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tion. Such legislation, if drafted with the intent to do so, could encourage the development of more effective and economical technological alternatives to current programs.

Support R&D.-Federal civilian agency support of R&D in educational technology has decreased substantially over the last decade. OTA found that, to make the most effective use of technology, there was a need for R&D in learning strategies and cognitive development, methods for the production of effective and economical curricular software, and the long-term psychological and cognitive impacts of technology-based education. Congress could consider policies to: 1) directly support R&D in these areas, 2) encourage private sector investment from both foundations and industry, or 3) encourage a combination of both by using Federal funding to leverage private investment.

• Elimination of Unintended Regulatory Barriers.-Some legislation and regulation not specifically directed at education may create barriers to the effective application of educational technology. Telecommunication regulation, for example, can affect the cost of technology, access to communication channels, and the institutional structure of education providers.

Moreover, protection of intellectual property, principally copyright law, was identified as a major determinant of the willingness of industry to invest in educational software. The current state of the law was seen by many industry experts as inadequate and, hence, as creating a barrier to the development of novel and innovative software. However, to the extent that such a barrier does exist, it is not clear whether its removal lies in new legislation or in the gradual development of legal precedent in the courts.

NOTE: Copies of the full report "Informational Technology and Its Impact on American Education," can be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, GPO stock No. 052-003-00888-2.

General Information

Information on the operation of OTA, the nature and status of ongoing assessments, or a list of available publications may be obtained by writing or calling:

Office of Congressional and Public Communications
Office of Technology Assessment

U.S. Congress

Washington, D.C. 20510

(202) 226-2115

Publications Available

OTA Annual Report.-Details OTA's activities and summarizes reports published during the preceding year.

List of Publications.—Catalogs by subject area all of OTA's published reports with instructions on how to order them.

Press Releases.-Announces publication of reports, staff appointments, and other newsworthy activities.

OTA Brochure.-"What OTA Is, What OTA Does, How OTA Works.”

Assessment Activities.-Contains brief descriptions of assessments presently under way and recently published reports.

Contacts Within OTA

(OTA offices are located at 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C.)

Office of the Director

224-3695

Office of Congressional and Public Communications

224-9241

Energy, Materials, and International Security Division..226-2253 Health and Life Sciences Division

.226-2260

Science, Information, and Natural Resources Division ...226-2253 Administration Office..

224-8712

Personnel Office

224-8713

Publications.

224-8996

380.

APPENDIX III
ARTICLES

[Copyright Society of the United States (1980), reprinted with permission]
(from 28 Bull. Copy. Soc'y 351 (1980-81))

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT IN THE 1980s-The
Eighteenth Annual Jean Geiringer Memorial Lecture*

By STEPHEN STEWART**

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for inviting me to deliver this memorial lecture. I consider it a great honour firstly because of the distinguished audiences attending these lectures; secondly because your lecturers have included such eminent jurists as Professor Bodenhausen and Professor Ulmer, such great practitioners of copyright as Erich Schulze and Jean-Loup Tournier, such great public servants as Elisabeth Steup and William Wallace; and last but not least because of the great admiration I have always had for the achievements of Jean Geiringer.

When your former President invited me he asked me with typical generosity to suggest a topic. I chose International Copyright in the 1980s because I believe that the whole copyright system is approaching a crisis and that an analysis of the underlying causes of this crisis may help to overcome it. If I get it wrong there will bè many in this audience, and even more outside, to put me right. If, however, the attempt of an analysis fosters an informed debate on how to deal with the crisis the choice will have been justified and, I think, Jean Geiringer would have approved.

Consider that copyright, to be viable in the 1980s, has to be truly international and that international copyright as we understand it is of fairly recent vintage. There have been periods of great flowering of Western civilisation such as the Greek city state, the Roman Empire, the European Renaissance, during which copyright did not exist. There are still many countries today where copyright either hardly exists or where it does not effectively operate. Practical enforcement of international conventions, even in such vital matters as health or sea or air law, is

*This lecture was delivered in the Auditorium of New York University School of Law on November 17, 1980.

**Stephen Stewart is a member of the English Bar and a Queen's Counsel. He was from 1960-1979 Director General of IFPI (the International Federation of Producers of Phonograms and Videograms).

