Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Where Countries Oppose United States

There are twelve countries that have been involved in the ultra-secretive process of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Six hundred corporate advisors have been given access to the text of this so-called free trade agreement while the public has been deprived of reading what is being negotiated on behalf of corporations. But that secrecy has been undermined significantly now that the media organization, WikiLeaks, has obtained and published a drafted copy of the intellectual property chapter in the agreement.

It was obtained after a TPP meeting in Brunei in August, and it shows country’s positions on the proposed provisions of the agreement.

According to the draft, the United States has been the most extreme negotiator in the process. The other eleven countries involved— Australia, Brunei, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam—have each pushed back on some of the most aggressive proposals for enforcement of intellectual property rights laws. However, Australia and New Zealand have often been more than willing to support the draconian measures proposed by the US.

The US has proposed “that its judicial authorities have the authority to order the seizure or forfeiture of assets the value of which corresponds to that of the assets derived from, or obtained directly or indirectly through, the infringing activity.” New Zealand is the only other country that supports this section.

The US has also proposed that each country apply “criminal procedures and penalties,” even “absent willful trademark counterfeiting or copyright or related rights privacy, at least in cases of knowing trafficking in” the following:

labels or packaging, of any type or nature, to which a counterfeit trademark 238 has been applied, the use of which is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, or to deceive; and counterfeit or illicit labels239 affixed to, enclosing, or accompanying, or designed to be affixed to, enclose, or accompany the following:
a phonogram,
a copy of a computer program or a literary work,
a copy of a motion picture or other audiovisual work,
documentation or packaging for such items; and
counterfeit documentation or packaging for items of the type described in subparagraph (b).]

This is only supported by the US.

“In civil judicial proceedings concerning patent infringement,” the US would like countries to be able to have their “judicial authorities” increase any “damages to an amount that is up to three times the amount of the injury found or assessed.” All countries involved in the negotiate process oppose this section.

Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, and Singapore each would like to be able to “limit the liability of, or the availability of remedies against, internet service providers” for copyright infringement that takes place on their communication networks. Both the US and Australia are opposed to this provision.

All countries except the US, Australia and Singapore oppose an entire section proposing a procedure for notifying internet service providers of copyright infringement.

The US and Australia want all countries negotiating to “ratify or accede” to the following agreements once the TPP is in force:

Wikileaks publishes the "Internet Chapter" of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (SOPA's back)

Wikileaks has published the Internet Chapter of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade-deal negotiated between corporate leaders and government reps without any democratic oversight (the US Trade Rep wouldn't share TPP drafts with Congress, and now it is headed for fast-tracking into law). TorrentFreak has parsed out the text, and compares it to SOPA, the brutal US copyright law that collapsed in the face of massive public protest. The treaty is reportedly at a "negotiated stalemate" thanks to the US Trade Rep, who has refused to bend on treaty provisions that other nations objected to.

Many topics are covered in the chapter including DRM and other ‘technical measures’, extended copyright terms, increased penalties for infringement and ISP liability, the latter with a proposal for “adopting and reasonably implementing a policy that provides for termination in appropriate circumstances of the accounts of repeat infringers.”

Reception to the leaked agreement has so far been highly critical. Knowledge Ecology International notes that the TPP IPR chapter not only proposes the granting of more patents, expansion of rightsholder privileges and increased penalties for infringement, but also plans the creation of intellectual property rights on data.

“The TPP text shrinks the space for exceptions in all types of intellectual property rights. Negotiated in secret, the proposed text is bad for access to knowledge, bad for access to medicine, and profoundly bad for innovation,” KEI concludes.

Burcu Kilic, an intellectual property lawyer with Public Citizen, says that some of the proposals in the text evoke memories of the controversial SOPA legislation in the United States.

“The WikiLeaks text also features Hollywood and recording industry inspired proposals – think about the SOPA debacle – to limit Internet freedom and access to educational materials, to force Internet providers to act as copyright enforcers and to cut off people’s Internet access,” Kilic says.