Sita Sings the Blues: Copyright Jail is No Fun

An unscheduled post: This isn't really a breaking news story, it's more of an ongoing plight, but Ip's What's Up would like to help draw attention to Nina Paley's struggle to free her award winning feature length film, Sita Sings the Blues from Copyright Jail.

The (Very Brief) Low-Down

Sita Sings the Blues is a critically acclaimed animated film that brings together a classic Indian epic, Ramayana, Nina's own life and the 1920's jazz music of Annette Hanshaw.  (Movie Trailer, Awards List, Roger Ebert's Review, Film Clip.)

That last part is the rub.  Because the underlying compositions of the music used in the film is still under copyright protection, the film can not be legally distributed.

So what's the big deal?  Just pay the copyright owners and get on with it, right?  Well, it turns out that "just paying the copyright owners" is cost prohibitive.  (Nina's step-agreement with the copyright owners and her plans to get film distributed here.)  Nina has taken on a lot of monetary debt, not to mention the time spent, trying to get her art out there for people to appreciate.  She needs help.

What Can I Do?

Regular Ol' Joes

 Donate: QuestionCopyright.org has set up a donation system to help free Sita.  Donations are tax deductible.  Spread the Word: help tell others about the Sita saga, put it in your status message, tweet it, blog about it, tell your friends and neighbors.

Attorneys

Nina is looking for some good pro bono legal help.  You won't be alone.  She's working to assemble a team, and there's at least one volunteer to assist with legal research.  It appears most of the legal help she's found is more experienced in software matters than entertainment law issues.  From her blog:

Is there a lawyer in the house?
I mean a good, progressive, Free-Culture-oriented lawyer. Right now we havequestioncopyright.org’s legal counsel, whose experience lies in Free Software. The California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation hasn’t yet agreed to help directly (maybe they’ll change their minds!) but is looking for additional pro bono legal help for me here in New York. The coolest legal work seems to be in Software; I haven’t yet found anyone in Entertainment Law who really gets it. But if you’re out there, please get in touch! Let’s make a Sita Legal Defense team.

Where Can I See Sita Sings the Blues?

The film is being included in a number of film festivals around the world.  You can check for a location near you at the screening schedule.

 

 

 

 

More Detailed Information About Sita

The Step Deal

The original quote given to Nina for licenses for the 11 songs at issue in the movie was $220,000.  Nina provides a spreadsheet of the quotes here.  By the end of last month, Nina was able to get this reduced to a step-deal that starts at $50,000 (which she's taking out a loan to pay) and goes up from there depending on how successful the film is.  If the film were to be shown in theaters and made a million dollars at the box office, Nina would get between $30,000 and $80,000 (by her estimate, per her blog) and for every million at the box office she would have to pay another $38,500 for the licenses.  That means that if the film makes a million dollars at the box office, the publishing companies that own the rights to the compositions sung by Annette and used by Nina make more collectively than Nina makes.  Annette's heirs get nothing anyway; the sound recordings themselves are in the public domain (see below).

The Issue with the Music

As Nina nicely explains at comment #8 and comment #13 here, the actual recordings used in the film are in the public domain.  It's the underlying compositions that are still protected.  In US copyright law, sound recordings and musical works are protected separately and have different rights attached to them.  The recordings sung by Annette Hanshaw that Nina used in the film were protected as sound recordings.  They have since fallen into the public domain.  The underlying compositions, the words and written music for the songs, are protected as musical works and are still under copyright protection thanks to the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.  This act retroactively extended the copyright life of works made under the 1909 Copyright Act and still under protection in 1998 to a total of 95 years of protection, counted from the date of publication.

Several different entities own the rights to the compositions, some of them sharing the rights to a single composition with others.

