Page 156 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

146 Communication, Commerce and Power

extended benefits. The draft agreement also involved a national treat-
ment rule for value-added telecommunications and computer services.
This means that in these important sub-sectors, the legal and regu-
latory conditions for domestic firms must be applied to foreigners
also. However, the services draft agreement gave countries the option
to include or exclude particular sub-sectors from these national treat-
ment provisions. Canada, for example, refused to include its 'cultural
sector' in the agreement draft. 54 In the draft agreement's 'Annex on
Telecommunications,' however, the US gained the right of GATT
members to have full access to one another's public and private
telecommunication networks. 55
The Uruguay Round negotiations were completed at the end of
1993. Last moment resistance by France resulted in the formal but
temporary exclusion of an open market agreement being reached on
television and fllm products. While the Clinton administration was
berated by the MPAA and other US interests for this omission, the
more general provisions in the agreement on services, telecommunica-
tions and intellectual property, in conjunction with ongoing develop~
ments involving digital technologies and transnational
communications, will no doubt facilitate the rapid transnationaliza-
tion of all information-based commodity activities. Specifically, unlike
the apparent exclusion of so-called culture industries in the Canada-
US Free Trade Agreement (where, in the words of one commentator,
Canada gained 'the freedom of the mouse facing the snake, not daring
to move any more'), and in light of the ever-present US threat to
56
apply Section 301 retaliatory measures, the EC agreed only to apply
general GATS provisions to its audio-visual sector. Under the MFN
provision, for example, the EC listed some audio-visual sector activ-
ities under its allowed exemptions - exemptions valid for a maximum
of ten years. However, because a progressive liberalization of these
activities must begin before this decade-long exemption ends, the
Europeans have relatively little time to develop the capabilities of
the regional production and distribution needed to compete in a
digitalized, international, free-trade environment. 57
Through digitalized transmissions, the ability of officials of nation
states to make distinctions between the cross-border flow of a Holly-
wood fllm and a financial transaction is virtually erased. Whereas
information-based commodities produced outside of the European
Union and carried over European DBS systems, for instance, can
still face legal restrictions because of the temporary video services
exemption, it is the digitalized character of the signals which