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Turkey: In the past year, Turkey made limited progress on fulfilling six benchmarks identified in the Special 301 process two years ago. The Copyright Law and the Cinema, Video and Music Works Law have not been amended to provide retroactive copyright protection and to include deterrent penalties against pirates. Despite stepped up law enforcement activity over the past year, in those cases where court verdicts have resulted in convictions, sentences involved only minimal penalties and no prison terms. As a result, enforcement of existing laws is ineffective and copyright piracy remains widespread. We commend the Turkish government's actions to ensure that pharmaceutical patent protection was implemented on January 1, 1999. We hope that a new project to create specialized courts to review copyright, patent and trademark infringements will move forward this year, enabling Turkish jurists to effectively apply existing laws. Turkey's intellectual property laws do not fully comply with its TRIPs obligations, which must be met by January 1, 2000. Until the government amends its laws and adequately addresses the copyright enforcement issue, Turkey's benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) will not be augmented.
Ukraine: Ukraine is being elevated to the Priority Watch List because copyright piracy is extensive, enforcement is minimal and pirate optical media producers have taken advantage of weaknesses in Ukraine's legislative and enforcement regime to produce and export large quantities of unauthorized CDs and CD-ROMs throughout the region and to other parts of the world. Significant levels of piracy of audiovisual works, computer programs and sound recordings are causing substantial losses to U.S. industry. Moreover, Ukraine does not grant protection to U.S. works created prior to 1973, does not protect U.S. sound recordings, and has not implemented adequate and effective penalties for commercial piracy despite its international treaty obligations and its obligations under the 1992 U.S.-Ukraine bilateral trade agreement. Ukraine still lacks both deterrent civil and criminal penalties for infringement of intellectual property, and the customs service lacks border authority over suspected infringing goods or pirated works. We look to Ukraine to bring its intellectual property laws into full compliance with its international obligations and our bilateral agreement, and into full compliance with TRIPS no later than the date of its accession to the WTO.
WATCH LIST
Australia: In general, Australia has provided sound intellectual property protection. However, the United States is seriously concerned with the minimalist approach Australia has taken toward intellectual property protection in recent years, especially with respect to certain decisions taken over the last year that clearly erode the level of copyright protection available in Australia. In 1998, Australia passed legislation to abolish the importation right for sound recordings over the strong objection of right holders, Australian recording artists, and the United States Government. Regrettably, Australia is also now considering abolishing the importation right for other copyrighted works including software, electronic games and gaming equipment. More recently, the Australian government has announced that it will introduce legislation that allows for software decompilation under certain conditions. Serious concerns have been expressed about the scope of this proposal and its potential to result in significant copyright infringement. The proposal should be amended to guard against that eventuality. Finally, in April 1998 Australia
