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But the US being signatory to something does not mean that everybody else is a signatory too. The closest to that I could actually find is the World Intellectu

But the US being signatory to something does not mean that everybody else is a signatory too. The closest to that I could actually find is the World Intellectual Property Organization for trademarks. But afaik copyrights and patents entirely depend on separate registrations in the individual countries, the only thing the WIPO helps with patents is simplifying the patent application process by filing it in multiple countries for the applicant, but those filings can still be denied by the individual countries. [0] In that context I just find it a bit curious how American "trademark" theft of EU PDO is handwaved away with "no jurisdiction", yet the American government still insists that its patents, trademarks and IP be respected everywhere around the world, even in places where it too has no jurisdiction. [0] https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/does-your-us-patent-trademark-or-copyright-protect-you-overseas https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/does-your-us-patent-trade... edit: Apparently the WTO TRIPS Agreement actually covers geographical indications, and the US is a member to that [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPS_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPS_Agreement

TT3351 6y ago
Just as the case with US disrespect/neglect of provincial specific good restrictions, other countries also don't fully enforce our [American] notions of intellectual property rights.
kmeisthax 6y ago
The American government insists that patents, trademarks, and copyrights are respected worldwide without jurisdiction because they got everyone else in the room to agree to do that in exchange for import market access. That's why the WTO TRIPS agreement exists. Everyone agreed to the same laws, and agreed to allow foreigners to sue domestic businesses, so it doesn't matter who has jurisdiction over what. America doesn't buy your cheese unless you agree to protect their movies. The only outliers are countries which have already pissed off America so much that market access without regime change is off the table. So, if you see someone say, for example, "but DMCA doesn't apply in my country", they're either wrong, or you should start looking up the export regulations involved with knowingly talking to Iranians before you wind up in federal prison. This isn't even exclusively an American problem. The EU and Japan do it too, and more countries will start doing that as they start getting stronger domestic creative industries. The more money a country makes from owning copyrighted works, the more protection they will demand from other countries. Hell, the last major copyright term extension (the "Sonny Bono" one in the US) was started by the EU doing the same thing to America. The EU passed a term extension that had a reciprocality requirement: if America didn't agree to the term extension, then American works would enter the public domain in the EU quicker than EU-origin works did. This is a fiendishly clever way to ratchet in term extensions, and it works because the WTO treaties only specify maximums for copyright exceptions, not protection. You're always allowed to go stricter.
- freeflight 6y ago
  > That's why the WTO TRIPS agreement exists. As far as I can tell, TRIPS includes the EU PDO protections, so why are US companies selling "fake" EU food products when the US government agreed to respect EU PDO trough TRIPS? Do EU companies simply not sue against that in US courts? I tried looking for cases like that, but I couldn't really find any examples. > Everyone agreed to the same laws, and agreed to allow foreigners to sue domestic businesses, so it doesn't matter who has jurisdiction over what. China is also member of TRIPS, don't have Americans the right to sue in China? Why is that not good enough when it's apparently good enough for EU PDO being violated in the US?
  - kmeisthax 6y ago
    I'm not privy to the trade negotiations involved, but WTO rules don't get 1:1 copied into local law. For example, TRIPS just says countries need to have adequate legal protection for DRM, but DMCA Section 1201 takes that as an excuse to create an anticircumvention regime far stricter than required by TRIPS. I'm also somewhat confident that you can't sue if PDOs weren't locally implemented; even if the US promised to implement them but never got around to it. I have no idea what hurdles are involved with suing entities in China. I just know that many copyright owners find it too expensive to do so. Presumably, you'd need authorized legal representation in China to sue, which could be even more expensive. Legal translation would also be required, which would also cost money. These are all issues that current international law doesn't cover. Each jurisdiction is allowed to have it's own licensing standards and working languages. The closest thing I could think of to harmonizing that would be something like ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement), a process so onerous even the country that invented it hates them. There's plenty of other small deviations from WIPO law that member countries have sort-of gotten away with, such as... 1. Moral rights - Canada makes them waivable, which basically makes them meaningless. The US went a step further and never bothered to implement them, arguing that economic rights and contracts were sufficient to protect moral rights. (On the other hand, the US did implement moral rights in VARA, which is why the 5Pointz artists were able to sue and win millions when the property owner badly whitewashed over their authorized graffiti.) 2. Copyright formalities - We spent a literal century trying to get rid of copyright formalities, leading to the world of today where everything is born copyrighted and it is literally impossible for something to fall out of copyright until it has been escheated to the public domain. However, if you do not register your copyright in the US, you cannot sue. Even if you register after-the-fact, you lose your statutory damages if the infringement happened before registration. For the vast majority of infringements, that means there's no money in enforcing your copyright, and all you can really get is some kind of a restraining order on the infringer.