The rights owners include:

• Bug Music
• EMI
• Irving Music (acquired by Universal Music Group)
• Pencil Mark Music
• Richmond Organization (TRO)
• Songwriter's Guild of America
• Sony-ATV Music Publishing
• Warner-Chappell Music

Nina says in her blog that there are 11 Hanshaw recordings used in the film.  The spreadsheet of offers from the rights holders only lists ten.  Here are those ten:

1. Am I Blue?  (1929, Harry Akst(d.1963) and Grant Clarke (d. 1931))
2. Daddy Won't You Please Come Home?
3. Here We Are
4. I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929, Fats Waller (d.1943), Harry Link (d.1956), Billy Rose (d.1966))
5. Lover Come Back to Me (1928, Sigmund Romberg (d.1951), Oscar Hamerstein II (d.1960))
6. Moanin' Low
7. Mean to Me (1929, Fred E. Ahlert (d.1953), Roy Turk (1934))
8. What I Wouldn't Do for That Man
9. If You Want the Rainbow (You Must Have the Rain)
10. Who's That Knockin' At My Door

I couldn't find information on the rest of the songs.  If anyone has any suggestions or information, let me know.

Some Other Articles on the Sita Saga

Copyright Owners Contributing to the Destruction of Their Own Property at Copyfight

Sita Sings the Copyright Blues at Copyright & Campaigns

Sita Sings the Blues at Soup Greens

Owning Music at No Notes

Distribution Blues at Newsvine.mobi

Diversions - Sita Sings the Blues at The Obenson Report

The Best of 2008 at Duck Blog

Developing Decent Digital Distribution Solutions

A couple of press releases recently caught the Ippers' attention.  Two groups are each working to ensure that fans get their digital music and artists get their money, but they're working from different angles.

Getting the Infringers to Fight Infringement

Freshman at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, politely called "first-year students," are developing a new distribution system for the music industry.  The project is part of a seminar called "Stealing in Music City."  In addition to their own perspective as the ones trying to get the music, the students will have the input of various industry stakeholders and experts, including Alice Randall and this Ipper's own copyright professor, Steven Hetcher.  Hopefully the students have some very interesting and viable ideas.  The class will present its three solutions in class next week Tuesday.  Ip's What's Up will let you know when we hear about any of them.  (Full press release.)

Europe Re-Evaluates Collective Management

This week, WIPO is also looking at the affect of the digital age on music distribution.  The Conference to Examine Future Development of Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights in Europe meets this week Monday and Tuesday in Brussels.  The 400+ participants are listed to include: "collective management organizations, lawyers, academia, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, developers of digital technology and services and creative industries."  Where are the users?  Looks like the student group at Vanderbilt might be smaller but more comprehensive in its stakeholder input. (Full press release.  Conference Info.)

It's great that collecting rights organizations in Europe are engaging in discourse about the changes in the industry and the role they can play in facilitating positive developments.  Some other countries could use a few good collecting organization conferences, especially in the developing world.  (Africa, the Middle East, India.)

A Spectrum of Perspectives

There is a common axiom that you should not discuss politics or religion at a dinner party. But what about intellectual property? One part of the Ip's What's Up team found out that this topic can be just as impassioning as the others.

This past weekend I had the opportunity of attending a friend's birthday party. A birthday party is probably one of the last places you would expect to find much conversation about intellectual property, but we had plenty. The various opinions seemed to represent a good cross-section of different perspectives on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), so I think it could be helpful to offer a little recap.

[This video and the sound recording in it are under a different license than the blog post.  Video: cc by-sa 2008 goldenrail.  Sound recording in the video: "nunoo" cc by-sa 2004 maki, www.myspace.com/theopenwound.]

[Technical difficulties?  If the video does not appear above, you can watch it at youtube.]

Stronger is Better

First, I spoke with an Economic Counselor for the United States. He had met with the local government earlier in the week to check on the progress in its war on piracy. The local government has worked closely with the United States and other developed nations in effort to strengthen its IP laws and increase the level of copyright enforcement in the country. This gentleman clearly represented the camp working for stronger IPR, as well as the international relations and trade aspect concerns that are part of IPR.

Intellectual property is now one of the biggest commodities developed nations have. In order for these countries to reap the maximum benefits, the whole world needs to have strong intellectual property laws. Countries with large creative industries work hard to help make this happen. People on the developing country side can also be in this group. They want stronger protection in order to encourage foreign investment and often to protect their growing creative industries.  Stronger IP laws protect their domestic creations as much, or even more so, than foreign ones.

