WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama recently reiterated the critical role trade plays in the U.S. economy and job creation and growth by issuing a Presidential Proclamation declaring May 16-22nd, 2010, World Trade Week (see the proclamation on the White House web site). We’re honoring World Trade Week by being honored with an interview with Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation Stanford McCoy. Mr. McCoy discusses the Administration’s commitment to boosting trade, notes the important role copyright industries play in trade, and discusses ongoing efforts by the USTR to improve international IP enforcement with both physical counterfeiting and online infringement. Enjoy!

Copyright Alliance: U.S.-produced copyrighted works are valued around the world, and are a leading US export in our information economy. Many Copyright Alliance member industries have positive balances of trade around the world. Yet piracy continues unabated, with counterfeit goods sold in broad daylight on the streets of U.S. trading partners, and even smuggled into the U.S. for distribution. What steps does USTR foresee taking to reduce the harm counterfeiting has on our economic growth and job creation?

Stanford McCoy: USTR is supporting and implementing President Obama’s commitment to aggressively protect American intellectual property overseas. As the President said just a few months ago:

“Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people. It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century.”

The President spoke of the importance of making sure that American businesses are paid appropriately and IP is not stolen. He related this to our work at USTR:

“That’s why USTR is using the full arsenal of tools available to crack down on practices that blatantly harm our businesses, and that includes negotiating proper protections and enforcing our existing agreements, and moving forward on new agreements, including the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.”

In a nutshell, that’s what we are working to do.

CA: Copyright industries employ millions of Americans, with wages higher than the national average. But increasingly those jobs are tied to international trade. The USTR and President Obama admirably have committed themselves to boosting US exports. What can copyright industries do to assist with that mission and ensure continued US employment in creative industries?

McCoy: The copyright industries are not alone in seeing their jobs and high wages increasingly tied to trade. In fact, there are more than 10 million export-supported jobs in the United States. There are more than 6,000 additional jobs for every additional billion dollars of exports, and the pay for jobs supported by exports is 13 to 18 percent higher.

What the copyright industries can do, along with trade-supported industries everywhere, is help to show America that trade brings jobs and prosperity. As the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk, said recently:

“[W]e also need to do a better job of showing America that in many cases, the changing global economy has brought better jobs to many working families. And more are coming, if only we do trade policy right. And this administration isn’t going to leave a single job on the table.”

CA: The annual USTR Special 301 Report provides a critical benchmark of IP protection among US trading partners. We’ve seen in recent years some nations demonstrate improvement in IP enforcement; this year, for example, we saw the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland removed from the list. But by and large serious problems persist. Has the Special 301 Report been successful?

McCoy: Yes, the process is working. The Special 301 Report has been successful in encouraging countries to institute reforms or to increase enforcement, to avoid elevation on the list or to improve standing on the list. Since the beginning of the year we’ve seen this reflected not only in the cases of the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, but also in successful out-of-cycle reviews with Israel and Saudi Arabia.

CA: What more can USTR do to help our trading partners find themselves off of the Special 301 list?

McCoy: We can always do more. Going forward, we will continue to interact closely with the governments of the countries that are discussed in the Special 301 report, and we’ll continue to engage with U.S. stakeholders to ensure that the U.S. position with the foreign country is well-informed by the full range of views on the pertinent issues. Our efforts will also include: conducting extensive discussions with individual countries regarding their respective IPR regimes; encouraging those countries to engage fully and with the greatest degree of transparency with the full range of stakeholders on IPR matters; and identifying, where possible, ways in which the United States can be of assistance. We will conduct these discussions in a manner that both advances the policy goals of the United States and respects the importance of meaningful policy dialogue with the countries with which we are engaging.

CA: Some very large markets are on the USTR Special 301 Priority Watch List, such as China, India and Russia. What sort of special focus is applied to such countries by USTR and the federal government?

McCoy: These countries are the focus of intensive bilateral engagement to address problems discussed in the report. In China, for example, President Obama has raised the issue directly with President Hu. Here’s how the President described it in a town hall meeting in Ohio:

“And one of the problems that we have had is insufficient protection for intellectual property rights. That’s true in China; it’s true for everything from bootleg DVDs to very sophisticated software….

“So I’ve given instructions to my trade offices — and we actually highlight this at the highest levels of foreign policy — that these are issues that have to be addressed because that’s part of the reciprocity of making our markets open. And so when I met with President Hu of China, this is a topic that, at dinner, I directly brought up with him. And — but as you point out, it’s got to be sustained, because a lot of times they’ll say, yes, yes, yes, but then there’s no enforcement on their end.”

CA: Trade-related problems regarding copyrighted works go beyond issues of poor enforcement of rights abroad. There have also been cases of government policies discriminating against imported copyrighted works and IP technologies in apparent violation of trade agreements. What progress is being made to ensure U.S. copyrighted works can be sold and licensed globally in a fair and open market?

McCoy: You’re absolutely right; all the enforcement in the world won’t help if U.S. exporters of copyright-intensive products are denied access to foreign markets. A great example of our work in this area happened last December, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) found against China’s import and distribution restrictions on U.S. movies, music, DVDs and publications. The findings by the WTO Appellate Body are key to ensuring full market access in China for legitimate, high-quality entertainment products and the exporters and distributors of those products. U.S. companies and workers are at the cutting edge of these industries, and they deserve a full chance to compete under agreed WTO rules. We expect China to respond promptly to these findings.

CA: Hundreds of individual artists and creators filed comments recently in the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator’s call for comments on the Joint Strategic Plan. Many discussed how the Internet is affording them the opportunity to market their creative works abroad, but how a culture of piracy abroad is simultaneously undermining their ability to license and sell their work. What steps are being taken to address the growing problem of global Internet infringement and its impact on US creators in foreign markets?

McCoy: USTR is working around the world to promote respect for copyright on the Internet. For example, we’ve made great progress in encouraging trading partners to join the WIPO Internet Treaties (the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty). We’re now up to 88 and 86 members respectively for those two treaties. We’re also using trade negotiations like ACTA to encourage our trading partners to address internet piracy in ways that are consistent with our own approach. And we’re using the annual Special 301 report to highlight problems, such as the continuing challenges in Canada and Spain, as well as notorious internet markets like China’s Baidu. Curbing internet piracy is a continuing priority.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 3:24 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, economy, events, international, internet, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.