ANNEX N:

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

SUMMARY

The trade agreement should include the ground breaking provisions on digital products contained

in the US Singapore FTA. The agreement should secure trade liberalizing provisions that

address electronic commerce issues affecting goods, services, and intellectual property as well as

binding principles that support the maintenance of open markets for electronic commerce.

The agreement should ensure maximum liberalization in those services that:

constitute the infrastructure of the Internet: basic telecommunications, value added

services (on a technology neutral basis, including wireline, wireless, cable and satellite),

computer and related services, and electronic naming and authentication services;

facilitate e commerce, e.g. financial (including online payments), distribution,

advertising, and express delivery services;

are traded electronically, e.g. accounting and educational services.

The agreement should provide binding principles with commitments to:

avoid the creation of any unnecessary barriers to e commerce;

provide products delivered electronically no less favorable treatment than that for similar

products delivered in physical form;

ensure where regulations are necessary, they are as least trade restrictive as possible; and

ensure that firms are not restricted from using advanced technologies (hardware,

software, technical data or know how) in the conduct of their business.

With respect to intellectual property, the agreement should:

provide maximum liberalization of the distribution of intellectual property based content

including software and audiovisual products;

adopt and ensure full compliance with existing international intellectual property accords,

including the WIPO digital treaties, and

provide effective and timely implementation and enforcement of TRIPS;

provide copyright term extension,

provide TRIPS plus levels of commitments for IP protections with limitations on liability

for Internet service providers as regards copyright protection;

provide additional higher level commitments consistent with the WIPO digital treaties

including anticircumvention measures.

The agreement should ensure that customs valuation for digitized products delivered on a

physical medium is based solely upon the valuation of the carrier medium.

The agreement should also require participation in the Information Technology Agreement

(ITA), which lowers the tariffs on inputs used to build networks and devices required to access

these networks for electronic commerce.

The following documents describe CSI recommendations and objectives for US trade negotiators

in e commerce and multimedia.

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