What Good is Protection if I Can't Get the Goods?

Next, I spoke to someone on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, a British NGO-worker who decried the lack of books in the country. "We just need more books, I don't care if they're copied or not!" she exclaimed. Here is one of the common arguments against increased copyright enforcement in the country. The legal supply clearly doesn't meet the demand. For those who want the products but cannot find legitimate copies, especially for things like text books, copyright seems like nothing more than a barrier to development.

Supply that cannot meet demand is not just a problem in the book industry. Two years ago the demand for Nigerian Home Videos in Nigeria was estimated at 50 million buyers, but only about 500,000 legitimate copies were produced. (NCC Committed to National Copyright Policy & Reform, 10 NCC Copyright Bulletin December, 2006 Vol. 3 No. 6, ed. Charles O. Obi.) Similar circumstances exist elsewhere, with music industries in many developing countries, and even to some extent in developed countries when dealing with out-of-print books and such.

Consumers who are generally concerned with copyright often justify obtaining infringing copies of these types of materials. They point out that the author wouldn't be receiving anything if they didn't buy the infringing copy because they cannot buy a legitimate copy. They may also blame the author for the shortage of legal goods.

Eh, So What?

Near the end of the evening, I had an encounter with a third group. Those who really don't care about or pay attention to IPR. Sometimes they are ignorant of the laws; sometimes, they just do not care. In this case, they were most likely the later. A high up government official from a developed country handed a higher-up official from the same country a clearly pirated DVD of an American Television series. For these people, piracy and infringement are matters for other people, for governments, enforcement agencies and private rights holders. They did not create the copy; they did not sell it; they are just 'innocent' purchasers.

This seems to be a very large group, and it blends into other groups, people who believe it is ok to make a copy of a cd for a friend, those who indiscriminately clip artwork from internet sites. It is highly likely that we have all fallen into this group at some time or another, and many people may be in this group with regards to some IP while falling into another group in regards to other IP.

In Between the Extremes

Of course, there are plenty of groups that care about IP but fall somewhere between the extremes represented at the party. There are organizations who want to change the system without chucking IP protection completely out the window or creating a single strict set of laws for the whole world. The trick for all these groups is balancing the interests of everyone involved, including the points of view above.

What the Google Book Agreement Tells Us about Copyright

There's been quite an uproar since release of the proposed settlement agreement between Google and the Author's Guild/Association of American Publishers.  A lot of people are discussing the settlement itself (including us here at Ip's What's Up), but this settlement agreement tells us about more than just the relationship between the parties.  It also provides us a lens through which to analyze the current state of our copyright system.

Good Things

The best thing about the proposed settlement agreement is simply that it's a settlement agreement.   The parties have found a solution without going through the whole litigation process, a solution that makes each participant feel that they are coming away in a better position than if they continued with the litigation.  Page six of the settlement agreement expresses this well:

WHEREAS, Plaintiffs and Class Counsel conclude that this Settlement
Agreement is fair, reasonable, adequate and in the best interests of the Settlement Class in
light of the risks inherent in prosecuting the Action and the benefits obtained under this
Settlement Agreement.

I'm not necessarily talking about the actual settlement being good.  There's a lot of discussion out there on whether that's the case.  [The comments section of Lessig's post has some good discussion on the merits of the agreement, as does Medialoper.]  It's encouraging just to see private parties recognizing each others' rights and sorting out their differences without getting the government involved.

One commonly recognized purpose of copyright is to create a balance between the interests of creators and consumers.  Over the past decade, there has been a lot of criticism that copyright laws have lost sight of this.  The Google settlement, by focusing on creating the right balance, shows us that the copyright system can still work towards achieving this goal.

