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God bless Wikileaks for uncovering this an RT for reporting it and getting this information out to the world.
Shame on the evil men and faceless corporations that seek to rule over us
TPP Uncovered: WikiLeaks releases draft of highly-secretive multi-national trade deal
Details of a highly secretive, multi-national trade agreement in the works have been published by WikiLeaks, and the whistleblower group’s founder warns there will be vast implications for much of the modern world if the contract is approved.
US President Barack Obama and counterparts from 11 other prospective member states have been hammering out the free trade agreement in utmost secrecy for years now, the result of which, according to the White House, would rekindle the economies of all of those involved, including many countries considered to still be emerging.
“The TPP will boost our economies, lowering barriers to trade and investment, increasing exports and creating more jobs for our people, which is my number-one priority,” Obama said during a Nov. 2011 address. The deal, he said, “has the potential to be a model not only for the Asia Pacific but for future trade agreements” by regulating markets and creating opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses in the growing global marketplace.
Although the TPP covers an array of topics — many of which have not been covered by past agreements, according to Obama — WikiLeaks has published a chapter from a draft dated August 30, 2013 that deals solely on Intellectual Property, or IP, rights. Previous reports about the rumored contents of the TPP with regards to IP law have raised concern among activists before, with the California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation going as far as to warn that earlier leaked draft text suggested the agreement “would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate,” all of which is being agreed upon without any oversight or observation. Indeed, the thousands of words released by WikiLeaks this week has concreted those fears and has already caused the likes of the EFF and others to sound an alarm.
The IP chapter, wrote WikiLeaks, “provides the public with the fullest opportunity so far to familiarize themselves with the details and implications of the TPP,” an agreement that has largely avoided scrutiny in the mainstream media during its development, no thanks, presumably, to the under-the-table arguments that have led prospective member states to the point they’re at today.
Julian Assange, the Australian founder of the whistleblower site who has been confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over a year now, had particularly harsh words for the TPP in a statement published alongside the draft release.
“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,” Assange said. “If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”
Within the IP chapter, the partaking nations in one excerpt agree to “Enhance the role of intellectual property in promoting economic and social development,” but elsewhere suggest that the way in which such could be accomplished would involve serious policing of the World Wide Web. Later, the countries write they hope to “reduce impediments to trade and investment by promoting deeper economic integration through effective and adequate creation, utilization, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, taking into account the different levels of economic development and capacity as well as differences in national legal systems.”
Shame on the evil men and faceless corporations that seek to rule over us
TPP Uncovered: WikiLeaks releases draft of highly-secretive multi-national trade deal
Details of a highly secretive, multi-national trade agreement in the works have been published by WikiLeaks, and the whistleblower group’s founder warns there will be vast implications for much of the modern world if the contract is approved.
RT,
12
November, 2013
Details
of a highly secretive, multi-national trade agreement long in works
has been published by WikiLeaks, and critics say there will be major
repercussions for much of the modern world if its approved in this
incarnation.
The
anti-secrecy group published on
Wednesday a 95-page excerpt taken from a recent draft of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a NAFTA-like agreement that is
expected to encompass nations representing more than 40 percent of
the world’s gross domestic product when it is finally approved: the
United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile,
Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei.
US President Barack Obama and counterparts from 11 other prospective member states have been hammering out the free trade agreement in utmost secrecy for years now, the result of which, according to the White House, would rekindle the economies of all of those involved, including many countries considered to still be emerging.
“The TPP will boost our economies, lowering barriers to trade and investment, increasing exports and creating more jobs for our people, which is my number-one priority,” Obama said during a Nov. 2011 address. The deal, he said, “has the potential to be a model not only for the Asia Pacific but for future trade agreements” by regulating markets and creating opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses in the growing global marketplace.
Upon
the publication of an excerpt obtained by WikiLeaks this week,
however, opponents of the act are insisting that provisions dealing
with creation, invention and innovation could serve a severe blow to
everyone, particularly those the internet realm.
Although the TPP covers an array of topics — many of which have not been covered by past agreements, according to Obama — WikiLeaks has published a chapter from a draft dated August 30, 2013 that deals solely on Intellectual Property, or IP, rights. Previous reports about the rumored contents of the TPP with regards to IP law have raised concern among activists before, with the California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation going as far as to warn that earlier leaked draft text suggested the agreement “would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate,” all of which is being agreed upon without any oversight or observation. Indeed, the thousands of words released by WikiLeaks this week has concreted those fears and has already caused the likes of the EFF and others to sound an alarm.
The IP chapter, wrote WikiLeaks, “provides the public with the fullest opportunity so far to familiarize themselves with the details and implications of the TPP,” an agreement that has largely avoided scrutiny in the mainstream media during its development, no thanks, presumably, to the under-the-table arguments that have led prospective member states to the point they’re at today.
Julian Assange, the Australian founder of the whistleblower site who has been confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over a year now, had particularly harsh words for the TPP in a statement published alongside the draft release.
“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,” Assange said. “If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”
Within the IP chapter, the partaking nations in one excerpt agree to “Enhance the role of intellectual property in promoting economic and social development,” but elsewhere suggest that the way in which such could be accomplished would involve serious policing of the World Wide Web. Later, the countries write they hope to “reduce impediments to trade and investment by promoting deeper economic integration through effective and adequate creation, utilization, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, taking into account the different levels of economic development and capacity as well as differences in national legal systems.”
“Compared
to existing multilateral agreements, the TPP IPR chapter proposes the
granting of more patents, the creation of intellectual property
rights on data, the extension of the terms of protection for patents
and copyrights, expansions of right holder privileges and increases
in the penalties for infringement,”
James Love of Knowledge Ecology International explained after reading
the leaked chapter. “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.”
Opponents
have argued in the past that stringent new rules under the TPP with
regards to copyrighted material would cause the price of medication
to go up: potentially catastrophic news for residents of member state
who may have difficulties affording prescriptions. Public Citizen, a
Washington-based consumer advocacy organization, has warned that US
Trade Representatives privy to the TPP discussions have demanded
provisions that “would strengthen, lengthen and broaden
pharmaceutical monopolies on cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS
drugs, among others, in the Asia-Pacific region.” Indeed, the
leaked chapter suggests drug companies could easily extend and widen
patents under the TPP, prohibiting other countries from producing
life-saving pills and selling them for less. Outside of the world of
medicine, though, the implications that could come with new copyright
rules agreed upon my essentially half of the world’s economy are
likely to affect everyone.
"One
could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations,
and the copyright parts of the text support such a view,"
Dr. Matthew Rimmer, an expert in intellectual property law, told
the Sydney
Morning Herald.
"Hollywood,
the music industry, big IT companies such as Microsoft and the
pharmaceutical sector would all be very happy with this."
WikiLeaks
wrote in response that the enforcement measures discussed have
“far-reaching implications for individual rights, civil
liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet
privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological and
environmental commons.”
“Particular
measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which
sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no
human rights safeguards,”
warned WikiLeaks. “The
TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with
secret evidence.”
According
to the whistleblower site, the IP chapter also includes provisions
that rehash some of the very surveillance and enforcement rules from
the abandoned SOPA and ACTA treaties that were left to die after
public outrage halted any agreement with regards to those
legislation.
“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, an intellectual property lawyer with Public Citizen,
explained to the website TorrentFreak.
SOPA,
or the Stop Online Privacy Act, was abandoned last year after massive
public campaign thwarted the US Congress’ attempt to censor access
to certain internet sites where copyrighted content may be
incidentally hosted. One of the bill’s biggest opponents, Kim
Dotcom of file-sharing sites Megaupload and Mega, was quick to
condone WikiLeaks for their release of the TPP draft and condemned
those responsible for drafting a bill that he warned would have major
consequences for all if approved, including residents of New Zealand
such as himself.
“No
wonder they kept it secret. What a malicious piece of US corporate
lobbying. TPP is about world domination for US corporations. Nothing
else. We will stop this madness in New Zealand,”
he told RT’s Andrew Blake.
According
to WikiLeaks, the Obama administration and senior heads of state from
other potential TPP nations have expressed interest in ratifying the
agreement before 2014. All of that could now be put in jeopardy.
Just
the tip of the iceberg. I have yet to see if the zombie New Zealand
media has given this any coverage
Medicine
prices could rise under Trans-Pacific Partnership deal
Australians
are likely to face price rises for their medicines in coming years if
intellectual property proposals contained in the Trans-Pacific
Partnership agreement go ahead.
SMH,
14
November, 2013
The
leaked treaty reveals a range of measures that would enhance the
ability of drug companies to extend and widen patents on drugs.
It
also proposes compensation for companies that face delays in the
granting or extension of patents along with measures to ensure data
exclusivity for companies so they can prevent competitors,
specifically manufacturers of generic medicines, from using past
clinic data to support new products.
The
leaked TPP negotiations suggest drug companies will also be able to
extend patent protection beyond the typical 20-year limit by
patenting different aspects of their products, such as an active
ingredient for new use further down the track. This is called
''evergreening''.
While
these proposals would arguably encourage research and development of
new drugs and boost the profits of large drug companies, which are
mainly concentrated in the US, they will inevitably delay generic
manufacturing of drugs which reduce the price of medicines for
consumers.
The
reason medicines cost more under patents is because they effectively
give companies an exclusive licence to manufacture a drug they have
developed to be sold at a price they set. When a patent expires,
other companies can use the intellectual property to effectively copy
the drug.
In
Australia, the cost of longer patents could be significant. At the
moment, drugs listed on the government's $10 billion Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme are almost always under a patent to begin with.
However, when they come off patent, they are immediately 16 per cent
cheaper. This saving flows through to Australian taxpayers, who fund
the PBS.
Any
increase in the cost of medicines will continue a trend towards more
out-of-pocket costs for healthcare. According to the Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare, the average annual out-of-pocket
expenditure on healthcare has almost doubled, from about $583 in 2000
to $1075 in 2010 - $94 above the weighted OECD average of $981. In
2010-11, nearly 40 per cent of this was for medications, followed by
19 per cent for dental services and 12 per cent for services such as
GP visits.
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