will encourage trading partners implement the WIPO Internet Treaties, including by providing protection against the circumvention of technological protection measures. The United States also encourages trading partners to adopt appropriate measures where needed with respect to the unauthorized camcording of motion pictures in theaters. In addition, the United States will encourage trading partners to enhance enforcement efforts including, for example, through the following: strengthening enforcement against major channels of piracy over the Internet, including notorious markets; creating specialized enforcement units or undertaking special initiatives against piracy over the Internet; and undertaking training to strengthen capacity to fight piracy over the Internet.
Although piracy over the Internet is rapidly supplanting physical piracy in many markets around the world, the production of, and trade in, pirated optical discs remain major problems in many regions. In recent years, some trading partners, such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Russia, have made progress toward implementing controls on optical media production. Other trading partners still need to adopt and implement legislation or improve existing measures to combat illegal optical disc production and distribution, including China, India, Paraguay, Thailand, and Vietnam. The United States continues to urge its trading partners who face challenges of illegal optical disc production to pass effective legislation to counter this problem, and to enforce existing laws and regulations aggressively.
Trademarks and Domain Name Disputes
A growing area of concern for trademark holders is the protection of their trademarks against unauthorized uses under country code top level domain name (ccTLD) extensions. U.S. rights holders risk losing valuable Internet traffic because of such uses. A related and growing concern is that ccTLDs lack transparent and predictable uniform domain name dispute resolution policies (UDRPs). Effective UDRPs should assist in the quick and efficient resolution of these disputes. The United States encourages its trading partners to provide procedures that allow for the protection of trademarks used in domain names, and to ensure that dispute resolution procedures are available to effectively enforce against misuse of trademarks.
Government Use of Software
Under Executive Order 13103 issued in September 1998, U.S. Government agencies maintain procedures to ensure that they use only authorized business software. Pursuant to the same directive, USTR has undertaken an initiative to work with other governments, particularly in countries that are modernizing their software systems or where concerns have been raised, to stop governmental use of illegal software. Considerable progress has been made under this initiative, leading to numerous trading partners mandating that only authorized, legitimate software may be used by their government bodies. Further work on this issue remains with certain trading partners, such as China, Costa Rica, India, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. The United States looks forward to these trading partners' adoption of effective and transparent procedures to ensure legitimate governmental use of software.
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