WikiLeaks Just Published Part Of A Massive Free-Trade Treaty That's Under Negotiation
U.S. Congressional Research Service
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) involves a 12-nation regional trade bloc that accounts for almost 40% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and about one-third of all world trade. The U.S. is leading negotiations and expects them to be finished this year.
WikiLeaks published a draft, dated Aug. 30, that it says is the intellectual property rights chapter of the proposed pact that was debated in the 19th negotiating round.
Intellectual property law expert Matthew Rimmer told the Sydney Morning Herald that the leaked draft favored U.S. trade objectives and multinational corporate interests "with little focus on the rights and interests of consumers, let alone broader community interests."
Dr. Rimmer continued:
"One could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations, and the copyright parts of the text support such a view. Hollywood, the music industry, big IT companies such as Microsoft and the pharmaceutical sector would all be very happy with this."
Internet freedom advocates consider the TTP to be the biggest threat to the global web in years.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes the TTP as "a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement."
Daniel Drezner of Foreign Policy notes that there are several inaccuracies in the WikiLeaks press release, but also says that the "organization actually makes a decent point to make on the intellectual property front."
WikiLeaks
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a proposed U.S. law that would have allowed the government to create a "blacklist" of copyright-infringing websites that could be blocked. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a stalled pact that would greatly increase the power of international bodies to enforce copyright laws.
"If instituted, the TPP's IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons," according to WikiLeaks' Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange.
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