Wendy Seltzer suggests that the registry system created by the agreement seems more like something we should expect the government to provide.  But I disagree.  It makes more sense to me for the stakeholders to create a registry like this than to lobby the government for the creation of such an entity at taxpayers' expense.  The parties involved in this settlement are going to have a better idea of what's needed and of what's important for the registry than the government would.  Google has the funds (which the settlement requires them to use) for a large venture like this.   Additionally, as Lessig remarks, this arrangement allows "anyone who wants to build a competing and complementary database."  Besides, US collecting and performance rights societies aren't government run, and they seem to work well.  It's exciting to see the willingness of private parties to invest in the future of a copyright industry.

 

Here, We Still Need Some Work

The agreement also points to one glaring problem with the current copyright system: borders and boundaries.  Everything in the agreement only affects Google Book users in the United States, even though it affects authors from around the world.  This is because copyright, despite the many treaties, is national law.

The parties involved in the agreement brought suit in the United States  (District Court for Southern District of New York, to be exact).  The court does not have jurisdiction beyond the United States, and thus cannot make rulings or approve settlements that would affect laws in other areas.  This is good; we don't want the courts of one nation being able to dictate laws for other countries.  Unfortunately, the results of this division aren't always good.

Thanks to the Berne convention, authors from nearly every country in the world have their works protected in the US by US copyright law.  The same goes for their works in many other countries under those countries' copyright laws.  All the foreign authors whose works are protected in the US are part of the class involved in this agreement (unless they choose to opt out).  Yet, this agreement has absolutely no affect in their own countries. 

It seems strange to put geographical boundaries on something as open and location-agnostic as the internet, but it happens all the time.  Pandora isn't available outside the US.  Music fans around the world complain about not having access to the hundreds of music videos MTV posted online (and unfairly blame MTV for this).  Our laws are territorial, our communications are not. 

Unfortunately, the Google agreement does nothing to help in this area.  It's unclear if there is a forum that would have allowed the parties to come to an agreement applicable to the entire world.  Perhaps something like the International Arbitration Centre for Copyright & Image Rights (IACCI) could be utilized for this purpose.

Hopes for the Future

The Google settlement agreement leaves me with two main hopes for the future of copyright:

1. That the music industry can find a way to reach similar agreements instead of just suing the $&%* out of everyone and making the government their private task force;
2. That as agreements like this continue to be worked out in other areas of copyright, IP law, and trade, we can find some way to harmonize the world's access to information.

Why Congress, Why Part II

As promised, we are returning to the PRO-IP bill to look at Congress's reasons for the bill.  This may be our last look at S. 3325; there's a lot of other interesting stuff going on in the international IP world (check out the sidebar).  Also, if you haven't already done so, please submit your thoughts on some good things about IP protection!

Here is a brief look at two more reasons Congress listed as its sense for why the US needed to strengthen its IP laws: (S. 3325 § 503.)

• effective criminal enforcement of the intellectual property laws against violations in all categories of works should be among the highest priorities of the Attorney General
  

Why?  Why should criminal enforcement of intellectual property be more important than violent crimes, drug issues or the government's favorite enemy, terrorism?  I'm not sure I can buy this reason.  How do others feel about it?

• terrorists and organized crime utilize piracy, counterfeiting, and infringement to fund some of their activities

Oh!  That's why.  The IP criminals are terrorists!  At first I was very skeptical about this; it was the government crying terrorism like the boy cried wolf.  But I looked into it a bit and found that there is some support for this claim.  Most of the information and studies are about 3 years old.  The reports seem to show two separate connections between terrorist organizations and copyright infringement:

(1) terrorists engage in piracy in the same manner that they engage in a variety of other illegal trade, such as arms trafficking or drug running,

(2) people who have been arrested for piracy have been supportive of or have leanings towards terrorist organizations.

I will agree then that piracy, counterfeiting and infringement funds terrorist activities.  If terrorists are fundraising with pirated goods just as they are with drugs, then yes, piracy is technically funding terrorism.  It’s also possible that pirates who support terrorist organizations might donate funds they raised from their piracy.  Again, this can technically be called piracy funding terrorism.  If the terrorists sold flowers, would we enact laws against those? 

