The Bahamas has once again retained its position among 34 trading partners of the United States that warrant bilateral attention because of weak regimes to protect intellectual property rights.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative has published its 2006 special copyright report in which it names The Bahamas on a lower level Special Watch List, downgraded from the Priority Watch List several years prior.
What continues to concern the US Government is the failure of the Government of The Bahamas to implement an amendment to the Copyright Act, which was enacted in 2004. The amendment would narrow the scope of the compulsory licensing regime for the reception and transmission of copyright works broadcast free over the air.
Cable Bahamas would be primarily affected by the proposed change and has raised some objections.
“In the absence of such implementation, the compulsory licensing plan contains provisions that allow Bahamian cable operators to retransmit any copyrighted television programming, including for-pay programming, whether or not transmitted from the Bahamas or outside of the Bahamas and whether or not encrypted,” the report noted.
“Moreover, until existing regulations are changed, the remuneration system for copyrighted works under the compulsory licensing program includes less than fair market value rates for hotels and other commercial enterprises,” it added.
In its last report, the USTR acknowledged that the copyright amendment reflected a positive step towards compliance with commitments made under an agreement it reached with the U.S.
This year, the U.S. Government is urging “all interested parties, including U.S. cable operators and copyrights holders, to seek commercial solutions that would facilitate the legal transmission of cable programming by cable operators in the Bahamas.”
Last month, the Bahamas Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell and his regional counterparts met with the US Trade Representative but on matters that were of priority concern for the Caribbean region as a whole.
But Minister Mitchell told the Bahama Journal yesterday that the matter of copyright did not arise as it is a bilateral matter between The Bahamas and the U.S.
He did however mention that the government is committed to bringing the amendment into effect, but acknowledged the difficulty that has arisen because of the worries that the operators of Cable Bahamas have expressed.
Under that agreement it signed with the U.S., The Bahamas committed to conform its cable compulsory license to international norms.
The compulsory license would allow Bahamian cable operators – in this case Cable Bahamas – to retransmit premium cable television programming in the absence of agreements with those cable companies.
Cable Bahamas had argued that the cable operators refused to enter into agreements with them to transmit certain English language programmes because The Bahamas was viewed as being a part of the Latin American market.
The Minister responsible for the matter Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson has said that she wants the US to honour its side of the bilateral agreement.
“We hope that the USTR would be able to facilitate our effort to cause the USTR and the other specific parties, the IIPA and the Motion Pictures Association of America to honour its side of the agreement by causing the cable service providers to have premium service provided to The Bahamas,” she said in an earlier Journal interview.
The new copyright report is an evaluation of the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection provided by trading partners of the U.S. around the world.
The report identifies governments who need to take stronger actions to combat piracy and counterfeiting, for example, by cracking down on illegal optical disc production and Internet piracy, or stepping up border enforcement against trade in fake goods. Concerns regarding China and Russia feature prominently throughout the report.
“As one of the world’s leading innovators, the United States places significant emphasis on intellectual property protection and enforcement,” said U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman. “Safeguarding our creations and innovations is a key element of our trade competitiveness, but it is also in the interest of our trading partners to strengthen their IPR regimes.”
“This report acknowledges the positive steps that several of our trading partners have taken to strengthen IPR protection over the past year,” continued Portman. “However, more needs to be done. Our review reveals a continuing need for improvements, particularly with the implementation of effective protection and enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting.”
This year’s Special 301 Report places 48 countries on the Priority Watch List (PWL), Watch List (WL) or the Section 306 monitoring list.
Countries on the Priority Watch List do not provide an adequate level of IPR protection or enforcement, or market access for persons relying on intellectual property protection. In addition to China and Russia, eleven countries are placed on the PWL in this year’s report are: Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
Thirty-four trading partners are placed on the lower level Watch List, meriting bilateral attention to address the underlying IPR problems.
The Watch List countries are the Bahamas, Belarus, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, European Union, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
By: Tameka Lundy, The Bahama Journal
