Differences in prominent US and EU treaties concerning liability for service providers
Infojustice | March 21, 2013
Differences in prominent US and EU treaties concerning liability for service providers
by Matthew Webb
In this year’s State of the Union Address, President Obama announced talks for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union. This agreement will likely include provisions on intellectual property (IP), which are often controversial. If IP provisions are included, they will likely reflect language in existing treaties. Below is a comparison of language between two of the most substantive and recent free trade agreements (FTAs) adopted by the US and the EU for one controversial area of IP: liability for internet service providers (ISP) for infringing content.
For both the EU and the US, I have used FTAs with South Korea. The EU-South Korea FTA, “EU treaty,” is the only current EU treaty with provisions on ISP liability. ISP liability provisions are much more common in US FTAs, but the Korea-US FTA (KORUS), “US treaty,” remains one of the most substantive and recent FTAs on the issue.
Read more at http://infojustice.org/archives/29093