As another author pointed out, copyright infringement is its own issue.  Yes, it is illegal, so yes, the government should address it.  But protecting the rights of creators should not be mixed up with anti-terrorism laws.  I’m sure all illegal activities can be linked together in some way.  Drug dealers might drive over the speed limit; people who drink under age might also jaywalk; and terrorists might engage in copyright infringement.  That doesn’t mean that the laws dealing with each of these crimes should be all mashed together.

As for the organized crime claim, this seems like a problem from a logic game.  If a group of people have organized their copyright infringement activities so that there are large-scale manufacturing plants and elaborate distribution networks, as is the case in Nigeria for example, are the pirates using organized crime to support their piracy, or are the criminals using piracy to support their organized crime?

For those who are interested, here are some further links for information on the terrorism/piracy connections:

the government claiming a connection (2005)

report of person engaged in infringement and supportive of Hezbollah (2006)

the scary stuff: RIAA video claiming the link (2008)

and something a bit reassuring: Current US AG’s take on the issue (2008)

Gimme an I! Gimme a P!

I know in my last post I said I would continue looking at Congress' reasons for the PRO-IP bill (S.3325) this week, but I changed my mind.  I'm human; I'm allowed to do that.  Looking back over the first month of posts, I'm a bit disappointed.  They're all so negative.  I got carried away with the over-the-top-ness of the new PRO-IP bill and focused mainly on the downsides to intellectual property laws.  But IP laws aren't all bad.  I'd venture to say even the PRO-IP bill isn't all bad.  So I would like to take this post to present:  Some Good Things about IP Protection.

Of course, to start with, we have the time-honored intellectual property laws "promote the progress of science and the useful arts".  People are beginning to question this statement, but I think it's true.  Some people do things because they want to do them, or just because they can, but the majority of people work for some sort of incentive.  The question is finding the optimal amount of incentive, that illusive "balance" between creator and user.  So we can put down as good thing #1: promotes creativity.

Intellectual property rights (IPR) also promote other things, like investments.  If I want to create something, but I don't have the capital to do it, I have better chance of getting a money if I can offer the source of the funds something in return.  Knowing that my creation will have value, and could have a very large value, gives the people with money incentive to invest.  This is especially important in places like the drug industry, where lots of investment is needed.  There is also the emerging IP Finance industry, which allows IPR owners to use IP as collateral.  Good thing #2: promotes investments.

Some IPR even protects us.  Trademarks let consumers know about a product without having to do lots of research every time they want to buy something.  They allow companies to build a brand name, so the companies care about their products and services.  This results in better products for the consumers and better ability by the consumers to find those products.  Good thing #3: protects the general populace.

Besides the economic incentives for creators, IPR also provides assurance that the creator can maintain some control over their creation.  Even creators who forgo possible economic incentives usually hold on to some sort of control over their works.  Do a search on http://search.creativecommons.org and compare how many authors reserve some control rights compared to the number than only request attribution (which is also a right, but reserving no rights puts a work in the public domain).  Without this assurance, creators might be dissuaded from creating, for fear of creating a Frankenstein's monster over which they have no control.  Good thing #4: assurance for creators.

That leads us into a fifth benefit of IPR: identification.  Patents require a name; trademarks are registered to a company and copyrighted works; even if done anonymously or pseudonymously, copyrighted works have an author somewhere that can be contacted somehow.  That means if you like what a person created and want more of it, you know where to look.  Good thing #5: facilitates locating the creator.

Some people argue that IPR, especially copyright, inhibits building off of other people's work, because it gives the original creator full rights to all derivative works.  But this is only one side of the coin.  Copyright also encourages collaboration.  When one creator wants to use another creator's work in their own, they will need to contact the original creator (or rights holder, or licensing agency) to get permission (and pay money).   This will open a dialogue between the second creator and the first creator (or someone who has connections to other works) and could stimulate further ideas.  Two heads are better than one, they say.  Good thing #6: stimulates ideas and collaboration.

For brevity's sake, I'll stop there.  But I'd like to know: What are some of your reasons that IP protection is good?

Why, Congress, Why?

