That conference developed from conversations between Bill Burrington, assistant general counsel of America Online, and Janet Weiland, vice president of the Church of Scientology International, on the need for an open forum on the subject of intellectual property in cyberspace.
“I do think that the medium poses some serious challenges to us in protecting copyrights,” Cerf said, “but I remind you that copyright law is intended to help people benefit from intellectual contributions whether it be those who receive them or those who produce them so as to encourage that kind of contribution on the Internet.
“I believe it is vital that we find a way to institute that same protection and encouragement for intellectual contribution in this new medium. When copyright laws were originally written, movies and sound recordings did not exist, and yet we were able to adapt the intent of the law to deal with those technologies.”
Another panelist, Communications Week columnist Wayne Rash, commented, “If the world of online services becomes less respectful of intellectual property, and if those who would steal intellectual property find support and gratification, all who would use such services are ultimately hurt. Businesses that provide content will stay away. Services that provide information freely will close their systems. Ultimately, people who own intellectual property will lock it away rather than see it stolen.”
Passage of Treaties Forecast
The majority of the panelists agreed that cyberspace problems, including differences between access providers and content providers, can be resolved through communication, without government intervention.
As Marc Pearl, vice president of government affairs for the Information Technology Association of America, the nation’s leading advocate of the information technology industry, expressed it more recently, “To date, too much attention has focused on government’s role in attempting to ’settle’ the dispute, on both the federal and global levels.”
“I don’t really believe we need additional legislation in order to protect the copyright holder,” said Vinton Cerf at a press conference sponsored by the Ad Hoc copyright Coalition, a group representing the local telephone exchange carrier industry, the long-distance carrier industry and Internet access providers. “We think the right solution is to work together so that when infringement occurs, the party that’s doing the infringing, the originator of that content, is the one who is liable, not the carrier.”
The copyright controversy also took center stage at a sometimes tempestuous three-week conference of the World Intellectual Properties Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 1996, where delegates representing 128 nations approved two treaties adding to the international agreements that protect copyrighted materials, known as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.
One of the treaties strengthens safeguards for literary and artistic works, extending protections to include computer software, while the other addresses sound recordings. Although the new treaties did not directly address the subject of the Internet, delegates pointed out that Article 9 of the Berne Convention specifically includes “reproductions of works in any manner or form.”
These new measures constitute “the most important overhaul of international copyright law in the last quarter century,” according to Hilary Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents MCA, Capitol, Motown, Arista and other copyright holders.
Signed by the Clinton administration in December, the treaties went to the Senate for ratification. Pointing out that the measures strengthen intellectual property rights worldwide and that the United States is the world’s primary exporter of intellectual properties, a Congressional Internet Caucus source forecast Senate passage of the treaties before the end of 1997.
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