all" and fail to protect IP and trade secrets. It said barriers are "particularly acute" in telecom and IT industries such as cloud computing, cross-border data flows, requirements for disclosing a company source code, and enterprise standards. The Telecommunications Industry Association said China's drive to boost its domestic industry is "accompanied by a more concerning attempt to undermine and shrink the role of U.S. and other foreign technology firms." TIA worries more security rules to vet foreign tech may disadvantage U.S. exporters selling to China's markets and could set a precedent for other countries. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said Chinese policies: "induce forced" tech and IP transfer across many advanced-technology industries; engage in state-directed foreign direct investment and mergers and acquisition that targets foreign enterprises as part of an effort to move China 'up the value chain' in those sectors; and coordinate cyber-based IP and technology theft. CompTIA said China's aggressive implementation and use of technical standards to support industries like the ICT sector creates major interoperability issues, lack adequate safeguards to protect IP, and are developed without sufficient transparency and participation rights for foreign companies. It wants the USTR to encourage the Chinese government to adapt tech-neutral policies and allow the market to choose technology and standards. China has taken positive steps to amend civil law to make clear trade secrets are subject to civil IP protection, but the American Bar Association Section of IP Law said it's "a significant problem." The ABA said "enforcement measures are inadequate, penalties are weak, bad faith registrations are a problem, and systemic counterfeiting and widespread piracy still needs to be addressed," including stronger copyright protections and damage awards for patent infringement.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments from foreign governments through Oct. 27, and from everyone else through Oct. 20, on whether and how the agency should identify Thailand based on its intellectual property protection regime or market access it provides Americans who rely on IP protection, USTR said in Thursday's Federal Register. USTR announced Sept. 15 it was starting an out-of-cycle review of Thailand’s “Special 301” status because of positive steps the country took. The agency put Thailand on the Special 301 priority watch list in its 2017 Special 301 report in April. Thailand requested the review “in light of its efforts to achieve substantial progress” in its IP regime, USTR said.
A coalition of nearly two dozen music organizations wrote U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that the tech community is "working for a backward-looking agenda" for the North American Free Trade Agreement at the expense of U.S. cultural, economic and employment interests. In the Tuesday letter, the coalition, including ASCAP, BMI and RIAA, cited an Aug. 31 letter to him from CTA, Internet Association and other industry groups that want a "strong and balanced copyright framework," which includes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbors. That tech letter said DMCA safe harbors and the Copyright Act exceptions are essential to the internet's commercial growth and any modernization of NAFTA that omits portions of a copyright framework that the tech sector relies on "will cause serious harm" to part of the economy and risk jobs. But the music coalition said the tech sector wants the U.S. to insert "vast loopholes" in the copyright system "such as broad copyright exceptions and sweeping immunities for those committing content theft." The music coalition said it would permit trading partners to be havens for piracy for those who illegally infringe on American content. "Beyond the U.S. experience, our trading partners are simply not in a position to implement U.S. safe harbor law in their own domestic systems, which lack fundamental aspects of the U.S. legal system, including our high-standard intellectual property protections, our case law and our Constitution," the music coalition said. It said adding safe harbors would put U.S. creative industries at a "competitive disadvantage."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer should ensure IP rights of Americans are "afforded, protected and enforced at the highest levels" when renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, said House IP Subcommittee Vice Chairman Doug Collins, R-Ga., and Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., in a Tuesday letter to him. They urged Lighthizer to promote strong copyright protection standards similar to those in the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, keep the U.S.'s long-standing stance on copyright exceptions language without open-ended balance provisions, and advance "responsible" internet partnership between platforms without outdated safe harbor provisions. They said Canada adopted "sweeping" copyright exceptions with a weak safe harbor system, and Mexico has high piracy rates and enforcement problems. Foreign countries have enacted laws "that harm the market for American works. NAFTA should not exacerbate this problem, but, rather, be the first step in correcting it," they wrote. The letter said copyright-intensive industries contributed $1.2 trillion and supplied 5.6 million jobs in 2015 to the U.S. economy.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for input by Oct. 2 as it builds its 2017 notorious markets list. The list identifies “online and physical marketplaces that reportedly engage in and facilitate substantial copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting,” USTR said in Wednesday's Federal Register. The 2016 list identified counterfeit marketplaces including Taobao and The Pirate Bay (see 1612210068).
President Donald Trump's order to review whether China's trade practices discriminate against American companies' IP (see 1708140060) is generally viewed optimistically by industry, and experts told us they hope this at least improves trade relations incrementally. “This is a measured step that raises fair questions [and] it provides ample opportunity to avoid unnecessary escalating trade tension by improving the treatment of American IP in China," said Sentinel Worldwide CEO Steve Tepp. "It's a smart move.”