international

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., posted part of a draft Asian-Pacific trade agreement on his open government website on Tuesday, hoping to pressure the Obama administration to release more details about the pact.

Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, posted the intellectual property section of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to his "Keep The Web Open" site and urged Internet users to provide input on how the trade deal can be improved. Issa acknowledged that that language is likely out of date since the latest available draft is from February 2011. Still, he said he hopes to persuade the administration to release more details as it continues to negotiate the TPP.

"At a time when the American people and Internet users all around the world are rightfully wary of any closed-door negotiations that could adversely impact their ability to freely and openly access the Internet, the Obama administration continues to pursue a secretive, closed-door negotiating process for the Trans Pacific Partnership," Issa said.

Issa helped lead congressional opposition to anti-piracy legislation that he and other critics said would stifle innovation and free speech on the Internet.

The United States and eight other Asian-Pacific countries are meeting for a second week in Dallas for the 12th round of negotiations on the TPP. A spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which is leading the negotiations for the United States, said Tuesday that trade talks require a certain amount of secrecy in order for the "negotiators for various governments to share information and have frank conversations that result in progress toward concluding a trade agreement."

And in a letter last week to a group of law professors who complained that the TPP negotiations were too secretive, USTR Ron Kirk said he was "strongly offended by the assertion that our process has been non-transparent and lacked public participation. USTR has conducted in excess of 400 consultations with congressional and private stakeholders on the TPP, including inviting stakeholders to all of the twelve negotiating rounds."

Many public interest and consumer groups also worry that the TPP will call for enhanced protections for intellectual property while excluding some of the rights for Internet users included in U.S. law, such as fair use.

"If the U.S.'s goal is to encourage innovation and leave breathing room for innovative new businesses to experiment and thrive, it must stop demanding copyright provisions whose only practical effect is to protect existing business models and discourage anyone else from trying something new," Jodie Griffin, a staff attorney for Public Knowledge, said in a blog post last week outlining her group's concerns with the TPP.

U.S. software makers have long complained that people are stealing their software. Now a new survey released Tuesday provides evidence from a compelling source: computer users themselves.

In the Business Software Alliance's ninth annual survey of global software piracy, 57 percent of computer users admitted they used pirated software.

"If 57 percent of consumers admitted they shoplift, authorities would react by increasing police patrols and penalties," BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman said in a statement. "Software piracy demands a similarly forceful response -- concerted public education and vigorous law enforcement,"

The survey found that 42 percent of software used globally in 2011 was pirated. BSA estimated the commercial value of this pirated software reached $63.4 billion, up from $58.8 billion in 2010.

The report found that piracy is much worse in emerging markets than in developed countries, with piracy on average reaching 68 percent in emerging countries compared to just 24 percent in more developed countries. "Emerging economies, which in recent years have been the driving force behind PC software piracy, are now decisively outpacing mature markets in their rate of growth," the report said. "They took in 56 percent of the world's new PC shipments in 2011, and they now account for more than half of all PCs in use."

China continues to pose a huge problem. The report found that 77 percent of the business software used in China was pirated, compared with 19 percent in the United States, which had the lowest piracy rate.

The report also found that the typical software pirate is most likely to be a young male who tends to install more software on his computer than other users.

BSA has tried to use its annual reports to drum up attention to the problem and lobby the U.S. government to put pressure on other countries to penalize pirates.

"There is strong global support for [intellectual property] rights and protections in principle, but a troubling lack of incentive for pirates to change their behavior in practice," BSA said. "Just 20 percent of frequent pirates in mature markets -- and 15 percent in emerging markets -- say the risk of getting caught is a reason not to do it."

The report, which was conducted by the research firm IDC, is based on data on computer and software trends in 116 markets. For the first time, the report also included a survey of nearly 15,000 computer users in 33 countries, which was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs.

Some of the same groups that backed controversial legislation to crack down on piracy on foreign websites are urging the Obama administration to support strong intellectual property protections in a trade agreement with a group of Asia-Pacific countries.

The United States and eight other countries are meeting in Dallas over the next 10 days for the 12th round of talks on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and are expected to deal with patents and enforcement of intellectual property.

A coalition of trade groups representing a broad range of U.S. industries wrote President Obama Tuesday to urge that his administration push for the inclusion of strong protections for intellectual property in the agreement.

"While the benefits of strong IP protections and enforcement are widely supported throughout the United States and safeguarded in our Constitution and laws, such protections are at serious risk in the ongoing TPP negotiations," according to the letter signed by industry groups such as the Association of American Publishers, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Some seek to enshrine low standards of protection, with limited enforcement, in the final TPP agreement, arguing that U.S. proposals would be harmful and could undermine other interests."

