Volume 6 Issue 2

Some Implications of the US Working Group's Report on Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure

Mark Davison*

The Final Report of the United States Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights entitled 'Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure' was released on the 5th September, 1995. If its recommendations are accepted by the US government, the Report will have a very significant impact on not only US copyright law, but copyright law throughout the world.

This article summarises and explains the Report's recommendations. It goes on to comment on the potential effects of those recommendations. In doing so, it also notes some of the underlying assumptions of the Report and issues which the Report has either deliberately or unwittingly ignored. It concludes that the report has, to a large extent, responded to the perceived needs of copyright owners but paid little attention to the needs of copyright users.