[Infowarrior] - State Department Spending Millions To 'Train' Foreign Judges About 'Intellectual Property'

[Richard Forno]

State Department Spending Millions To 'Train' Foreign Judges About 'Intellectual Property'

from the who-writes-the-curriculum dept

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101217/14003712324/state-department-spending-millions-to-train-foreign-judges-about-intellectual-property.shtml

The State Department has put out a press release announcing that it has approved spending $3.36 million next year to "train" foreign judges and other law enforcement officials about "intellectual property." There are 15 different projects, which all come down to various training programs for judges, police, law enforcement in how to kowtow to American industry in dealing with infringement of copyrights, trademarks and patents. Given the way our government seems to think that whatever the industry says is accurate -- no matter how many times it's been disproved -- you have to imagine that any "training" is going to be laughably one-sided. For example, I note that one of the projects is:

Latin American Online Piracy $142,944
Training for judges from Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on combating digital/online copyright piracy crimes.

Except, last I checked, those countries had their own copyright laws, and didn't need to obey US specific laws. In the case of Brazil, for example, it's been contemplating new copyright laws that would be much more respectful of fair use and the public domain. Yet, given the way the State Department has acted in the past on these issues, why do I get the feeling that "fair use" isn't a part of the training campaign?