Retransmission and U. S. Compliance with TRIPs

Book excerpt: This book seeks to answer one central question: do the U.S. cable and satellite retransmission statutory licenses comply with the TRIPs minimum standard? As with all legal problems, the resolution of ambiguity provides the challenge and the interest. In this regard, by far the greatest ambiguity is created by the use of the term 'equitable renumeration' in the TRIPs retransmission norm. Resort will be had to not only the drafting history of the TRIPs incorporated Berne Convention article, but also to the discipline of economics and to the field of restitutionary monetary awards in common law countries, to seek to provide a meaning for that term. This book is unique in so far as it purports to undertake to provide an analysis whereby a TRIPs compliance issue is considered fully at a theoretical level in an attempt to provide an answer. In so doing, it is hoped that the analysis will provide a methodology for the consideration of the compliance of national laws with intellectual property treaty obligations, which is of use to anyone who may wish to consider such compliance issues in the future.