The Association of American Publishers (AAP), through the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), recently submitted its annual Special 301 Report to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The report details issues related to intellectual property rights protection and market access in a number of foreign countries.
AAP's report was part of the annual collective filing by the seven trade associations comprising the IIPA. The IIPA is a coalition representing US copyright-based industries working to improve international protection and enforcement of copyrighted materials and open up foreign markets closed by piracy and other market access barriers.
The American publishing industry is waging a multi-faceted campaign to identify and mitigate pirated content. Yet the American publishers continue to suffer significant economic harm in key overseas markets as a result of commercial scale photocopying, illegal print runs, unauthorised translations, CD-R burning of textbooks and increasing online piracy, it has been observed. The AAP report highlights copyright protection and enforcement problems in 40 countries/territories and recommends that 33 of them be placed on an appropriate USTR 'watch list.'
Canada's copyright reform legislation, Bill C-32, raises serious concerns for the publishing sector as it introduces a host of new exceptions to protection, many of which exceed international standards. Some are especially harmful to the publishing sector, threatening to erode distinct markets of the educational community and to negatively impact the well-established collective licensing mechanisms for administering permissions to copy works for educational use.
China is again a significant focus for AAP's anti-piracy efforts, with particular emphasis on online infringements affecting professional and scholarly publishers and continuing textbook piracy around university campuses. AAP remains concerned by the massive sharing of electronic copies of academic, scientific and technical journals by certain institutions with commercial entities in violation of their site licenses. Publishers are, however, hopeful that discussions with the relevant Chinese agencies will result in meaningful action on this issue.
India's inconsistent enforcement efforts and endemic delays in the judicial system also remain major concerns to publishers. In addition, the Indian government's current copyright reform proposal includes an amendment that would repeal the current protection against parallel imports which would greatly damage local and American publishers' market potentials.
Tom Allen, President and CEO, AAP, noted that through the Special 301 process, the copyright-related industries provide input into the federal government's annual review of intellectual property protection in several key global markets. He further stated that while publishers are actively engaged in numerous anti-piracy strategies, there is an escalating threat to the book and journal industry, particularly as access to online and mobile technologies increases. Persistent problems such as unauthorised large scale photocopying and now online book piracy impede the continued growth of US companies that are investing in the production of high value content.
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