Pirate Party Australia cautiously welcomes the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties’ (JSCOT) report on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which recommends delaying ratification of the secretive Agreement until certain criteria are met[1].

The report makes many recommendations based on concerns Pirate Party Australia and others raised in submissions to JSCOT, particularly the necessity to define certain terms which have made the Agreement highly ambiguous and subject to varied interpretations. One such concern was the lack of methodology to differentiate between non-commercial and commercial rights infringements.

The Pirate Party is pleased with the report, which also draws attention to the current lack of support for the Agreement within the European Union, where five different European Parliamentary Committees have all recommended ACTA be rejected. These committees found that the Agreement was not economically or legally appropriate, nor did it conform to human rights obligations.

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Pirate Party Australia is disturbed by the decision of the Canadian and Mexican Governments to join in the opaque and fundamentally flawed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations. The Party yet again calls for complete transparency and inclusion of civil society in the negotiation process. If these cannot be delivered, Australia must end its participation in TPPA negotiations.

“Based on the revelations contained within the recently leaked investment chapter and the draconian measures called for in the intellectual property chapter, the entire Agreement is a power grab by large corporations. They are taking advantage of the secrecy surrounding the negotiations to undermine democratic and legal principles that have taken centuries to establish,” said Simon Frew, Deputy President of Pirate Party Australia.

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In our inaugural episode of the Pirate Party Australia Webcast, Sam begins a four-part series of readings from Rick Falkvinge’s “History of Copyright,” and speaks to Simon Frew, Deputy President of Pirate Party Australia, about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Subscribe to the feed, or view past episodes.

A transcript of the webcast is available here.

Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement:
TPPA Negotiation Farce Must End: Pirate Party
Pirate Party Australia’s presentation to Trans Pacific Partnership Stakeholders Meeting in Melbourne
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s TPPA issues page
Australian Government’s TPPA website

History Of Copyright:
No Safe Harbour book
Rick Falkvinge’s Blog (links to the 7 original blog entries)

Quote:
“When artists and consumers themselves get involved in the debate, a remarkable thing tends to happen: Self-interest largely disappears from the picture. Great art is never created from self-interest. It can only be created when an artist is driven by their creative impulse, and applies discipline to develop their talents. ” – Renai Lemay, Editor of www.delimiter.com.au

Pirate Party Australia are disgusted at reports that the United States plans to cancel the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) stakeholder programme[1].

The Party gave a presentation at a stakeholder’s meeting in Melbourne last month, where they criticised the lack of transparency surrounding the TPPA negotiations, as well as the effect it would have on access to pharmaceuticals in developing nations[2].

“The stakeholders meeting in the Melbourne round was only possible thanks to leaks from concerned negotiators. It was still a puzzle to even know what exactly we were arguing against,” said Simon Frew, Deputy President of Pirate Party Australia.

“This further attack on involvement of civil society exemplifies US belligerence against the citizens of the participating countries. All of the US negotiating positions are wet dreams of Hollywood, the pharmaceutical industry, and a handful of major US corporations who will be the only beneficiaries of this further move toward secrecy.”

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Here is the speech that was presented by Pirate Party Australia President David Campbell at 11.45am at the TPPA stakeholders meeting in Melbourne. Thanks to Simon Frew (Deputy President) for authoring the speech and Mozart Palmer (Media Relations) for his contributions.


Pirate Party Australia, like many other attendees at the intellectual property section of this Agreement negotiation, first became aware of the proposed intellectual property provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement when the United States negotiating position was leaked last year.[1]

Much of the content of the leak is a wish-list for old media corporations who refuse to adapt to the Internet and instead pay massive “donations” to their government in order to push their legislative agenda against the interests of modern society. This wish-list echoes that of the intellectual property segments of the Stop Online Piracy Act – known as SOPA – and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – known as ACTA. The US TPPA provisions have been nicknamed “the son of ACTA”. The proposed solutions to online file-sharing will fundamentally change the operation of the Internet, to its detriment.

The extreme position of the leaked United States’ Intellectual Property chapter is highlighted by the unprecedented request for the negotiating texts to remain secret for four years after the agreement is signed. This secrecy is a perversion of democracy. The public would not be given a chance to oppose such a draconian attack on both the Internet and the civil liberties of citizens in all of the signatory countries. All of this to protect the corporate interests of a small sector of one industry? What about the cost to our democratic rights?

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