[Infowarrior] - EU's IP Negotiating Strategy With Canada Leaks

[Richard Forno]

EU's IP Negotiating Strategy With Canada Leaks: Calls 2009 Copyright  
Consult a "Tactic to Confuse"

Monday January 18, 2010

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4704/125/

Canada and the European Union resume negotiations on a Canada-EU Trade  
Agreement (CETA) this week.  The second round of talks comes as the  
EU's proposed chapter for the intellectual property provisions leaked  
last month, revealing demands for dramatic changes to Canadian  
intellectual property law.  This would include copyright term  
extension (to life of the author plus 70 years), anti-circumvention  
rules, resale rights, and ISP liability provisions.

Now a second document has leaked, though it is not currently available  
online.  The Wire Report reports that an EU document dated November  
16, 2009, features candid comments about Canada and the EU strategy.   
The document, called a "Barrier Hymn Sheet" leaves little doubt about  
the EU's objective:

Put pressure on Canada so that they take IPR issues seriously and  
remedy the many shortcomings of their IPR protection and enforcement  
regime.

Having viewed the document, I can report that it goes downhill from  
there, promoting the key message that Canadian laws are inadequate,  
while liberally quoting a report from the Canadian IP Council and  
discredited counterfeiting data.

The document states that the trade negotiations are a "unique  
opportunity [for Canada] to upgrade its IPR regime despite local anti- 
IPR lobbying."  It includes an assessment of recent copyright reform  
efforts, noting that two bills have died due to "political  
instability." The document adds that the copyright reform process was  
revived in 2009 with the national copyright consultation, but notes  
dismissively it may have been a "tactic to confuse."

It ultimately concludes:

our objective is to convince Canada to eliminate or reduce these  
shortcomings, by conducting the necessary legislative or other  
changes. However, optimism should be tempered since, despite pressure  
from the USA, high level commitments from Canada, and our  
commissioner's letter of April 2009, little concrete moves have been  
observed in recent years.  We hope that the negotiation of the  
bilateral CETA will provide a good opportunity to exert pressure on  
Canada regarding the upgrade of its IPR regime

This document, combined with the leaked draft, provides ample evidence  
of the intent of the EU to use CETA to pressure Canada to  
fundamentally reshape our copyright and IP laws.  Although the  
document discloses that IP was not discussed at the first round of  
negotiations in Ottawa last October, it is clear that it is a high  
priority future agenda item.  Indeed, the Wire Report reports that IP  
is on the agenda for this week's negotiations.  Although the Wire  
Report quotes a government official as saying that CETA will not  
override the copyright consultations, when combined with the ACTA  
talks that resume next week, the prospect of a made-in-Canada approach  
may be quickly slipping away.