Tag Archives: intellectual property

Deep divisions between U.S. and Asian nations in TPP –Wikileaks

Do you want foreign corporations to be able to sue the U.S. because your county has implemented restrictions of pipelines feeding liquid natural gas exports? Or because your country hasn’t locked up enough people for unintentional infringement of copyright? Or because your state has implemented a GMO-labeling law? Then you oppose the TPP.

After the November release of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter, in December Wikileaks released two documents from the secret closed Salt Lake City TPP chief negotiators’ meeting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, showing deep divisions between the negotiating countries that have already caused a U.S.-imposed TPP deadline to be missed. These documents add potential international treaty enforcement of “mandates” against restrictions on trade to protect national products or environment or labor to all the reasons EFF gives for opposing this corporate-power-grab treaty and the LNG export pressures for TPP that would drive up the price of fracked “natural” gas and push pipelines through numerous states for the profit of a few fossil fuel and utility executives and investors.

The deep divisions among the negotiating countries exposed Continue reading

Ask your Congress members to oppose TPP today

Here’s a handy form by EFF to oppose the secretly-negotiated privacy-deleting corporate-greed-defending natural gas export pipeline-enabling Trans-Pacific Parternship treaty.

Parker Higgins and Maira Sutton wrote for the Electronic Frontier Foundation 28 December 2013, 2013 in Review: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,

Stop Secret Copyright Treaties The biggest TPP story this year was the publication by WikiLeaks in November of the chapter titled “Intellectual Property.” Unfortunately, its contents confirmed many of our worst fears: from ratcheting up copyright term lengths around the world, to boxing in fair use, to mandating a draconian legal regime around DRM software, section after section contained clauses plucked from corporate wishlists and snubbed the public interest altogether.

And then there’s Ted Poe’s House Subcommittee pushing TPP for LNG exports that would propel “natural” fracked gas pipelines such as Spectra Energy’s Sabal Transmission gas pipe through private property and public rivers and watersheds and aquifers.

Here’s what’s up next: Continue reading