Rights in intellectual property under international treaties may be substantially equivalent to rights of privacy. Privacy and intellectual property ownership and “sanctity” are kindred rights.
The Berne Convention.
Signatories to the Berne convention (which include most of the world’s countries) are required to honor the copyright rights of foreign nationals from member countries. Many of the recent changes in the Copyright law have been to bring U.S. law into conformity with the Berne Convention. The Europeans view copyright as springing from a personal property right rather than an incentive to authors to disseminate works, so the Berne Convention reflects a view that is much more favorable to authors than the traditional U.S. market-oriented view.
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS).
Under the TRIPS agreement, all WTO member nations must establish legislation and enforcement mechanisms to prevent piracy of software, entertainment and other intellectual property products.
European Union Copyright Law.
The new directive, approved by the EU parliament in February 2001, gives copyright owners the right to use advance technology, such as encryption, to block illicit copying of works protected by copyrights and to limit the illegal downloading of audio and video files from the Internet.
European Parliament and Council Directive on the Legal Protection of Databases.
The EU’s Database Directive protects information in databases from unauthorized copying under certain conditions. This is not expressly a “privacy” right in the data, but the equivalent of a right to prevent unauthorized copying and dissemination.