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IPFS News Link • Intellectual Property

Leaked (final?) TPP Intellectual Property chapter spells doom for free speech online

• boingboing.net

First in the parade of the Just Plain Wrong: the Internet has been included in a secret trade agreement.

Second: that the Internet is in a trade agreement at all

Third: The chapter dealing with the Internet is the intellectual property chapter, which tells you that as far as the negotiators were concerned, the most important fact about the Internet is whether people watch movies without paying for them -- not whether the nervous system of the 21st century through which we conduct our work, family, romantic, artistic, and political lives is appropriately safeguarded.

Then we get into the specifics.

Under the terms of the text, countries in the TPP can force each other to suspend legal proceedings if the trial would cause embarrassing information -- information "detrimental to a party's economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security" -- would come to light. That would be the Wikileaks/Snowden clause.


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