Policy Observatory
New TPP leaked text reveals Countries' Weakening Resistance to Copyright Maximalist Proposals
Thanks to the publication of the leaked TPP document by Knowledge Ecology International there is more insight on the current state of play and why the most recent round of negotiations in Maui fell apart.
Countries are resisting U.S. negotiators' proposal to distort trade secrets law into a weapon against hackers, journalists, and whistleblowers. There are two new proposals in this leaked text, one of which the U.S. itself supports, to allow countries to adopt a narrow safe harbor for whistleblowers in respect of information that exposes a violation of the law. But this is far from enough. The safe harbor isn't compulsory and it doesn't apply to leaks of information that are of vital public interest, but that don't expose illegality—such as the TPP text itself.Another important area of dissent from the U.S. negotiators' hard line appears in the Enforcement section of the IP chapter, in which every single country is now lined up against the U.S. in favor of a remedy for victims of wrongful copyright abuse. As in previous drafts, most countries remain opposed to a worrying U.S. proposal to limit the Internet retransmission of television broadcasts without the authorization of the rights holder of the broadcast content—and, tellingly, that of the rights holder of the broadcast signal itself.
Country: Global
Domains: IPR
Stakeholder: Government
Tags: copyright, trade secrets, TPP, negotiations, policy, Internet, IPR