TT3351 6y ago

Just as the case with US disrespect/neglect of provincial specific good restrictions, other countries also don't fully enforce our [American] notions of intellectual property rights.

kmeisthax 6y ago

The American government insists that patents, trademarks, and copyrights are respected worldwide without jurisdiction because they got everyone else in the room to agree to do that in exchange for import market access. That's why the WTO TRIPS agreement exists. Everyone agreed to the same laws, and agreed to allow foreigners to sue domestic businesses, so it doesn't matter who has jurisdiction over what. America doesn't buy your cheese unless you agree to protect their movies. The only outliers are countries which have already pissed off America so much that market access without regime change is off the table. So, if you see someone say, for example, "but DMCA doesn't apply in my country", they're either wrong, or you should start looking up the export regulations involved with knowingly talking to Iranians before you wind up in federal prison. This isn't even exclusively an American problem. The EU and Japan do it too, and more countries will start doing that as they start getting stronger domestic creative industries. The more money a country makes from owning copyrighted works, the more protection they will demand from other countries. Hell, the last major copyright term extension (the "Sonny Bono" one in the US) was started by the EU doing the same thing to America. The EU passed a term extension that had a reciprocality requirement: if America didn't agree to the term extension, then American works would enter the public domain in the EU quicker than EU-origin works did. This is a fiendishly clever way to ratchet in term extensions, and it works because the WTO treaties only specify maximums for copyright exceptions, not protection. You're always allowed to go stricter.

freeflight 6y ago
> That's why the WTO TRIPS agreement exists. As far as I can tell, TRIPS includes the EU PDO protections, so why are US companies selling "fake" EU food products when the US government agreed to respect EU PDO trough TRIPS? Do EU companies simply not sue against that in US courts? I tried looking for cases like that, but I couldn't really find any examples. > Everyone agreed to the same laws, and agreed to allow foreigners to sue domestic businesses, so it doesn't matter who has jurisdiction over what. China is also member of TRIPS, don't have Americans the right to sue in China? Why is that not good enough when it's apparently good enough for EU PDO being violated in the US?
- kmeisthax 6y ago
  I'm not privy to the trade negotiations involved, but WTO rules don't get 1:1 copied into local law. For example, TRIPS just says countries need to have adequate legal protection for DRM, but DMCA Section 1201 takes that as an excuse to create an anticircumvention regime far stricter than required by TRIPS. I'm also somewhat confident that you can't sue if PDOs weren't locally implemented; even if the US promised to implement them but never got around to it. I have no idea what hurdles are involved with suing entities in China. I just know that many copyright owners find it too expensive to do so. Presumably, you'd need authorized legal representation in China to sue, which could be even more expensive. Legal translation would also be required, which would also cost money. These are all issues that current international law doesn't cover. Each jurisdiction is allowed to have it's own licensing standards and working languages. The closest thing I could think of to harmonizing that would be something like ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement), a process so onerous even the country that invented it hates them. There's plenty of other small deviations from WIPO law that member countries have sort-of gotten away with, such as... 1. Moral rights - Canada makes them waivable, which basically makes them meaningless. The US went a step further and never bothered to implement them, arguing that economic rights and contracts were sufficient to protect moral rights. (On the other hand, the US did implement moral rights in VARA, which is why the 5Pointz artists were able to sue and win millions when the property owner badly whitewashed over their authorized graffiti.) 2. Copyright formalities - We spent a literal century trying to get rid of copyright formalities, leading to the world of today where everything is born copyrighted and it is literally impossible for something to fall out of copyright until it has been escheated to the public domain. However, if you do not register your copyright in the US, you cannot sue. Even if you register after-the-fact, you lose your statutory damages if the infringement happened before registration. For the vast majority of infringements, that means there's no money in enforcing your copyright, and all you can really get is some kind of a restraining order on the infringer.