SIIA Defends Publishers Copyright before Supreme Court
SIIA last week filed an amicus brief in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. – a hotly contested case that could undermine U.S. publishers’ competitiveness in the global marketplace. The case involves the legality of purchasing copyrighted works that are made and sold overseas and reselling them into the U.S. without authorization from the publisher. SIIA has taken the lead in previous court filings to defend the flexibility for publishers to employ the most effective and efficient market strategies by controlling their content and price structures from country to country, and in this brief we argue that there are a variety of beneficial reasons for a publisher to prevent copies made for sale abroad from entering the United States. Read more.
NTIA Postpones Next Mobile Multistakeholder, Promotes Briefings
NTIA staff announced yesterday that it will postpone the next multistakeholder discussion originally scheduled for Sept. 19, in order to provide for a series of informational briefings that were requested by many stakeholders at the Aug. 29 meeting. The goal of the series of upcoming briefings is to provide overviews of mobile application technology and existing work related to mobile app privacy.
Cyber Legislation a Long Shot, Exec Order Still Being Pondered
In what many have characterized as a last ditch effort to spur movement on the stalled Senate cybersecurity discussions, the White House circulated additional details to key media and congressional staff of the latest draft executive order. Although the text is not widely available, both the Washington Post and Fed News Radio provided extensive reports on the details and the political outlook.
Although the calendar doesn’t likely provide an opportunity for this legislation to advance, there is still the possibility that it could be offered as an amendment to cybersecurity or must-pass legislation in a special session in late 2012.
Senate Judiciary to Consider ECPA and VPPA This Month
Despite a very limited legislative calendar for this month before Congress adjourns until the elections, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced yesterday that the Committee will consider both reforms to the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). In his announcement, Leahy placed the House-passed VPPA reform legislation, HR 2471 on the calendar for—expected for Sept. 20—and he indicated that he will offer his ECPA reform amendment that requires the government to use a warrant to access the remotely stored digital content, such as emails, texts or other private material stored in the cloud.
TPP Talks Continue, IP Enforcement Front and Center
Beginning last week, the 14th round of TPP talks continue this week in Leesburg, VA. SIIA attended the meeting with delegates last week, voicing support for proposals considered in the TPP that address the free flow of data across borders, as well as the protection and effective enforcement of intellectual property rights. SIIA believes that these are both critically important to the economic growth of all nine negotiating countries of the TPP. The talks will continue this week with the hope of reaching a final agreement later this year or early next year.
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David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA Public Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy