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government and
rights administration bodies
This page looks at government agencies and rights administration bodies.
global
Intellectual property is a patchwork of differing national laws and
administrative regimes. At the moment there is an uneasy coexistence
between two global bodies - WIPO and the WTO - with an interest in IP as
a commodity, engine of national culture and subject of international
agreements that seek to harmonise the threads in that patchwork.
The World Trade Organization (WTO),
described in the preceding part of this guide is an international governmental body (with
private sector representation) concerned with global trade agreements.
It has taken an increasing interest in
IP.
The World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO), headquartered among the gnomes and gold bars in
Geneva, deals with the Berne Convention and other specifically-IP
agreements, several of which date from last century. It is now an
agency of the United Nations, replete with lavish conferences, endless
drafts and proliferating committees or working parties. All in
all, a bureaucrat's heaven.
government
in Australia
Within Australia responsibility for copyright is
fought over by the
Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department (A-G's)
and the Department of
Communications, Information Technology & the Arts (DCITA).
The A-G's IP Branch produces the e-News
on Copyright newsletter - valuable for the government legal
perspective, weaker for its grasp of practice outside the bureaucracy.
The IP Branch in DCITA offers a number of information sheets - many alas
well beyond their shelf-life - on its page,
along with the more spritzy Copyrites newsletter.
Trademarks, patents, genome rights and designs are dealt with by the
confusingly-titled IP
Australia (the former Australian Industrial Property Office and
Patents & Trademarks Office). The IP Australia site provides a
useful introduction to intellectual property per se.
The Department of Foreign Affairs &
Trade (DFAT)
handles external relations aspects of the Australian intellectual
property regime, in particular dealings with the WTO.
The Copyright Law Review Committee (CLRC)
is a specialist legal body advising the Attorney-General. Now that IP is belatedly moving to
centre stage in government thinking about the information economy and
relations with superpowers such as the US, the CLRC is increasingly
competing with the economic rationalist mindset in bodies such as the
Department of the Treasury (DOT),
the Productivity Commission and the new Intellectual Property &
Competition Review Committee (IPCR).
government overseas
Overseas several government bodies are
useful sources of information.
In Canada we turn to the Canadian Intellectual Property
Office (CIPO), responsible for
patents, trademarks, copyright and industrial
designs.
In the US the Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has
set the policy agenda, leaving the US Copyright Office (Copyright),
an arm of the Library of Congress, with less clout and fewer
responsibilities.
In Europe the ECUP Copyright Focal
Point is an EC body serving as "the 'one-stop shop' for information on European
copyright developments", although it competes with the EU IPR
Helpdesk (Helpdesk).
The EC Legal Advisory Board (LAB)
has taken a particular interest in IP.
rights administration
Many uses of copyright in Australia are administered collectively by
non-profit non-government rights licensing bodies known as copyright
collecting societies. They represent the multitude of authors,
composers, artists, composers, publishers, film-makers and other
creators.
Some of the major Australian collecting societies are:
Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL)
- represents authors and publishers
Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd (APRA)
- represents composers, lyricists
and their publishers
Screenrights, the
AudioVisual Copyright Society Ltd - represents owners of copyright in
films and other audio-visual products.
Phonographic Performance Company of Australia Ltd (PPCA) and
Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners' Society Ltd (AMCOS)
- represent
record companies and music publishers.
Australian Screen Directors Authorship Collecting Society
(ASDACS) - a
new kid on the block. It collects, administers and distributes monies for film and television directors from certain rights to which they are entitled in countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and some other European countries.
Australian Writers Guild Authorship Collecting Society
(AWGACS) - recently been established
by the Australian Writers Guild to collect royalties for use of its
members' scripts
Visual Arts Copyright Collecting Agency (Viscopy) -
reprsents painters, sculptors and other graphic artists
The societies have reciprocal
relations with counterparts offshore, most of which are members of
CISAC and IFFRO.
They were the subject of a 1995 landmark
report,
the Review
of Australian Copyright Collecting Societies, for the Commonwealth
government by lawyer Shane
Simpson.
In 1998 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on
Legal & Constitutional Affairs released Don't Stop The Music!, the report
of its inquiry into music copyright
and small business, in particular the operation of APRA and the PPCA.
The government's response to
both reports was released in January 2001, essentially endorsing
the status quo.
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