Intellectual property a major asset in respect to American corporations maybe deemed valueless unless protected by international law. Such law has been the law of copyrights. Internationally this law is enforceable by the United Nations or by pressure from one country to another. What is the current state of affairs in the protection of rights for this intangible asset?

The Internet development has been a major problem in the communicating of material that is protected by copyright across international borders. Since the Internet is borderless and developing faster than copyright laws can be developed the laws for protection are falling behind. The Internet is in the boom period of its development. While international laws are very slow to be developed and accepted by nations.

Most previous articles on the international copyright can be divided down into two major categories. The first is about the problems with international copyright treaties, arrangements and conventions and the enforcing of international copyright protection. The second set of articles tends to be addressing the problems or issues caused by the digitalization of media and the advancements of technologies to mass distribute that media.

An international solution for copyrights has been needed for decades. Digital technology has accelerated this need in the reform and evolution of present law. Internationalization of copyrighted work is talked about but there has been no solution. The need to protect copyrights in the digital era is a constantly repeated theme. There is no single code across national borders, what does exist is a series of complex regulations with each country having its own set of copyright regulations and enforcement or non-enforcement. Most of the regulations are based on various sources that include treaties and multilateral copyright conventions. Many countries are not members of these treaties or conventions and some that are cannot or do not enforce domestic application of the conventions. The largest exporter of copyright goods is the United States of America. The United States of America (USA) has relied on a multitude of remedies to protect copyrights including international conventions, the GATT treaty, and the World Trade Organization. The USA government has in recent times threaten Thailand under the GATT treaty to enforce the copyright laws that it already had in place in that country.

The United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is charged with the responsibly for the support of copyright standards for digital media. The WIPO is a specialized agency having its headquarters in Geneva. The WIPO's General Assembly is a representative body having delegates from each of its 116 Member Nations. The General Assembly appoints the Director General, who presides over the International Bureau in Geneva The director general of the WIPO, Dr. Kamil Eltayed Idris, states that problems dealing with domestic and global unity and technological advancements in digital media have interfered with the development of copyright treaties. Idris has stated, "We need to have an alignment of the domestic and the global agendas. Many governments have good ideas when it comes to the enforcement and protection of intellectual-property rights, but we still need this kind of alignment. There's no point in having a global vision at WIPO and a conflicting vision at a national level. Our basic challenge is to have these two visions going in the same direction."

The primary obstacle to strengthening WIPO copyright treaties is resistance from technologically under-developed Member Nations. In the past the US government has been engaged with opposing developing-country initiatives to weaken existing international standards for copyright protection through the WIPO. Developed nations have expressed dissatisfaction with the protection provided by the WIPO

In European nations "collection societies," a powerful private-sector group created by law to impose levies on equipment that can be used to copy commercial products, have started the process of collecting on scanners, CD burners and the Internet. The fees raised are distributed to copyright holders as a means of compensation for the violation of copyrighted material.

Georgetown University’s Associate Professor of Law David Post said he believes copyright is in deep crisis and is unlikely to survive the digital age. "Copyright is an exclusive right to copy. When we're all connected to a gigantic copy machine [the Internet], that concept cannot survive," Post states. "We should prepare for a world where copyright is irrelevant-at least on-line."

Mark Radcliffe, a multimedia attorney in the California firm of Gray Cap/ Ware and Freidenrach, has stated that the current state of copyright law is uncertain, especially the international aspects.

If copyrights become unenforceable the protection of assets to publishers will become impossible and mass sums of assets will be written off of their balance sheets. One of the problems is the Internet is global and the copyrights are country by country. Many industrialized countries have similar rights and laws, but the remaining countries are very different to non-existent in their laws and enforcement. To protect them from this possibility they will have to abandon electronic distribution--or they will increase prices shorten the life expectances of this digital property. Will writers and artists make their works available for digital distribution, if it is unprotected. It is doubtful, without some degree of protection.

Andrew Coyne, a writer for the World Press Review, states that, "In the dimensionless world of cyberspace, everyone is a potential broadcaster, publisher-or pirate. If free copies of electronically published works are widely available, why would anyone pay for the original? If no one pays for these new media creations, who pays their creators? What incentive is there for anyone to produce such a work if it ends up as the swag of some unseen information highwayman?"

Susan Pia, the deputy director of international trade relations, of the Association of American Publishers stated the association's strategy is to "go after the big players, the sharks," who are involved in piracy efforts around the world. Pia noted that digital technology especially print-on-demand technology, was posing problems for the AAP, because it is very difficult to determine between legitimate and pirated POD products.

The need to secure for writers, composers and performers a financial return for the value of their discoveries or works goes back for centuries. In 1710 the British parliament enacted the Statute of Anne to foil booksellers from continuing to exercise their control over the printed works. In 1791 the French patent law was established "to assure the inventor the property and temporary enjoyment of his discovery" for a period of 5, 10 or 15 years.

