Concerns Over Domain Cybersquatting, Lack of IP Protections in China in USTR Special 301 Comments
The generic top-level domain (gTLD) rollout has raised concerns about the ability of domain registries to adequately protect against cybersquatting, particularly in foreign countries, said a Verizon official, in comments submitted to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in its Special 301 review Friday (WID Feb 10 p8). Confusing intellectual property protections with “censorship” is counterproductive, said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in comments. China presents some intellectual property concerns, said both the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
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There are “serious concerns” for the domain registries related to ICANN’s new gTLD rollout and the “potential harms many new gTLDs will cause for IP owners and consumers,” said Sarah Deutsch, Verizon associate general counsel, in her comments. Many of the “registries of concern” are not in the U.S., which raises questions about if and when the “local laws of foreign countries fail to provide adequate and effective protection for intellectual property rights,” she said. The U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act should be a “minimum baseline law for other countries to adopt” to prevent cybersquatting of domains, she said. “Many registries for new gTLDs have few incentives or obligations to prevent frauds and abuses, as well as copyright infringements, cybersquatting and phishing,” said Deutsch. ICANN didn’t comment.
The “increasing theft of digital media” on the Internet is the “biggest threat to copyright protection,” said David Hirschmann, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Center president, and Myron Brilliant, Chamber executive vice president-international division, in their comments. The most popular infringing websites received 53 billion page views per year, said Hirschmann and Brilliant, citing a study. The conflation of copyright protection with “censorship” undermines “the concepts they claim to validate,” said Hirschmann and Brilliant. The anonymity of online criminals makes enforcement difficult, but ICANN and other Internet governance bodies “have done far too little to address this reality,” they said. Records in the domain database Whois were cited as “often entirely fictitious,” said Hirschmann and Brilliant. “Even in the cases where criminals can be identified, they may well be located in (or flee to) countries with inadequate enforcement systems,” they said.
China, India and Russia pose “serious obstacles to adequate and effective” IP protection, said Linda Dempsey, NAM international economic affairs vice president, in her comments. “Nearly two-thirds of all software is pirated” in India, which is also a “significant source of illegal film recordings,” she said. Russia’s online piracy “continues to rise,” and the country has yet to establish an “effective enforcement strategy to combat the growing array of pirate web sites located in the country,” said Dempsey. The Civil Procedure Law changes should address the enforcement of trade secrets protection, which are currently at “great risk of leaking to the public domain” in China, she said.
Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and China should remain on the USTR’s Watch List and Priority Watch List, said Samuel Mosenkis, ASCAP legal affairs vice president, in his comments. Cable operators in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago “refuse to negotiate with performing rights organizations” for the public performance of music, he said. In Barbados, there is “widespread unlicensed public performance of music via cable,” Mosenkis said. In China, music creators for theater films and karaoke and hotel performances “receive virtually no compensation,” he said. Based on ASCAP estimates, “$50 million has yet to be distributed among all of the copyright owners concerned, including ASCAP members, for nine years of broadcasts of musical works that have gone uncompensated,” he said.