Today's look at the PRO-IP bill (S. 3325) will focus on the "Sense of Congress."  Perhaps there are reasons for the changes made by this law, things Congress knows that we don't understand yet.  Perhaps....

Here are four reasons Congress listed as its sense for why the US needed to strengthen its IP laws: (S. 3325 § 503.)  (Later this week, we will look at the rest.)

• the United States intellectual property industries have created millions of high-skill, high-paying United States jobs and pay billions of dollars in annual United States tax revenues;
  

Yes, this is probably true.  IP is so prevalent in society that I'll even accept that at least 1 out of every 300 Americans is employed in a high-skill, high-paying job because of an IP industry.  (Current population approx. 300 million.)

• the United States intellectual property industries continue to represent a major source of creativity and innovation, business start-ups, skilled job creation, exports, economic growth, and competitiveness;
  

Again, a true statement.  But while both these statements are factual, the nexus between them and the changes made to law seems to be missing.

• counterfeiting and infringement results in billions of dollars in lost revenue for United States companies each year and even greater losses to the United States economy in terms of reduced job growth, exports, and competitiveness;
  

Ah yes, the good ol' piracy is killing our industries and our economy.  I don't need to get into this because ars technica did a wonderful piece about "The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy."

• the growing number of willful violations of existing Federal criminal laws invoking counterfeiting and infringement by actors in the United States and increasingly, by foreign-based individuals and entities is a serious threat to the long-term vitality of the United States economy and the future competitiveness of United States industry;
  

This statement could be true; I have no idea.  I'm not a fortune-teller.  However, I think Congress overlooked something very important here:  "the growing number of willful violations."  The question should not be "how do we stop this growth?"  The question should be, "why is there a growing number of willful violations?"  Let's think about this for a moment.  What are some reasons people break the law?

1. Extreme Desperation: such as drove Jean Valjean to steal a loaf of bread in Les Miserables.  While that could be a reason for people supporting their families through the sale of pirated cds in third world markets , it probably does not explain the "growing number of willful violations" in the US. 
   
2. Ignorance: On the other extreme there's the ignorance plea, the kind used to excuse a child for stealing a candy bar from the supermarket.  "He didn't know any better; I'll pay for it," and all is well again.  With the high-profile lawsuits like Napster, Grokster and the Thomas case, as well as the ever present anti-piracy trailers at the beginning of every movie and warnings posted on everything we buy, it's highly unlikely anyone can claim ignorance of copyright infringement laws.
   
3. Bullshit: The general population either doesn't care about the law or doesn't understand the reasoning behind the law.  Or, even more likely with such a large increase in willful violations, the people DISAGREE with the law.  They don't think it's for their benefit, or even the benefit of the country as a whole.
   

Now, without getting into all the different philosophical theories about laws and legal systems, I would like to suggest that if there is a large showing of people who break a law or do not believe in a law, the lawmakers should step back and re-evaluate said law, and possibly who this government is "of," "for," and "by."

Image by: Lovelypetal cc-by, available at http://farm1.static.flickr.com/181/445070705_c2b64a0560.jpg?v=0

PRO-IP Bill is Now Law (and still wasting our tax dollars)

Well folks, he did it.  Bush signed the PRO-IP bill into law.  Now, I can only hope it goes unenforced.  Torrent Freak has a good post on just how crazy this new law is.  One thing people have been celebrating (people that aren't lobbyists or the RIAA) is the removal by the Senate of a section that would have given the DOJ the ability to bring civil infringement claims.  It was the DOJ itself that had to step in before Congress could be talked out of that idea.

A sigh of relief swept the country when the provision was struck.  There was a general feeling of "at least our tax dollars won't be fighting Hollywood's battles for them."  But it's a false sense of relief.  Our tax dollars are not as safe as we hoped or believed.  What am I talking about?  Title IV of the new law: Department of Justice Programs.

There's plenty in this title that could serve as fodder for burning our tax dollars (improved forensic research for IP crimes!), but I'm going to focus on one provision:  Sec. 401 Local Law Enforcement Grants.

