Eric J. Schwartz

International Intellectual Property Alliance

1818 N Street NW, 8th Floor

Washington, DC 20036

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ERIC J. SCHWARTZ serves as counsel to the International Intellectual Property Alliance® (IIPA®), a private sector coalition of seven U.S. trade associations which represent over 3,200 companies producing and distributing materials protected by copyright laws throughout the world, including: business applications software; entertainment software on all platforms; theatrical films, television programs, home videos, and digital representations of audiovisual works; music, records, CDs, and audiocassettes; and textbooks, tradebooks, reference and professional publications and journals (in both electronic and print media). For the IIPA, he works on copyright matters in Russia, Ukraine, and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Mr. Schwartz also is a partner in Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp LLP. He specializes in copyright, entertainment and information law, and counsels clients from the motion picture, recording, book publishing, music publishing, and software industries. He assists with traditional copyright and emerging electronic information and delivery issues, commercial transactions, domestic and international legal and policy matters, litigation strategy, and Copyright Office practices. He served as Acting General Counsel of the United States Copyright Office and a senior legal and policy advisor to the Register of Copyrights (1988-1994). At the Copyright Office, he was a principal participant in crafting copyright policy and drafting legislation including the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, and he served as Chair of the NAFTA Implementation Task Force. Mr. Schwartz was a principal negotiator of the copyright provisions in the US-USSR Trade Agreement of 1990, and in 1992, with the former Soviet republics, and on similar agreements with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. In addition, he provided legal and technical assistance to the drafters of the copyright laws in Russia, Poland, Mexico, China, Bulgaria and other countries. While at the Copyright Office he prepared a major review of the Office’s registration and recordation system (1992) and co-authored several important reports to Congress including a study on moral rights in the motion picture industry (1989). He is the Founding Director and a Board member of the National Film Preservation Foundation and, since 1988, has served as pro bono Counsel to the Library of Congress’ National Film Preservation Board. Mr. Schwartz was a staff member and later Assistant Counsel to the Committee on Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1988 for Hon. Joe Moakley, and served in the Office of Chief Deputy Whip of the House of Representatives for Hon. Dan Rostenkowski (1979).

Mr. Schwartz is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University (1979) and the American University Washington College of Law (1984). He is a member of the New York Bar and the District of Columbia Bar, a former trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA, and an Adjunct Professor of Copyright Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He is a frequent lecturer and author of the U.S. Copyright Law Chapter in the Geller & Nimmer Treatise “International Copyright Law and Practice,” as well as the author of numerous articles.

Email: ejs@msk.com