About the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Propery Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC); Office of Management and Budget [No Date Provided]

[No Date Provided] Office of Management and Budget; About the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Propery Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC):

"Hi, I am Victoria Espinel, the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. I am honored to have been appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve in this new position created by Congress in the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008. Given the unique nature of this job, I’d like to describe what I’m doing in my office and how we want to engage the public to get input on what we, as a government, should be doing.

While talking about our global competitive advantage at a recent town hall meeting in Ohio, the President said, "One of the problems that we have had is insufficient protection for intellectual property rights"–and it is important that our ideas are protected. In December 2009, the Vice President, joined by Cabinet members and other senior government officials, held a roundtable discussion to emphasize the Administration’s commitment to enforcing laws against intellectual property theft.

Intellectual property are the ideas behind inventions, the artistry that goes into books and music, and the logos of companies whose brands we have come to trust. My job is to help protect the ideas and creativity of the American public. One of the reasons that I care about this is because I believe it is enormously important that the United States remain a global leader in these forms of innovation – and part of how we do that is by appropriately protecting our intellectual property. Our intellectual property represents the hard work, creativity, resourcefulness, investment and ingenuity of the American public. Infringement of intellectual property can hurt our economy and can undermine U.S. jobs. Infringement also reduces our markets overseas and hurts our ability to export our products. Counterfeit products can pose a significant threat to the health and safety of us all. Imagine learning that the toothpaste you and your family have used for years contains a dangerous chemical. U.S. Customs officials have seized several shipments of counterfeit toothpaste containing a dangerous amount of diethylene glycol, a chemical used in brake fluid, and that in sufficient doses is believed to cause kidney failure. All of these are reasons why your government has renewed its efforts to challenge this illegal activity.

My job is to help coordinate the work of the federal agencies that are involved with stopping this illegal behavior. We are going to work together to develop a strategy to reduce those risks to the public, the costs to our economy and to help protect the ingenuity and creativity of Americans. We want to be able to reduce the number of infringing goods in the United States and abroad. The examples are almost endless: counterfeit car parts, illegal software, pirated video games, knockoff consumer goods, dangerous counterfeit medicines, and many other types of products – including very sophisticated technology. Our goal is to better use taxpayer dollars and other government resources to be more effective in reducing any threat to our economy and our safety."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/intellectualproperty/ipec/

FSF Advocates Free Software for U.S. IPEC Joint Strategic Plan; Free Software Foundation, 3/25/10

Brett Smith, Free Software Foundation; FSF Advocates Free Software for U.S. IPEC Joint Strategic Plan:

"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has responded to the United States executive Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) Joint Strategic Plan.

The FSF argues that the government should use free software to provide more freedom and transparency to its constituents and reduce the need to engage in costly copyright enforcement activities on behalf of proprietary software companies. The FSF states that "the most egregious harms to the public interest in the areas of copyright and patents come not from a lack of enforcement, but from extraordinarily excessive enforcement."

"For a government that's supposed to be accountable to its citizens, it's clear that using free software should be a natural choice," said Brett Smith, license compliance engineer at the FSF. "With free software, government can be sure their computers work on behalf of the people, instead of some proprietary software company. And it also offers an opportunity for unparalleled transparency: agencies can release the source code of software they use to help illustrate what they're doing."

The creation of IPEC and the Joint Strategic Plan are mandated by the "PRO-IP Act," which became law in 2008. The Joint Strategic Plan is intended to provide broad policy recommendations to increase enforcement of copyright, patent, trademark, and anti-counterfeiting laws both at home and abroad.

"Everything about the PRO-IP Act, from the confused way it lumps together various laws under the banner of 'intellectual property' in its name, to its corrupted purpose of being another government giveaway to the big incumbent copyright industries, is flawed" said Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF. "It's unfair for taxpayers to foot the bill for supporting the unethical business models of a handful of companies. Our comment shows there's another way: with relatively small steps, government can do the right thing and use free software, make a better investment in our society, and eliminate much of the need for enforcement of these laws."

The full text of the FSF's comment is available at http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-opposes-more-copyright-enforcement-in-joint-strategic-plan."

http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-advocates-free-software-for-u.s.-ipec-joint-strategic-plan

CEA Calls For Fair Use Balance In IPEC Plan; Twice, 3/25/10

Greg Tarr, Twice; CEA Calls For Fair Use Balance In IPEC Plan:

"The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC) filed comments with the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) Thursday in response to the Coordinator's request for public input into its draft strategic plan.

The statement urged the IPEC to ensure a balance between intellectual property rights and fair use.

In order to promote a balanced approach, CEA and HRRC urged that fair use and other public interest exceptions be included in international agreements that impact fair-use rights.

"These concerns are particularly poignant...when considering secondary liability for infringement," CEA and HRRC stated, noting that over the past 30 years the introduction of virtually every technology capable of consumer recording has been met with an actual or threatened secondary liability lawsuit.

