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U.S., Mexico To Talk Intellectual Property
by William New
Officials from the United States and Mexico will meet next week to discuss bilateral intellectual property rights, according to an official at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).
Joseph Papovich, assistant U.S. trade representative for services, investment and intellectual property, will lead the Aug. 12-13 meeting in Washington. It will be a general discussion of various issues, with "no specific topic of overarching importance," the official said. The United States hopes to have such meetings regularly, as was the case before the Bush administration.
The U.S. copyright industry considers Mexico a top priority and has many concerns about piracy. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) seeks the engagement of the two countries' presidents on the issue. In a submission to USTR in March, the group urged that Mexican President Vicente Fox take action to enforce copyright laws and curb "endemic" piracy. Copyright enforcement there slipped in 2001, IIPA said.
IIPA estimated 2001 piracy losses in recording piracy at $367 million, in business software at $150 million, in entertainment software at $203 million, in book publishing at $40 million and in motion pictures at $50 million. But USTR left Mexico off its "Special 301" list of priority countries with intellectual property violations this year.
In other USTR news, the office's chief, Robert Zoellick, is leading a U.S. delegation to Colombia for the Wednesday inauguration of President Alvaro Uribe. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., and officials from the State Department and National Security Council, also will participate.
Zoellick arrives after President Bush's Tuesday signing of the expanded Andean Trade Preferences Act, which gives trade benefits to certain products (mainly agriculture and textiles) shipped to the United States from four nations, including Colombia.
Zoellick will not travel to other countries in the region but will hold bilateral meetings with various Central American delegations and the presidents of Argentina and Peru "if time permits," according to a USTR official. He also will attend a roundtable that will include members of the Colombian business community.
Glitches Plague Japan's ID Database
The Japanese government's national registry system, planned as the foundation for an advanced e-government network, opened Monday amid resistance and computer glitches, the Straits Times reports.
Some 4 million people opted out of the system, and several cities resisted the requirement to comply with the program out of privacy fears. Many citizens have expressed the desire for privacy legislation before signing the registry.
The system allocates 11-digit numbers to Japan's 125 million residents and stores their personal data for administrative use by federal and local governments, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun. Future uses could include online tax payment and applications, the Straits Times reports.
OECD Issues Cyber-Security Guidelines
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released voluntary guidelines for increasing cyber security. The 30 OECD members, led by the United States, reached consensus on the final nine guidelines last week.
David McCurdy, executive director of the Internet Security Alliance, which released 10 cyber-security guidelines last week, said Tuesday, "There's not one set that's an absolute. The main thing is to get buy-in from managers" on some common-sense measures.
Canada Challenges Amazon.com Venture
The Canadian Booksellers Association and Indigo Books and Music, the nation's largest book retailer, have challenged Amazon.ca, the Canadian version of Amazon.com, in court, according to The Globe and Mail.
The booksellers are hoping the Federal Court of Canada will overturn the federal government's July decision to allow the U.S.-based online company to operate in Canada. The country has rules requiring sellers of publications to be majority Canadian-owned.
Amazon has no employees or offices in Canada. According to the court filing, the firm tried to negotiate a deal to enter the country with Indigo and Canada Post last year. It ended up arranging shipping and warehousing with a division of Canada Post. The Canadian government recently has rejected several U.S. booksellers, including Borders Group, under the book policy.
Internet Gives Iranian Reformers An Outlet ...
Iranians seeking to change a government that has banned dozens of newspapers are using the Internet in the struggle, Reuters reports.
More than 80 newspapers have been banned in the past two years and dozens of journalists jailed, the news agency says. Yet in the past two weeks, at least five Iranian news-oriented Web sites have gone online. The sites have increased business in cyber cafes, which are especially popular with young Iranians.
There are approximately 1,500 Internet cafes in Tehran alone. So far, the rapidly growing Internet use remains relatively unregulated, Reuters says.
... As China Jails An Internet User
The opposite is true in China, however, where a 40-year-old former policeman has been jailed for 11 years for downloading "anti-revolutionary" material from the Internet, Reuters also reports.
The man is the first person in China found guilty of subversion for downloading and printing information that the Chinese government has forbidden, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
In July, China said it would fine or shutter online publishers for publishing content deemed politically unacceptable. Officials have closed as many as 14,000 Internet cafes since a fire at an unlicensed cafe killed 25 people in June.
In other China news, a survey released last week by WebSideStory, an Internet analysis company, shows that China is second only to the United States in Web traffic. The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the survey, which concludes that China accounts for 6.63 percent of the traffic, while the United States remains far ahead with 42.65 percent.
Meanwhile, a group of 18 Chinese dissidents and intellectuals last week published a "declaration of Internet users' rights" to urge minimal restrictions on developing Web pages and total freedom for Chinese users to surf the Internet, according to Yahoo News.
News From The Middle East To Europe
New regulations requiring cyber cafes to ask customers for identification, keep records of users and register with the government could deter Pakistanis from using the Internet, AP reports. The object of the legislation, which takes effect this month, is to help identify terrorists by making e-mails easier to track. But many young users enjoy the anonymity of the Internet and of the often-remote cafes. Some cafes even have individually enclosed stalls for users.
In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, a Harvard law school analysis found that some 2,000 Web sites have been blocked. BBC News reports that the sites include political content and pornography but also sites on women's history or about bathing suits. The study tested 64,000 Web sites with the agreement of the Saudi government. The blocked sites usually direct the users to a page that explains that access has been denied, a different approach than countries such as China, which give users error messages when they try to access blocked sites.
Elsewhere, the European Commission on Monday cleared the proposal by the Japanese electronics manufacturer Hitachi to assume sole control of IBM's hard-disk drive business. IBM manufactures hard drives for all major applications, including servers, desktops and laptop computers. The commission decided that the transaction "does not raise serious doubts as to its compatibility with the common market," according to a release.
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