0010-8642/81/02/351 - 29/$2.00/0

352

Bulletin, Copyright Society of the U.S.A.

proving very difficult. Consider further that copyright deals with the theft of immaterial or intellectual property which is a concept much more difficult to grasp than ordinary theft and far less deep rooted in the public consciousness of what is right and what is wrong. It is on that public consciousness that all laws and particularly those with a criminal content are based. Convincing the general public even in the great democracies that copyright infringement is theft is a long and arduous process, scarcely begun. Consider finally that technological development in the last twenty-five years has probably been faster and more far reaching than in any previous period of our history. Legislators will have constantly to be persuaded to revise copyright legislation to catch up with technology, when they have been used to doing it only every fifty years and, according to their lights, have “more important things to do." Taking all of this into consideration, you may, before you leave this hall, agree with me that we are entering a crucial period in the development of international copyright. To describe it as a crisis is not alarmist; to treat it as such is merely prudent.

1. The Challenges of the 1960s and '70s

Before analysing the crisis of the 1980s and trying to see how it can be met, I would like to ask quite briefly what the challenges of the 1960s and 1970s have been. I would suggest that they were of three kinds, two of which have been largely met and one of which has not.

The first challenge to international copyright in the 1960s and 1970s was the fear that a totalitarian philosophy may negate the whole concept of intellectual property on the grounds that all creative people should find their fulfilment in dedicating their work to the community represented by the state. The state, in return, will look after the artists' material needs. Therefore, in totalitarian countries, individual rights are unnecessary and may be positively harmful. As countries with that sort of philosophy became more common it was feared that the philosophy might spread to other still uncommitted countries and destroy the whole concept of copyright as a private and individual right. Or, it was feared, it would at least gradually reduce the international level of protection.

The U.S.S.R., which was regarded as the original exponent of this philosophy, did not press the attack. And, although the Russian system differs in several material aspects from the patent and copyright systems of the Western countries, the U.S.S.R. has in the 1960s and 1970s joined both the Paris Union and the Universal Copyright Convention. The Russians struck a hard bargain. Since they joined the UCC in its original form and since their ratification was not retrospective, they became entitled to use the whole of the then-existing foreign repertoire without remuneration.

Stewart. International Copyright in the 80's.

353

What matters most, however, is that the VAAP, the state-owned monopoly society in the Soviet Union, is building up a network of agreements with foreign collecting societies which are based on copyright principles. These agreements are being meticulously honoured. The fact that the countries of COMECON, with whom the Soviet Union has close trading ties, have old, established and rather sophisticated copyright laws and that these countries were early members of the international conventions has, no doubt, also played a part.

Recent developments in the other major community power, the People's Republic of China, also suggest that the new government of China is not averse to recognising intellectual property rights. Bilateral agreements may be the first step to bringing China into the international copyright community. The day when it may join one of the international conventions is not as far away as it seemed until quite recently.

The second challenge to international copyright in the 1960s and 1970s came from the developing countries. This challenge was not based so much on ideological grounds. It was based on the practical proposition that the developing countries needed and welcomed the intellectual property of the western world, but were too poor and certainly too short of hard currency to pay for it in the same way as developed countries did, and further they did not have any copyright material which could readily be offered in exchange. The implied challenge was that if the developing countries could not be accommodated, they might opt out of the international copyright system, at least for the time being. In this case, they would take what they needed without payment, saying that that was, in effect, what the two super-powers had done in the not too distant past.

An attempt to meet this challenge was made at the Stockholm Conference in 1967 and the Paris Revision Conference in 1971. A system of compulsory licences was developed, carefully structured to give mainly to the publishers of the western world an opportunity to meet the needs of developing countries before these compulsory licences come into effect. Although less than a decade is not long enough to judge, there are indications that workable, practical compromises are being found based on this system without actually having to resort to compulsory licences. The untiring efforts of WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, to assist the developing countries in practical ways, and the catalogue of available works established by UNESCO contributed to making a successful solution of these problems in the 1980s and 1990s a practical possibility.

The third challenge of the 1960s and 1970s-that posed by rapidly changing technology—has not yet been met. However, the problems posed have been well researched both nationally in several countries and internationally so that the areas where legislative action is necessary have

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