Today, Public Knowledge, the Special Libraries Association and Internet NZ told the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) that an IP chapter in a truly “21st century trade agreement” should reflect the rights and interests of the wide variety of stakeholders affected by copyright. To demonstrate how this can be done, we submitted to the USTR our own discussion draft of a copyright chapter to be included in the proposed Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and a letter explaining the draft. In contrast to the U.S. proposed draft, recently leaked on the Internet, we believe that this draft represents a middle-ground position that begins closer to a position that respects the interests of the many different stakeholders that will be affected.

CLICK HERE TO WRITE THE WHITE HOUSE NOW

The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement continues to roll along with negotiations taking place in Switzerland in the coming weeks. Rumor has it that these negotiations might be bringing us to a finalized ACTA soon, despite protests from public interest groups, technology companies, and legislators around the world that its ham-fisted approach to enforcement can do grave harm to consumers, innovation, communication, and can even make it harder for lifesaving medications to reach populations in need. It’s time to make sure that your voices are heard on this important issue. And we have two ways that you can do that. One is by signing a declaration of principles crafted by a coalition of experts assembled at American University. The other, more direct method is by writing to the President himself, using our action alert submission form.

By many accounts, World's Fair Use Day was a great success. We had a capacity crowd, with hundreds more joining in on the webcast. Members of the audience included staff from the White House, the State Department, the US Copyright Office and Congress. Since one of the main missions of the event was to demonstrate to policymakers the importance of fair use to our culture, our discourse and our economy, having a strong turnout from government is key.

I've now had a few days to reflect on the day's events.

Just a quick note on some of the recently-surfaced news on ACTA's Internet provisions.

• Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa has some details and analysis here;
• IDG/PC World has a good summary here
• And EFF has additional in-depth analysis and discussion here.

Last Thursday, PK President Gigi Sohn delivered a statement at an FCC broadband workshop titled "The Role of Content in the Broadband Ecosystem". If you find yourself questioning what relevance a discussion of content protection has in the context of the National Broadband Plan, you're not alone. In her statement (oral | written), Gigi questioned the FCC's jurisdiction over copyright issues and asserted that the Commission certainly does not have the authority to combat online copyright infringement by using the sort of blunt instrument--solutions like copyright filtering and three strikes--that the industry is calling for. So, why even convene a workshop on content protection as part of the National Broadband Plan? The point of the workshop, it seems, was to appease the big entertainment companies that are clamoring for the Federal government to take a more active role in protecting the intellectual property of private companies. This fact could not have been made more clear by the FCC, given the manner in which the workshop was conducted. Embedded above, you'll find a video of Frederick D. Huntsberry's presentation from the workshop. While the time limit for oral statements was supposedly five minutes, Huntsberry, the COO of Paramount Pictures, was inexplicably allowed to give a 10 minute presentation. In a move reminiscent of the MPAA's how-to-camcord video, Huntsberry demonstrated how to unlawfully download and/or distribute a film online (using a torrent tracker, Drop.io and a streaming site), spoke at length about camcording and insinuated that a number of legitimate companies--including Google, eBay, Apple, Twitter, Facebook and Boxee--are enabling the unlawful trade of copyrighted content online.