Fifteen million U.S. jobs, $3.5 trillion total output and $379 billion in exports. That’s how much the consumer technology sector is worth to our nation right now – it’s a massive driver of America’s position as a world leader in innovation.
Will President Donald Trump and his economic team stand with this sector to conclude the North American Free Trade Agreement?
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer aims to wrap the historic renegotiation of NAFTA this month. A renegotiated NAFTA could be a tremendous boon to the U.S. and improve our competitiveness. But if we’re not careful, the new agreement could leave the tech sector out in the cold and weaken U.S. leadership in innovation.
America’s technology industry leads the world because we have made smart, forward-thinking decisions – decisions to maintain a balanced copyright system that protects artists and creators, while still allowing and promoting innovation. Two concepts in particular are critical for balance in our copyright laws: fair use and safe harbors.
Copyright “limitations and exceptions,” including fair use, are a core part of America’s free speech and innovation ecosystem. Fair use means content creators can use copyrighted material in new and transformative ways. It also protects a wide range of expression – from political campaign commercials to online music remixes to Fox News to the Daily Show.
In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled in the Sony Betamax case that Americans could record full-length broadcast copyrighted TV and movie content within the privacy of their home without being held liable for copyright infringement. This, the court said, was “fair use.” The decision paved the way for many new technologies, including ones we use today. For example, predecessor MP3 players allowed us to transfer our physical CD libraries onto a small device so that we can listen to music at any time. And today, over-the-top video streaming devices and services let us access entertainment in a variety of formats.
In 1998, Congress enacted copyright “safe harbors” in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to ensure Internet intermediaries such as Internet service providers, social networking sites, and open Wi-Fi networks are not held liable for the actions of their users. These “safe harbors” are the legal foundation of the Internet: Without them, online businesses would not be economically viable due to the potential of massive legal liability. And in 2012, Congress rejected the effort to curtail these rights and repudiated the SOPA/PIPA legislation.
The balance found through fair use and safe harbors has enabled an incredible diversity of technologies and services to bring us the information and entertainment we want, when we want it. And by making music, news, movies and TV more accessible and popular, these technologies are supporting jobs and revenues in traditionally copyright-intensive sectors in the entertainment industry.
Shockingly, we may be on the verge of turning our back on these critical decisions and leaving them out of the new NAFTA. Major record labels and movie studios are lobbying trade negotiators to omit from NAFTA the core parts of U.S. law that protect our online ecosystem. These industries believe they have found a crafty way to disadvantage online competitors and walk back U.S. laws through trade agreements. What they can’t get through Congress, they are trying to get through the backdoor of trade negotiations. The result would be devastating for the U.S. economy.
An erosion of these key Internet provisions could cost the U.S. 425,000 jobs and $44 billion in GDP every year. These protections are so important that venture capital investors, who create millions of new jobs, say the protections play more of a role in their investment decisions than the overall strength of a country’s economy.
Instead, Ambassador Lighthizer should insist Mexico adopt the full contours of the U.S. copyright system. This would ensure all U.S. stakeholders are well-protected in the NAFTA territories, while also enabling our companies to export the online innovation and expression that are core to U.S. law.
In the weeks to come, let’s hope our leadership will be able to craft a fair deal on NAFTA – one that maximizes the free flow of information, trade and ingenuity.
Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,200 consumer technology companies, and author of the New York Times best-selling books, Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses and The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream. Connect with him on Twitter: @GaryShapiro
