internet law

hi, i'm stan muller, and this is crash courseintellectual property. today, we're talking about international intellectual propertylaw, and the first thing i'm gonna tell you is that there aren't really any international intellectual property rights. ip rights are territorial. they're created by each country's national law, and typically apply only to conduct that takes place within that nation. so, there you have it.thanks for watching, i'll see you next week. crash course intellectual property is filmedin the chad and stacey emig--is this really all we have today? what about the complexweb of international ip treaties that establish minimum standards for ip laws in countries aroundthe world? can't we talk about that for eleven minutes? [theme music]

so all these international treaties set upground rules for stuff like how long a copyright or patent should last, or the basic subjectmatter of trademarks. countries that join these treaties can have higher protectionstandards, but the treaties set up a baseline of protection they must provide. the mostimportant minimum standard set up by these treaties is the principle of national treatment,which operates something like an international ip golden rule, "do onto other countries'authors and inventors as you would have done unto your own." basically, each country hasto give foreigners ip protection that is no less favorable than the protection grantedto its own people. these international treaties are a responseto globalization. political reforms have torn

down the iron curtain, and trade with halfthe world that was basically off limits to the west a few years ago is now possible.china. legal reforms have facilitated an expanded economic exchanges, and ip rights play a significantrole in all channels of international trade. sellers of goods are more likely to sell toa country that has strong ip rights, especially for products like computer software or films,where the product is basically pure ip. beyond this, technological advances mean that someonemight be watching this right now in antarctica and to that person i say, do you really havethe bandwidth in antarctica to watch crash course? in any case, borders and distance mean lessand less in the digitized world. but as we discussed in crashcourse world history, globalizationis complicated. some argue that ratcheting

up ip minimum standards, especially in a worldwhere around 90% of all technology royalties and licensing fees are received by 5 developedcountries, is not always a good thing. developed and developing nations often havevery different attitudes toward intellectual property. developed nations usually try toget full economic benefits from their inventions and knowledge through strong ip rights. theyargue that strong ip laws are necessary to protect the significant investments of developingthese products. pharmaceuticals and feature films cost a lot to make, and the creatorswant a return on their investment. rich countries also argue that strong intellectual property lawswill make developing countries more attractive trade partners, because creators know their ip exports willbe protected, so they're more likely to send stuff there.

developing nations argue that they need accessto advanced technology and knowledge, which are the tools they need to develop, modernize,and compete in the modern world. they often view strong ip rights as a tool used to eitherdeny access altogether to technology and knowledge or to severely limit access via high royaltiesand licensing fees. so it's an open question as to who's right about this. do you happento know? don't count on it. yeah, me either. so, we've got no answers, but let's take a look at theinternational frameworks for copyright, patents, and trademarks. the oldest and most important copyrighttreaty is the berne convention for the protection of literary and artistic works. the berneconvention, as it's known, was first signed in 1886 in berne, switzerland, and was aimedat solving the problem of widely varying treatment

of foreign authors among countries. the unitedstates, for example, didn't grant copyrights to foreign works until 1891. in his 1842 readingtour of the united states, charles dickens was treated like a rock star, mostly becauseso many people were reading cheap, pirated editions of his books. and so the us pressattacked him. to quote one outlet, "we are mortified and grieved that he should havebeen guilty of such great indelicacy and impropriety, asking us to do honor to his genius but tolook after his purse also." so we steal this guy's copyrights and then insult him for complainingabout it. welcome to america, dickens! this state of affairs continued until 1878,when france convened an international literary congress with victor hugo, author of les miserablesand the hunchback of notre dame, as its head.

as with all things created by victor hugo,it was way too long. the agreement was finally signed in 1886 by ten countries. today, thereare 168 members of this treaty, which is administered by the world intellectual property organization,or wipo. the united states didn't officially join theberne convention until 1989, which also happens to be the year that the cinema classic andhighly lucrative intellectual property weekend at bernie's was released. is that a coincidence?mmm... maybe. the berne convention adopts the aforementionedprinciple of national treatment and sets up certain minimum standards for the copyrightlaws of any country that signs on. things like minimum copyright terms and the scopeof exceptions and limitations to exclusive rights.

