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U.S. Ambassador to Canada: No Link Between Copyright and Buy American Laws

By Michael Geist

Last month, U.S. trade lobbyist Scotty Greenwood urged Canadians to enact U.S.-style copyright reforms, arguing that progress on that issue would result in movement on the "Buy American" provisions that have cropped up in the United States.  I pointed to a post from Blayne Haggart explaining why the link was false.  Now David Jacobson, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, has confirmed that there is no linkage.  Jacobson notes that while the U.S. will obviously continue to pressure Canada on copyright, there is no link between the two issues:

As for whether if only we could solve intellectual property rights, then Buy American would go away, I do not agree with that. They are two separate issues and stand on their own. We are very concerned about intellectual property laws in Canada. We don't think they are in the best interest of Canadians or Americans, but that is a separate issue that we have not linked.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).