Posted in Advocacy by A2IM
The United States is currently engaged in discussions with many of its major trading
partners to negotiate a new agreement: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) — to
enhance and strengthen the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting. When concluded, the
agreement will hopefully complement the work you have championed in the Congress to build in the U.S. an intellectual property rights system necessary to foster the innovation and job creation that will grow the U.S. economy in the 21st century. ACTA has the potential to: preserve high value American jobs, and create new ones; buttress our country’s leading position in the creation, publishing and distribution of software, videogames, films, music, books, television programs, journals, visual materials and other works protected by copyright; and strengthen the ability of U.S. businesses to finance, produce and distribute intellectual property, promoting competition and innovation worldwide.
We strongly support the Administration’s efforts to negotiate a sound and comprehensive
ACTA that codifies best practices for copyright enforcement, and we urge you to do so as well.
The need for this new agreement is clear. The enforcement standards in the Agreement
on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), drawn up nearly 20 years ago,
forms an essential foundation for copyright enforcement. But over the past two decades,
technology has not stood still, and copyright theft has expanded on an unprecedented scale,
depriving creators and copyright owners and those they employ of the return they deserve on
their crucial investments of creativity, expertise, hard work, and resources. Online theft is a
critical challenge for each of the diverse copyright-based sectors represented by the signatories to this letter. In this regard, it is essential that ACTA include a robust Internet chapter that, among other things, provides legal incentives for cross-industry cooperation to combat online piracy.
You in Congress have defined adequate and effective intellectual property protection
under U.S. trade law as “the extent to which the country provides protection of intellectual
property rights consistent with or greater than the protection afforded under the Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights’” 19 U.S.C. 2703(b)(5)(B)(ii) (emphasis
added). As you have recognized, it is long past time to build on the foundation that TRIPS
provided, and to raise minimum global standards to reflect the marketplace changes and the
lessons learned from enforcement efforts in many countries. That, in essence, is the thrust of the ACTA negotiations: to codify best enforcement practices that add to the framework provided by TRIPS, and promote legitimate commerce in copyrighted works that satisfies consumers,
provides creators with incentives to continue creating and distributing original works, and
contributes to an overall healthy, global economy.
Of course, we do not know yet whether the ACTA negotiations will live up to their
potential and produce a sound, comprehensive agreement that delivers real benefits to creators
1 and consumers alike. But we do know it is an effort well worth supporting. We urge you and
your Congressional colleagues to continue to do so.
Respectfully submitted by:
Advertising Photographers of America
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
American Society of Media Photographers, Inc. (ASMP)
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI)
Commercial Photographers International
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Evidence Photographers International Council
Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA)
National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)
NBC Universal
News Corporation
Picture Archive Council of America (PACA)
Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Reed Elsevier Inc.
Society of Sport & Event Photographers
Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Stock Artists Alliance
Student Photographic Society
The Advertising Photographers of America
The Walt Disney Company
Time Warner, Inc.
Universal Music Group
Viacom Inc.
Warner Music Group
Chairman Patrick Leahy, Senate Judiciary Committee
Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Max Baucus, Senate Finance Committee
Ranking Member Charles E. Grassley, Senate Finance Committee
Chairman John Conyers, House Committee of the Judiciary
Ranking Member Lamar Smith, House Committee on the Judiciary
Chairman Charles Rangel, House Committee on Ways and Means
Ranking Dave Camp, House Committee on Ways and Means
Chairman Henry Waxman, House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Ranking Member Joe Barton, House Committee on Energy and Commerce
