Israel rebukes US: Our copyright laws are fine, thanks

By Nate Anderson

Israel wants the US government to know that it won't implement laws banning the circumvention of DRM and it won't rewrite its ISP safe harbor rules; furthermore, neither of these issues should have any effect on trade relations between the two countries.

The Israeli filing (PDF) made to the US Trade Representative comes a month after the International Intellectual Property Alliance called out numerous countries around the world for not living up to the IIPA's vision of the ideal copyright enforcement regime. Canada came in for a thorough trouncing, and Israel was also subject to criticism that it wasn't doing enough on copyright.

The IIPA's comments were made as part of its "Special 301" report to the US Trade Representative. Private groups like the IIPA submit reports to the US government, which eventually decides whether to place other countries on watch lists or apply trade penalties. Israel has no intention of remaining on its current watch list, and the filing has an irritated tone to it.

The reason for the irritation is that Israel thinks it has done plenty to help copyright owners. In 2007, it overhauled its copyright law, increasing the maximum statutory damages that can be collected for infringement five-fold. In addition, Israel added a "making available" right and clarified that a copyright owners' right of reproduction includes even temporary copies.

But the IIPA wanted more. Specifically, it wanted to see rules surrounding DRM and a safe harbor law that is friendlier to content owners. As Israel points out, though, it is not a signatory to the two WIPO treaties that mention DRM, and it notes that even content owners have different approaches to the issue.

"The critiques and criticism of TPM [technological protection measures] both from business model perspectives and from copyright perspectives are almost endless," says the Israeli response. "Indeed, some content providers are already experimenting with nonencrypted access to content. Hence, the question of whether and in what manner to implement TPM is not straightforward and politically volatile."

When it comes to ISP safe harbors, Israel has a notice and takedown system that lets copyright owners notify an ISP regarding infringing material on its servers. In such cases, the user hosting the material has three days to respond to the charge; if no response is received, the material comes down. The IIPA wants a system more like the DMCA where just filing a takedown notice is enough to have material removed (in the US system, a counternotice can be filed by the host to have the material put back up).

Israel objects that it is under no obligation to implement such a system, and notes that it chose the current arrangement for a reason. "A 'takedown' system which operates on the basis of a mere allegation of infringement would be an invitation to censorship and abuse of process," it says in the filing. "It is not the role of the ISP or Host to become a policeman of content. Requiring such would effectively bring the Internet to a halt."

Despite the "usual inaccuracies and hyperbole," Israel does welcome one recommendation from the IIPA report: bumping Israel from the Priority Watch List to the Watch List.