The U.S. and Russia signed a bilateral trade agreement necessary ...

multiple countries’ copyright industries, although it’s mentioned by name in the bilateral agreement. The countries unveiled an agreement in principle last week, but no specifics (WID Nov 14 p3). “We worked through many difficult issues and the agreement sets the stage for closer cooperation in many commercial areas,” USTR Susan Schwab said. Details from USTR’s fact sheet: (1) Russia will end or refuse new leases for optical disk factories on “restricted military-industrial sites,” inspect licensed plants “day and night” and shut down unlicensed plants, inspect warehouses for pirated goods, and take criminal actions against “commercial scale” pirates. Russia is “working to enact” strong optical disk regulation by June 1. ("Working to enact” is used often in the fact sheet.) (2) The countries agreed “on the objective” of shutting down infringing websites, and named AllofMP3.com as one. Russia will take enforcement actions against Russia-based sites and prosecute companies that infringe. It will also “work to enact” legislation by June to stop royalty collection by societies not authorized by rightsholders -- probably a reference to the Russian Multimedia & Internet Society (ROMS). AllofMP3 said it pays royalties to ROMS, but copyright industries have said it’s not authorized to collect them. Russia intends to carry out the World Intellectual Property Organization Internet treaties as well. (3) Russia will ask its Supreme Court to clarify penalties for intellectual property rights (IPR) crimes, taking into account the “high degree of public harm” from IPR crime and “the objective of preventing future crimes.” It will “significantly increase” export inspections and try to strengthen Customs officials’ authority “to take actions on their own initiative.” (4) Russia plans to fully follow through on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and other IPR pacts, and plans to amend laws concerning trademarks and remedies. Any legal changes made before WTO entry will “not reduce consistency with key international IPR standards.” (5) USTR and its Russian counterpart will set up a “hotline” to exchange and follow up on antipiracy efforts. Russia also said it had filed more criminal copyright and trademark infringement cases, and secured more copyright convictions, through Sept. than in all of 2005. “We believe that Russia is committed to more aggressive actions before the end of the year” on enforcement, USTR said. On matters besides IPR, Russia will open its telecom services market on a facilities and nonfacilities basis to foreign suppliers and let telecom companies operate though fully foreign owned. It has accepted a WTO telecom paper “establishing an independent regulator,” antitrust and transparency obligations, and interconnection requirements. It will also allow U.S. “audio-visual service suppliers” in sectors like motion picture distribution and the sale of TV and radio programs to stations, and they can operate as 100% foreign-owned.