Secret Trade Pact Will Spread U.S. Copyright Rules Abroad

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multi-national trade agreement the United States is negotiating in secret, seeks to export U.S.-styled intellectual-property rights abroad, according to a leaked chapter of the deal WikiLeaks published today.
Image may contain Animal and Bird
GlobalTradeWatch, Flickr

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multi-national trade agreement the United States is negotiating in secret, seeks to export U.S.-styled intellectual-property rules abroad, according to a leaked chapter of the deal WikiLeaks published today.

Talks on the pact, which the U.S. is negotiating with 11 Asia-Pacific region nations, commenced in 2008. Negotiators are expected to meet in Salt Lake City next week in a bid to hammer out the accord that includes Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico and Brunei.

The leak, which could not be immediately authenticated, is only of the chapter about intellectual property, dealing with copyright, trademarks and patents. It has not been officially released for public consumption. However, lobbyists or so-called "trade advisors" from all sectors of the economy, from Haliburton to Hollywood, have had limited access to the accord's text.

"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," Burcu Kilic, a Public Citizen intellectual property attorney, said in a statement.

According to his analysis of the draft, there are some 100 unresolved issues, and the U.S. push to export its intellectual-property rights law has "led to a negotiation stalemate," he said.

Chris Dodd, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, said last month that "International markets are critical to the continued competitiveness of the U.S. motion picture and television industry. As such, we place the highest priority on working with our trading partners and the U.S. government to achieve a comprehensive, high-standard and commercially-meaningful agreement."

The measure increases overseas copyright terms and would impose a so-called "graduated response" program on internet service providers. In the United States, a voluntary "graduated response" program provides for extrajudicial punishment of internet users who download copyrighted works without permission. Commenced earlier this year, the program’s punishment for repeat violators includes temporary internet termination and throttling connection speeds.

The accord, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the U.S., outlaws the marketing of products that circumvent digital rights management. And the definition of what a patent is "looks fairly similar to what we see in the U.S. patent law," Chris Mammen, an intellectual-property attorney, said in a telephone interview.

"What I would say overall, it looks like across the board what it's proposing to do is broaden the protectability and enforceability of intellectual property rights," Mammen said.

What's more, the pact gives Big Pharma more control of its medicines and makes it harder for developing nations to impose regulations on tobacco.

Here is Public Citizen's analysis.