[asia-apec 266] IPR News

[Tony Manipon]

Copyright experts tackle Internet piracy

By Elif Kaban
Reuters
December 2, 1996 9:35 AM EST

GENEVA, Dec 2 (Reuter) - Negotiators and industry officials met in Geneva on
Monday to modernize copyright legislation for the multi-billion-dollar
information superhighway, with efforts to stamp out cyberspace piracy high
on the agenda.

Copyright laws based on national boundaries have been made irrelevant by the
borderless and fast world of the Internet -- a giant copying machine where
anything from music to software can be duplicated and distributed at the
click of a computer mouse.

The three-week Geneva conference, under the auspices of the World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) that coordinates international
patents, trademarks and copyrights, is the first major revision of
international copyright laws in 25 years.

"This is an attempt to settle problems caused by new technologies," said
Alfons Schafers, German government representative to the diplomatic conference.

In Geneva, representatives from more than 100 countries will approve three
new treaties -- for literary and artistic works, the rights of performers
and producers of music and producers of databases -- to ensure electronic
transmission of any copyrighted work is subject to the same rules as hard
copies.

They will come under scrutiny from multi-billion-dollar industries ranging
from music production to computer databases, battling to keep profits
against the hi-tech information age revolution and for whom intellectual
property is big business.

Adrian Strain of the London-based International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which groups 1,100 record producers in more
than 70 countries, said electronic delivery of music recordings could take a
$2 billion share in the $40 billion-a-year global music business in coming
years.

"Electronic delivery of music is itself a huge potential market for the
recording industry," he told Reuters.

Once the new treaties are accepted, then the question will be enforcement.

In the multi-media world of Internet and its "copyright havens," officials
acknowledge there will be huge technical problems in enforcing copyright
legislation.

Once new treaties are passed, distribution of copyrighted work will be
illegal. But new mechanisms will be needed to catch the uploaders, say
officials, who hope that national governments will pass laws accordingly.

"There are gaps in the umbrella. But once these treaties are improved, it
will clarify the situaation," said Mihaly Ficsor, assistant director general
of WIPO.

Added IFPI's legal affairs chief Lewis Flacks: "The answer to the problem of
the machine is the machine itself."


==== Tony Manipon =====
manipon at hknet.com
tmanipon at hk.super.net
tony.manipon at cwolhk.com
===== Hong Kong ======