United States' "Free Trade" Laws Carry Our Copyright Virus

James Surowiecki of the New Yorker points out that U.S. free trade agreements demand that the countries we do business with adopt aspects of our copyright laws, and explains why that could be against the best interest of the citizens of these countries:

"Our recent free-trade agreement with South Korea is a good example.
Most of the deal is concerned with lowering tariffs, opening markets tocompetition, and the like, but an important chunk has nothing to dowith free trade at all. Instead, it requires South Korea to rewrite itsrules on intellectual property, or I.P. -- the rules that deal withpatents, copyright, and so on. South Korea will now have to adopt theU.S. and E.U. definition of copyright -- extending it to seventy yearsafter the death of the author. South Korea will also have to change itsrules on patents, and may have to change its national-health-carepolicy of reimbursing patients only for certain drugs. All thesechanges will give current patent and copyright holders strongerprotection for longer."

He concludes,

"The great irony is that the U.S. economy in its early years was builtin large part on a lax attitude toward intellectual-property rights andenforcement. As the historian Doron Ben-Atar shows in his book 'TradeSecrets,' the Founders believed that a strict attitude toward patentsand copyright would limit domestic innovation and make it harder forthe U.S. to expand its industrial base. American law did not protectthe rights of foreign inventors or writers, and Secretary of theTreasury Alexander Hamilton, in his famous 'Report on Manufactures,' of1791, actively advocated the theft of technology and the luring ofskilled workers from foreign countries. Among the beneficiaries of thiswas the American textile industry, which flourished thanks to piratedtechnology. Free-trade agreements that export our own restrictive I.P.
laws may make the world safe for Pfizer, Microsoft, and Disney, butthey don't deserve the name free trade."

Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) told me he traveled the world telling world leaders they shouldthink twice before adopting U.S. copyright law as-is. But in every case, RIAA and/or other record label representativeshad already met with these foreign officials to encourage them to adopt versions of U.S. copyrightlaw. These officials were under the impression that music industry repswere representatives of the U.S. government, and they told Boucher things like "but we've already met with you!" when he tried to set up meetings.

From an RIAA point of view, it makes sense to lobby for U.S. copyright law to become the international standard, because on U.S. soil, the organization only currently sues people for selling or sharing copyrighted content, not for downloading it (suing for downloading would be more complicated from a technical standpoint, and result in lesser penalties from a legal one). With demand unchecked, overseas sources could easily continue to supply P2P users stateside, even if the RIAA somehow managed to shut down every domestic uploader.

With so many dissatisfied with copyright law in this country, it's a shame other countries are being forced to adopt it.