Kirk Stresses Commitment To Curbing Piracy
April 22, 2010
| 11:31 AM
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk disappointed some at the Consumer Electronics Association dinner Wednesday night by failing to discuss the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement released the same day, which has come under fire by some consumer advocates for failing to shut the door on harsh punishments for copyright infringers.
In a keynote address, Kirk did not mention the multilateral effort to establish international standards to curb counterfeiting and piracy. Instead, he reitered the Obama administration's commitment to combating copyright breaches and intellectual property theft. The administration is working to make sure "your creativity, inventions, and products are protected," he told representatives from Internet, telecommunications, and consumer electronics companies.
Subsequent speakers were less shy about alluding to ACTA. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., touted the need for "fair use" policies and said that policies presented in ACTA may be "improved over" earlier drafts but "that does not mean it's ready for enactment yet."
The dinner honored Doyle for his work on fair use and "open Internet" issues, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., for efforts on job creation, and Vint Cerf, one of the "fathers of the Internet" who now works at Google. All seemed star struck by Cerf. "I'm up here with the same man who made the Internet possible," Doyle said. "Something doesn't sound right here."
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