The comments also point to the recent incident in which an Italian court imposed criminal liability on Google employees based on consumer uploaded content as exemplifying the need for third-party liability limitations in international IP agreements."

http://www.twice.com/article/450741-CEA_Calls_For_Fair_Use_Balance_In_IPEC_Plan.php

Colleges Automate Process of Responding to Copyright-Violation Notifications; Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired Campus, 3/23/10

Jeff Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired Campus; Colleges Automate Process of Responding to Copyright-Violation Notifications:

"Some colleges get hundreds of e-mail messages a month from music, movie, and book publishers notifying them that a student or professor is illegally sharing copyrighted material over the campus network. Colleges are required to look into each alleged violation, and some are setting up automated systems to make the process cheaper and easier.

Doing so is trickier than it sounds, since many colleges assign users a new Internet address each time they log in, rather than give each network computer a fixed identity. That means colleges have to do some detective work to see which user was at the computer at the day and time of an alleged copyright infringement.

Colleges hoping to automate the process have built their own systems, and many say it's been easy. But today Audible Magic Corporation announced a product that it says is the first commercial system that can do the job. The system is called CopySense DMCA Service, referring to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which governs what network administrators must do to police copyright violations on their networks.

"At least two [colleges] have committed to testing the system and expressed a high degree of interest," said Vance Ikezoye, founder and CEO of Audible Magic, in an interview on Tuesday.

Some music, movie, and book publishers have already automated their end of the notification process, setting up systems that scan the Internet looking for anyone trading their works and zapping out messages to network administrators. That makes it easy for the companies to send out thousands of notices each month. As a result, more colleges are likely to enlist software robots, whether home-built or commercial, to respond."

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Colleges-Automate-Process-of/22010/

Faculty Move Forward on Open Access Policy; Duke Today, 3/21/10

Duke Today; Faculty Move Forward on Open Access Policy:

"In a unanimous vote, the Academic Council approved a resolution supporting a new open access repository for faculty scholarly writings, but asked that organizers return for more discussion when they have details in place about how the repository would be serviced.

The policy would place the final draft manuscript of future scholarly articles in an open access repository that would be available for use by the public. Faculty members have a right to opt-out of the repository at any time, and the repository would respect any embargo requested by the author or journal. The policy would be reviewed in three years to determine its effectiveness.

Open access is in line with the university’s commitment to disseminate the knowledge of the faculty, and Duke follows in the wake of peer institutions such as Harvard and MIT that have established similar policies.

But supporting it in theory is one thing, and faculty members said they want to hear more about the details in the fall."

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/03/accessvote.html

An essential newsletter for copyright and media law; American Libraries Direct, 3/23/10

American Libraries Direct; An essential newsletter for copyright and media law:

"ALA Editions, the publishing imprint of the American Library Association, is partnering with copyright and licensing expert Lesley Ellen Harris to offer The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter, available both digitally and in print. This newsletter keeps readers informed and provides practical solutions for everyday copyright-related activities.

Copyright law is a difficult and constantly changing topic. Since 1997, The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter has kept library professionals up-to-date with the latest developments related to new media and uses of content. Edited by Harris, author of “Licensing Digital Content,” this quarterly 12-page newsletter is geared toward those who work in libraries, archives, museums, corporations, educational institutions, governments and law firms. It features contributors from around the world, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Harris is a copyright, licensing and digital property lawyer who consults on legal, business, policy and strategic issues in the publishing, entertainment, Internet and information industries. She has authored numerous articles and books and also created The Digital Licensing Online eCourse for ALA Editions. Since 1991 her practice has served a broad range of clients, and she frequently works with libraries, archives, museums and educational institutions. She often speaks at conferences and teaches in-person and online courses on copyright and licensing through Copyrightlaws.com and in conjunction with national and regional associations in Canada and the U.S.. From 1987 to 1991 she was senior copyright officer for the Canadian government, and helped revise the country’s copyright laws.

ALA Store purchases fund advocacy, awareness, and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide.

ALA Editions develops resources for the library and information services community. Tens of thousands of librarians are helped and supported professionally each year by 30 or more new and revised titles, as well as periodicals and online products such as Library Technology Reports, Smart Libraries Newsletter, and the ALA TechSource blog. ALA writers are leaders across their fields, and their publications are distributed and valued worldwide."

http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/march2010/essnews_pub.cfm

Want to Use My Suit? Then Throw Me Something; New York Times, 3/24/10

Campbell Robertson, New York Times; Want to Use My Suit? Then Throw Me Something:

"Knowing that there are few legal protections for a person who is photographed in public — particularly one who stops and poses every few feet — some Mardi Gras Indians have begun filing for copyright protection for their suits, which account for thousands of dollars in glass beads, rhinestones, feathers and velvet, and hundreds of hours of late-night sewing."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/us/24orleans.html?scp=1&sq=copyright%20mardi%20gras%20indians&st=cse