Public Knowledge Criticizes New Trade Report
Public Knowledge Criticizes New Trade Report
Public Knowledge Criticizes New Trade Report

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    The U.S. Trade Representative today issued its annual Special 301 Report, which is an evaluation of countries’ intellectual property rights.  The report is here.

    The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

    “Once again, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has produced a report that mirrors the views of big media companies.  In judging the efforts of other countries to enforce intellectual property rights, USTR has failed to include any notion of balance in copyright law and failed to make public the statistics it used to support its pronouncements on the activities of other countries.

    “In most cases, the public has no idea why a country was put on a ‘watch list’ because of the vague nature of the descriptions of the activities of countries, and of the vague nature of the recommended remedies.

    “The American public deserves a more rigorous evaluation of such an important sector of the world economy.”

    Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.