FTAA Treaty Threatens Innovation

The Importance of writes "IP Justice has published a white paper on the intellectual property aspects of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) treaty, which is an attempt to create a single free trade agreement for the Western Hemisphere. Read the press release. The analysis is pretty devastating. The proposed language of the agreement has a number of serious flaws, including (but certainly not limited to) enhanced criminal penalties, a super-DMCA provision, reduced scope for fair use, and database protection elements. The proposed treaty is supposed to be complete by January 2005 and go into effect December 2005. Now is not too early to let your representatives and others know what a bad idea the intellectual property elements of the treaty are."

Comments

What's up with Slashdot?

[pipingguy]

Loading pages can take up to 20 seconds on a DSL connection, with the occasional error page. Not good.

Re:total information lockdown

[SlayerofGods]

How are you getting by in college?

::cough::Affirmative action::cough:: Opps did I say that out loud? Damn, I'm so going to be moded down for point out the obvious :(

Re:It's not.

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Ayn Rand pretty much solidified that selfish view. It is amazing how many Americans go with her 'selfishness is good; altruism is bad' doctrine...

Of course, it should be noted that none of these selfish people even consider the fact that the poor people don't go and die in a gutter. Instead, they are more likely come and rob you. Ever wonder why violent crime in USA is much higher than many countries? And locking up people and sending them through the courts probably costs more than the social program.

Sivaram Velauthapillai