the treaty also largely eliminates what arecalled "formalities". berne countries can't require that authors go through formalitieslike copyright registration or require a copyright notice or symbol to get protection. but withoutrequirements, the owners register their works and record ownership transfers with theirparticular government, ownership information is often lost and authors can't be located.this creates a lot of problems. another problem with the berne conventionis that it doesn't have an effective enforcement system. when a country violates the treaty,there's no effective way to punish them for it. members do have the option of trying tosettle the dispute through the international court of justice, but this option has beenused exactly 0 times. a lot of these issues

were "resolved" by the trade related aspects ofintellectual property rights, or trips agreement. formed in 1994, this agreement incorporatesmost of the berne convention and adds a few copyright bits of its own. the trips agreementis administered by the world trade organization, and it has a strong enforcement mechanismin place under the wto's dispute settlement body. so if a country doesn't comply, thewto's like, "wtf!" they then decide whether there's a violation and what kind of punishmentthey need to impart. beyond the berne convention and trips, theworld intellectual property organization produced two multi-lateral treaties: the wipo copyright treatyand the wipo performances and phonograms treaty. these are referred to as the "internet treaties"and the us implemented them in 1998 through its

introduction of the digital millennium copyright act or the dmca which you, as an internet user, probably hate. international copyright is enormously complex.luckily, international patent law is dead simple. nah, it's enormously complex too.let's go to the thought bubble. as the industrial revolution advanced acrosseurope and north america, differences in countries' patent laws piqued an interest in creatinginternational standards for patents. the international convention for the protection of intellectualproperty, commonly known as the paris convention, was signed in 1883. in paris, france. likethe berne convention, the paris convention lacks an adequate enforcement mechanism. ifa country violates the treaty, everybody's back in the international court of justice.but, just as with copyrights, nobody does this.

because the paris convention didn't reallyset minimum standards, countries had great freedom to tailor their patent laws to theirown needs and interests. developing countries, for example, might exclude pharmaceuticalproducts from patentability because they feel like health-related products and medicineshould be affordable for people to buy. many developed nations successfully sought to closethis gap during negotiations of our old frenemy, the trips agreement. trips incorporates partsof the paris convention and sets forth a number of minimum standards for patent protection.trips prevents world trade organization members from denying patents to pharmaceuticals orbiotechnology products or processes. unlike the berne convention, which does awaywith copyright formalities, the paris convention

assumes that the inventor has to apply tohis or her particular government's patent office or government. countries that are partyto the convention can't give foreign inventors a hard time. they get the same protectionsthat apply to domestic inventors. the patent cooperation treaty makes this easier. it helpscoordinate procedures for filing multiple patent applications for the same inventionin several countries around the world. thanks, thought bubble. so, the paris convention also governs trademarks.in many ways, it treats trademarks like patents. it requires countries to provide for nationaltreatment. because trademark law is territorial and you have to apply for protection in eachcountry where use is planned, there are two

special agreements that establish a commoninternational registration system. these are the 1891 madrid agreement concerning the international registration of marks and the 1989 madrid protocol for relating to the madrid agreement. aside from all these european capitals andtheir agreements and conventions and protocols, the trips agreement extends protection togeographical indications. this means that the word "champagne" can only be used forsparkling wine produced in france's champagne region. it also extends to words like bordeaux,chablis, parma ham, roquefort cheese, florida orange juice, vermont white cheddar, all thatbusiness. these issues have been a point of contentionbetween the us and the eu. europe has long

pushed for greater protection of geographicalindications. every time you eat greek yogurt or feta cheese, every time you smoke a cubancigar, every time you stir up a cup of swiss miss hot chocolate, every time you're confoundedby a chinese finger trap, you're seeing a potential geographical indication violation. at the end of the day, international intellectualproperty is all about setting minimum standards and national treatment. it's about countriestreating the nationals of other countries at least as well as they treat their own. this push for standardization has caused someproblems. there are now so many ip treaties and agreements and protocols in place thatit makes intellectual property reform difficult.

so, for example, changing the law to reducethe copyright term in the united states isn't just a matter of changing the us law. it's a matter of changing all of these international agreements. just as individual nations struggle to keeppace with our increasingly globalized world, so does the international intellectualproperty system. both national and international systems are struggling to find the right balanceof exclusive rights and public access to knowledge in a world where borders are traversed witha click. thanks for watching. we'll see you next week. crashcourse intellectual property is filmedin the chad and stacey emigholz studio in beautiful indianapolis, indiana, and is madeby this crew of international creators. if

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