The Federal Government has had a program in place for many years that provides grants to State and local governments to aid them in the prosecution of computer crimes.  (42 U.S.C. 3713.)  To obtain these funds, State and local governments need to have enacted laws that prohibit and penalize certain types of computer crimes, like on-line fraud or hacking.  The grant funds may be used for enforcing laws against and prosecuting computer crimes, and for the development of educational and awareness programs.

Copyright infringement was just added to the list of computer crimes.  In the law's language:

The Office of Justice Programs of the Department of Justice may make grants to eligible State or local law enforcement entities, including law enforcement agencies of municipal governments and public educational institutions, for training, prevention, enforcement, and prosecution of intellectual property theft and infringement crimes. (S.3325 Sec. 401(b).)

So there it is.  Our tax dollars are still hard at work to "protect" the mass media companies from theft.  A grant program that used to protect the security of our identities and the sanctity of our on-line information, now panders to the iniquitous MPAA/RIAA (or as one blogger called them, the MAFIAA).

Something's Missing Here

The first of the US Presidential Debates was held this weekend.  The debate's focus was "national security and foreign policy," which Jim Lehrer said included "global finance."  But what about the global IP issues?

Now, I didn't actually get to watch the debates.  I'm on the other side of the planet and my internet connection is too weak to support CNN's live stream.  It's possible that IP was touched on during the debates and just not mentioned by any of the internet sources I read, but I doubt it.

Why is IP a Foreign Policy Issue?
Perhaps the state of the economy has made topics like IP development look like non-issues, but one doesn't have to look far to see that America's position on IP is critical to the its future relations with foreign countries.  Each week, IP Think Thank posts a list of the top intellectual property news from around the world.  The length of this week's Global Week in Review General Edition shows that there is a lot happening.  A lot in which America is involved in policy decisions and sculpting the direction of IP.

Most notable in relation to foreign policy are the WIPO meetings, which include the WIPO General Assembly, the IP-5 (Patent Offices of US, Japan, Europe, Korea and China) meeting on harmonizing patent procedures, and a variety of committee meetings spanning issues in every topic of IP.  There's also the matter of the US Special 301 Report, which effects the US's trade policies.  This Report is directly related to trade sanctions placed on foreign countries.  Some claim these sanctions violate America's duties under other treaties and force other countries to change their domestic laws for the benefit of American special interest groups.  (See IP Justice.)

In addition to issues in which the government is already directly involved, there are organizations in America and other countries pushing for global reform of intellectual property laws.    An intellectual property expert group in Canada recently delivered a report on the bio-tech industry that encourages loosing of patents in relation to medicines.  Australia's innovation review urges changes in the requirements for issuing patents, dramatic adjustments the court process for infringement cases, and the opening up of the flow of information in society.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation is involved in a lawsuit demanding public access to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations draft work.  ccInternational, a division of Creative Commons, is working to introduce creative commons license options to jurisdictions around the world.  These reforms have direct implications for every segment of American society.  There are also private organizations and lobby groups pushing for tighter IP laws.

So if the candidates were to debate IP issues, what should the people know?  Here's a few things:

• WIPO's IGC committee has been discussing protection of Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Cultural Expressions, Expressions of Folklore and Genetic Resources for almost a decade.  Developing countries are pushing for strong protection in these areas.  What should America's position be on a treaty extending global rights to Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Expressions of Culture?
• The domestic IP policies of many countries depends on their placement on the Special 301 Report.  The President has the ability to unilaterally impose trade sanctions on countries he feels provide inadequate protection for US IP.  How will you use this ability?
• The five largest patent offices in the world are engaging in a series of meetings to reform their patent systems.  Additionally, Senator Jon Kyl recently introduced a patent reform bill in Congress.  (See Patent Docs for a report on the new bill.)  
• Non-profit organizations such as EFF and Creative Commons urge for changes to intellectual property laws that will create a freer flow of information.  While at the same time groups like the RIAA and other Hollywood representatives are pushing for stricter laws protecting intellectual property.  Do you think changes are appropriate?  If so, what kinds of changes would you encourage?