It is difficult or impossible for a nation’s law to keep pace with the speed with which new technologies are having an impact on, say, the delivery and consumption of digital technology.

Electronic copies of material that are intellectual assets such as movies, music and video, as well as publishing and computer software make the owners of such concerned bout their safety when it is distributed beyond the boundaries of their home country. The Internet has no national boundaries so material published on the Internet can only be protected by international copyright laws which are very sketchy as best. If a violation takes place then it is up to the country in which the violation takes place to enforce the violation. If a company in the United States down loaded a photo copyrighted from Russia from the web how would enforcement take place? The Russian authorities would have to seek assistance from the United States authorities a process that can take a long time and require a great deal of money of time. At the present time just such a problem is taking place and the United States and China are enmeshed in a succession of disputes over that issue.

The Chinese government is accused by U.S. intellectual property owners of not recognizing a blatant, commercialized piracy of everything from music CDs and videos to computer software. The Chinese government denies such participation and it's difficult to get assistance from Beijing.

Digitalization of material whether it be photo, computer software, movies, music or any other item, once was very difficult to copy, but now it is commonplace with very little effort or money. The copies use to be easily recognizable, but today they cannot be recognized even with a trained eye.

Today, when we open up a web page that has a picture on it that is copied to cache in your computer this is a violation of the new copyright laws. The delegates to the WIPO conference could not tell the difference between copying in order to steal someone's property and the copying that necessarily takes place to run software or browse the Web. The new agreement just signed into law could be a disaster in the making rendering them ineffectual from the start. The poorly worded treaty will be ignored or will be unenforceable. If these treaties are unenforceable then the owners of intellectual property will not get the relief that they seek.

Piracy is rampant on the Internet. Presently eBay has rules for piracy but they are difficult to enforce. The company that eBay has recently purchased, Paypal is now dealing in euros and dollars and the money can be electronically placed in you account and cashed in to any bank that Paypal can talk to will acerbate the problem. Electronic commerce will continue while lawyers try to figure out how to make an unworkable law work. Many international library groups argue that they should be able to use digital version of printed material like they used printed versions in the past. Digital is not equal to non-digital. The digital is easily stolen and can be distributed to multiple parties in very short response time.

In the past a number of copyright conventions or treaties have been established. International copyright conventions were instituted to safeguard the interests of copyright holders whose creative works enter into the international stream of commerce The most important of these are the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC created 1952 in Geneva and revised Paris 1971), the Berne Convention (Berne), and the Rome Convention. The UCC, administered by UNESCO, provides an alternative copyright treaty for non-members of Berne. At one point the UCC was the primary convention controlling international copyright for the US, Soviet Union and China. While the UCC minimum standards of protection are lower than those of Berne. Since the US and the former Soviet Union have acceded to Berne, it has taken pre-eminence over the UCC as a basis for international copyright regulation. The other two conventions Berne (1886) and the Rome Convention (1961) are both under the control of the WIPO. In December 1996 two Internet-related treaties were established they are the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). The problem is that while 50 nations has signed the treaties neither could take effect until they have been ratified by 30 nations.

The WIPO "Internet" treaties were adopted in December 1996. On December 6, 2001 the WCT was ratified by 30 nations and became effective March 6, 2002. On February 20, 2002, the WPPT was ratified and will enter into force on May 20, 2002. Entry into force could herald a new era in the protection of copyright and related rights on digital networks.

It must be noted that distribution printed or electronic copies of works to consumers for "personal" or "private" use is exactly the business that publishers and authors wish to do. Electronic lending is then a violation of the author or owner’s intent. A digitalized version of a book or movie or song that can be distributed to anyone is clearly a violation of copyright protection. The owner will receive no compensation for the toils of his/her efforts. Electronic libraries whether on the Internet or in the building could be a unwilling accomplice of the violation of copyrights. How do we protect such lending when the simple right click of the mouse will allow such coping?

At the present time there is no "international copyrights" that will protect intellectual property throughout the world. To receive any assistance from the Berne Convention or the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), there are no requirements in the Berne Convention except to have the author's name on the work. Under the UCC, a copyright notice is required. This notice should consist of the copyright symbol "©" accompanied by the year of publication and the name of the copyright holder, for example: Copyright © 2001 Irwin corporation.

International considerations aside, other forces play momentous role in the formation of copyright law. Copyright law is captive to technological development. Just as movable type changed the copyright laws in England in the sixteenth century, and copyright legislation has tackled questions raised by the photocopier, satellite television, the home video recorder, digital audiotape, and computer software, so too copyright law is now driven by the need to address the digital environment of the Internet. How do we address browsing, linking, framing, downloading, web casting, or even forwarding of e-mail messages?

If we have an asset that is published to the Internet or could be published to the Internet by others beyond our control how do we protect our property? If we can’t protect our property, then is it still ours? If there is no protection then is the value not diminished? On financial statement can the asset be valued? Is the write off of the assets required by accounting rules? These authors believe so. What value does one place on an asset that can’t be protected? Is it an asset?

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