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IP Provisions in 'New NAFTA' Agreement
First it was Mexico that agreed to a new trade accord with the United States. Less than one week later, Canada joined the agreement as well. With that, the stage was set for the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to end and the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) to take its place.
Canada's agreement to the USMCA should come as no surprise, as the Office of U.S. Trade Representative reports that, in 2017, goods imported into the United States from Canada totaled $299.3 billion. With such a high reliance on the U.S. market, Canada was under tremendous pressure to “strike a deal.” The USMCA terminates after 16 years, but every six years the signatories can agree to a 16-year extension.
Among the provisions of note for the entertainment industry, copyright will receive a boost from the USMCA. The current term of a copyright in the United States is the life of the author plus 70 years. For a work made for hire, the duration is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. The term of a copyright in Canada expired 50 years after the death of the creator. The USMCA requires that copyright protection shall be “not less than the life of the author and 70 years from the author's death.” Canada will therefore need to change their national copyright laws to comply with this USMCA provision.
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