LDC Watch and OWINFS Call on TRIPS Council Chair to Stop the Ongoing Unfair Informal Negotiations on the LDC TRIPS Waiver Extension

[LDC Watch / OWINFS Joint Press Release]  On 20 May, global civil society networks LDC Watch and the Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) wrote an open letter of protest to the Ambassador of Panama, Alfredo Suescum who is the current Chair of the Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).  The ongoing informal negotiations between the least developed countries (LDCs) and the developed countries, on the extension period of TRIPS waiver granted to LDCs which expires by the end of June, is marred by unjust and unethical treatment by the United States, European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, in particular, including the Council Chair. Click here for more.

See also:

  • Indian Statement in Support of the LDC Extension at the Informal Meeting of TRIPS Council (Link)
  • Electronic Information for Libraries Letter to the Chair of the TRIP Council (Link)
  • Mike Palmedo. House Democrats Urge Obama Administration to Give Poorest Countries More Time to Adhere to WTO Intellectual Property Rules (Link)
  • Matt Kavanah. TRIPping Up Least Developed Countries on Medicines, Green Tech, and Textbooks? (Link)

PETITION: Side with the blind over obstructionist companies to secure a Treaty for the Blind that makes books accessible globally.

[The following petition has been posted on the White House’s ‘We the People’ site] … 186 countries will soon convene in Morocco to finalize a Treaty that would empower the world’s nearly 300 million blind citizens with the same rights to read, learn, and earn that the sighted enjoy. However, huge and powerful corporations – many wholly unaffected by the proposed Treaty – are working to fatally weaken it or block its adoption.  Ask the President to compel US negotiators to fight for a strong Treaty that gives blind people equal access to books and doesn’t burden those who want to provide them. Click here for more.

TAFTA: First Step Towards a Super-ACTA

[La Quadrature du Net] In a plenary vote, the European Parliament just adopted a mandate to the European Commission explicitly allowing it to “include strong protection of intellectual property rights (IPR)” in the proposed EU-US trade agreement negotiations, the “Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement” (TAFTA), also known as “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership” (TTIP). Click here for more.

See also:  Schedule of TAFTA Hearings at USTR on May 29-30.

The Brazilian Congress Needs To Pass Marco Civil for Brazilians – and The World

[Carolina Rossini] Tim Berners-Lee’s visit to Brazil last week has rekindled hopes for a civil society frustrated by six postponed votes on the bill known as “Marco Civil.” This groundbreaking federal legislation would guarantee civil rights in the use of the Internet, and is sometimes called a “Constitution for the Internet.” … The main goal of Marco Civil is to create a positive view of legislative action towards the Internet, one that takes international norms of human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties and modernizes them for the digital age. The international trend has instead been to pursue the criminalization of behaviors that many of us take for granted online or that are core acts of free expression. Thus, the Marco Civil has two roles: one as key legislation inside Brazil, and another as a model for other nations interested in instituting a citizen-centric view of Internet policies. Click here for more.

World Health Assembly: Drafting Group Agrees On Health R&D Meeting Proposal

[Rachel Marusak Hermann, IP Watch] An informal drafting group at the World Health Assembly finalised a draft text today, proposing to convene a technical meeting to help identify new health research and development projects for diseases that primarily affect poor communities. In the early afternoon on 25 May, a small drafting committee at the 66th World Health Assembly agreed on the language of a proposal to hold a 2-3 day technical consultative meeting to help identify health R&D demonstration projects in 2013… Key elements of the proposal, posted on the Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) website, are in regard to the constitution of the meeting participants and the focus of the work. Click here for the full story on IP Watch.

Releases and Reports from the Seventeenth Round of TPP Negotiations, Concluded Last Week in Lima

  • USTR Press Release. Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations Maintain Strong Momentum. (Link)
  • Sean Flynn. Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Proposal to Ban Special 301 Adjudication. (Link)
  • Sean Flynn. Changes in U.S. Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Proposal Needed to Accommodate Copyright Policy Proposals. (Link)
  • Jeremy Malcolm. Consumers International Releases Three New Papers on the TPP for the Lima Round. (Link)
  • Carlos Lara. Reporte TPP en Perú: ¿Qué pasó en el foro de interesados? (Link)
  • Maira Sutton. New Animated Video About the TPP and its Chilling Effects on Internet Users. (Link)
  • Maira Sutton and Katitza Rodriguez. Report From Outside the TPP Negotiating Venue in Lima, Peru. (Link)
  • MSF Access Campaign. The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Threat to Affordable Medicines for Millions. (Link)

Book Chapter:  Voluntary IP Regimes in Piratical File-Sharing Communities

[Balázs Bodó] Abstract: A complex system of rules and governance mechanisms control the lives of piratical P2P file-sharing darknets and ensure the survival and the quality of the shared P2P resource pool. In some communities these rules include the voluntary intellectual property (IP) protection as well. I show three different examples of voluntary, bottom-up IP regimes in piratical file-sharing communities. I demonstrate that though the emergence of such norms may sound counter-intuitive, they are in fact logical consequences in the development of the underground file-sharing scene. I then move to discuss whether or not the long-term consolidation of such norms is harmonious with the default ethical vision of copyright. Here I show that current practices in the IP field are scattered in both the legal and the ethical dimensions, and stable (social, business) practices consolidate not according to their legality but according to whether they comply with the default ethical vision. Finally I suggest that voluntary IP regimes can be effective enforcement mechanisms that rights-holders should begin experiment with. Click here for the full book chapter on SSRN.