International Intellectual Property Alliance® (IIPA®)

The U.S. copyright-based industries are one of the strongest and most dynamic sectors of the U.S. economy.  The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) is a private sector coalition, formed in 1984, of trade associations representing U.S. copyright-based industries working to improve international protection and enforcement of copyrighted materials and open up foreign markets closed by piracy and other market access barriers.

Members of the IIPA include:

• Association of American Publishers (AAP);
• Entertainment Software Association (ESA);
• Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA);
• Motion Picture Association (MPA); and
• Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Collectively, IIPA’s five member associations represent over 3,200 U.S. companies producing and distributing materials protected by copyright laws throughout the world. These include:

• video games for consoles, handheld devices, personal computers and online;
• motion pictures, television programming, DVDs and home video and digital representations of audiovisual works;
• music, records, CDs and audiocassettes; and
• fiction and non-fiction books, education instructional and assessment materials, and professional and scholarly journals, databases and software in all formats.

Inexpensive and accessible reproduction and transmission technologies make it easy for copyrighted materials to be pirated in other countries.  As technology rapidly changes, IIPA and its member associations work to ensure that high levels of copyright protection and effective enforcement become a central component in the legal framework for the growth of global electronic commerce.  Working with U.S. government, foreign government, and local rights holder representatives analyzing copyright laws and enforcement regimes in countries around the globe, IIPA and its member associations seek improvements that will foster economic, technological, and cultural developments in these counties that will deter piracy and improve market access.  These changes in turn encourage local investment, creativity, innovation and employment.  Strong protection and enforcement, both in law and in practice, against the theft of intellectual property, are essential for achieving the full economic and social potential of global e-commerce.

EXAMPLES OF WHAT WE DO:

• Special 301 Review: IIPA submits an annual report to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and other U.S. Government agencies in the U.S. Government’s annual “Special 301” review on whether acts, policies or practices of any foreign country deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access for U.S. persons relying on intellectual property protection.
• Legal Reform Efforts: IIPA continues to play a principal role within the private sector in seeking to obtain key legislative changes to provide an adequate legal framework to deal with the evolving threats of piracy and unlicensed uses, including on the Internet, through mobile networks, in cinemas, in businesses and by governments themselves. Legal reform efforts also seek to open markets closed due to market access or other restrictive barriers to trade in copyright materials.
• Seeking Enforcement Reforms: IIPA advocates for strong, effective, and deterrent enforcement mechanisms to rise to the new challenges posed by piracy today. These include: dedicating enforcement resources commensurate with the scale of the piracy problem to provide for “effective action” and “remedies that constitute a deterrent” to infringement as the minimum required by the TRIPS Agreement, the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), through civil, administrative, and criminal action, and effective adjudication in the courts; training and empowering enforcement authorities to investigate and prosecute copyright offenses; investigating links between piracy and organized crime; issuing directives to government agencies, entities, contractors, and educational institutions to use only legal software, books, and other copyright materials, and to ensure that their networks or computers are not used for infringing purposes; encouraging cooperation by intermediaries (including Internet Service Providers (ISPs)) with all content owners, including notice and takedown systems and effective and fair mechanisms to deal with repeat infringers, and outlawing the use of an audiovisual recording device to make or transmit a copy of a motion picture in a cinema.
• TRIPS Agreement and WIPO Internet Treaties: IIPA was the principal representative of the copyright industries in assisting the U.S. government in the WTO TRIPS negotiations and at the WIPO Diplomatic Conference leading to the completion of the two “Internet” Treaties (the WCT and WPPT) at WIPO in 1996. IIPA and its members have actively engaged in efforts to ensure full and prompt implementation and ratification of these two treaties.  IIPA is a non-governmental organization at WIPO.
• Economic Reports on the Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: Since 1990, Economists Inc. has issued reports for the IIPA detailing the contribution of the U.S. copyright-based industries to the U.S. GDP, U.S. jobs and salaries, and foreign sales/exports. The most recent report, Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: The 2022 Report, was released in December 2022.  The link between copyright protection and economic growth is well documented by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in its report, 2014 WIPO Studies on the Economic Contribution of the Copyright Industries: Overview, and the WIPO website now provides links to 49 country studies employing virtually the same agreed-upon methodology, see https://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/performance/.
• IPR in U.S. Free Trade Agreements: IIPA has supported the U.S. government on the negotiation of IPR provisions in many Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), including Australia, Bahrain, CAFTA-DR, Chile, Colombia, Jordan, Korea, Morocco, Oman, Panama, Peru,and Singapore. The most recent FTAs contain significant obligations on copyright protection and enforcement mechanisms. The FTAs reflect a growing global understanding of the importance of promoting creativity and innovation through stepped-up efforts to combat pervasive copyright piracy in global markets.

The above items are an illustrative, not exhaustive, list of the work IIPA does on behalf of its member associations.