CIPPIC has joined international copyright law experts calling for NAFTA and other trade negotiators to support a set of balanced copyright principles. In "The Washington Principles on Copyright Balance in Trade Agreements", the experts urge trade negotiators to support policies like fair dealing, safe harbor provisions, and other exceptions and limitations that permit and encourage access to knowledge, flourishing creativity, and innovation.

Signers lay out the following copyright principles to ensure consumers’ digital rights:

  • Protect and promote copyright balance, including fair dealing
  • Provide technology-enabling exceptions, such as for search engines and text- and data-mining
  • Require safe harbor provisions to protect online platforms from users’ infringement
  • Ensure legitimate exceptions for anti-circumvention, such as documentary filmmaking, cybersecurity research, and allowing assistive reading technologies for the blind
  • Adhere to existing multilateral commitments on copyright term
  • Guarantee proportionality and due process in copyright enforcement

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