The letter was signed by many of the same groups that pushed for the anti-piracy bills known as the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Senate's Protect IP Act. Both bills were sidelined in January after facing fierce opposition from tech firms, Internet advocates and others.

In their letter to Obama Tuesday, the industry groups argued that more "rigorous IP rules are needed to thwart the explosion" of copyright and trademark infringement. Supporters of the anti-piracy bills made many of the same arguments in pushing for SOPA and Protect IP, saying they lacked tools to go after the growth in foreign websites offering pirated U.S. content or counterfeit goods.

Several public interest groups, however, have raised concerns that the United States will push for strong IP protections without including some of the exceptions in U.S. law. They also have been critical of the process, which they said is too secretive. They noted that the U.S. trade officials have released little information about the proposed pact.

The negotiations over TPP appear to be focused "on one side of the equation while excusing any provisions that deal with copyright limitations and exceptions," Rashmi Rangnath, director of Public Knowledge's Global Knowledge Initiative, said in a conference call last week with reporters.

An official with the U.S. Trade Representative's office tried to address such concerns during remarks at the Computer and Communications Industry Association annual conference late last month.

Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis said the United States was working to "strike the right balance with respect to copyright protection with having a high standard for copyright protection while at the same time recognizing that there are legitimate exceptions to that, such as fair use."

Tech groups applauded the United States' decision Tuesday to confront China over allegations that it is restricting access to rare earth and other materials used in many electronics including smart phones and televisions.

The U.S. Trade Representative has requested that China enter into talks through the World Trade Organization over allegations that it is unfairly limiting access to rare earth materials, tungsten and molybdenum by imposing export duties, export quotas and export pricing requirements. The European Union and Japan also have requested consultations with China on the issue.

"Now, if China would simply let the market work on its own, we'd have no objections," President Obama said Tuesday. "But their policies currently are preventing that from happening. And they go against the very rules that China agreed to follow."

Under WTO rules, China will have 60 days to try to resolve the issue through consultations with the United States. If those talks fail, the United States can request that the WTO launch a dispute settlement panel to examine the issue.

China is the largest supplier of rare earth materials as well as tungsten and molybdenum, which are used in a wide range of products including advanced electronics and batteries. "We've been trying to get China to change its policies on rare earth [materials] and stop rationing" them, TechAmerica Senior Vice President Trey Hodgkins told Tech Daily Dose. "We hope this ratcheting of discussions will change that."

Hodgkins noted that the only U.S. supplier of such materials had shut down its mine but is now taking steps to resume operations because of the supply issues with China. Prices have risen sharply since 2010 when China began restricting its supply of the materials, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

"If China wants to be a world player in trade, it needs to behave like one," CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro said in a statement. "For far too long our member companies, particularly small companies manufacturing here in the United States have been bearing the cost burden of China's unfair practices. We welcome this move and the goal of diversifying the sources of these important minerals used in consumer electronics products."

USTR said China's policies are part of a pattern of behavior aimed at giving its manufacturers a big edge and also put pressure on foreign companies to move their operations to China.

Tech groups have long had concerns with some of China's trade policies, including a proposal that would have required foreign companies to share their technology in order to sell their products in China.

After coming under fire from U.S. privacy advocates and some lawmakers, Google has been told by European Union officials that the changes it plans to make to its privacy practices may violate EU rules.

EU data privacy commissioners also urged Google to delay its changes, which are set to go into effect Thursday, until an investigation being conducted on their behalf by France's data protection authority has concluded.

"Our preliminary analysis shows that Google's new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection, especially regarding the information provided to data subjects," Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, who heads France's data protection authority, wrote in a letter to Google CEO Larry Page.

Google announced last month that it would consolidate more than 60 privacy policies and begin tracking consumers as they move from one Google service to another. U.S. privacy advocates and some lawmakers have criticized the changes, particularly the fact that Google does not offer consumers a choice to opt out.

Some privacy groups have complained to the Federal Trade Commission that the changes violate the privacy settlement the commission reached last year with Google. While the commission has not commented on these claims, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said Sunday that Google was giving consumers a "binary and somewhat brutal choice."

The EU officials particularly pointed to Google's plans to combine data it collects as users move from one Google service such as Gmail to another such as Google calendar.

"The EU data protection authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services: They have strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing and about its compliance with European Data protection legislation," the letter added.

Falque-Pierrotin did praise Google for launching a high-profile campaign to inform users about its changes but complained that Google did not adequately inform all the EU data commissioners first.

Google said it has asked to meet with the French data protection authority so it can answer any questions officials may have about the company's privacy changes.

"We believe we've found a reasonable balance between the [data commissioners'] recommendations: to 'streamline and simplify' our policies while providing 'comprehensive information' to users," a Google spokeswoman said. "We are committed to providing our users with a seamless experience across Google's services, and to making our privacy commitments to them easy to understand."