Name: “Free Trade” agreements and copyright policymaking in the dark: what we can do about it
Start: 2018-04-15T16:15:00-0400
End: 2018-04-15T17:45:00-0400

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“Free Trade” agreements and copyright policymaking in the dark: what we can do about it

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AGENDA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iccbUqSoNVrMMjdkc_SF0FGpHpGEGPAHmWpAyCr4KrU/edit#

Creative Commons has been following the development of several multilateral trade agreements such as the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (now known as the "Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership" CPTPP), and the EU-Mercosur Association Agreement. Each of these agreements have been negotiated in secret, potentially with major negative repercussion on the commons, user rights, and the public interest. We will outline the current situation with regard to these trade agreements in relation to copyright, and discuss future plans for intervention.

This session will consider the revival of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and its ramifications for copyright law and the Creative Commons. In particular, it will evaluate the withdrawal of the United States under President Donald Trump from the agreement, and the efforts of Australia under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to push ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership - with the help of Japan. The session will explore the strategy of Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the Trans-Pacific Partnership – with the suspensions of a number of key provisions relating to intellectual property and investment, and the use of side-letters to guarantee cultural exemptions. It will also consider the implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership for Indigenous intellectual property – particularly given the complaints by Maori Communities under the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand.
Since there are several ongoing agreements being negotiated, we'll divide up the session into a few parts – 20 minutes on NAFTA, 20 minutes on the TPP, and 20 minutes on South America and Europe.
We want to:
1. share information about what's going on/get the state-of-play for each of the ones in progress now
2. surface common themes across each that are of interest and relevance to the CC community (and also specifically discuss the lack of transparency for all these, and what can be done)
3. identify CC community members that would like to work together on this going forward, and come up with some tactics for doing this in terms of tracking, analysis, intervention, collaborating with other orgs, etc.

Endorse the Washington Principles on Copyright Balance in Trade Agreements: https://form.jotform.com/pijip/endorse-washington-principles
Text here: http://infojustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Washington-Principles-on-Copyright-Balance-in-Trade-Agreements-November-15-2017.pdf

Presentation on Mercosur-EU FTA by Patricia Diaz: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jNLo8KsA1rSvpOK-7QMEqOmb6eZ9FfnCFb7t7eiILOU/edit#slide=id.p3

Speakers

Patricia Diaz

Lawyer, Creative Commons Uruguay and OER Centre Universidad de la República (UdelaR - Uruguay)

Sean Flynn

Assoc Dir, American University Washington College of Law

Sean Flynn teaches courses on the intersection of intellectual property, trade law, and human rights and is the Associate Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP). At PIJIP, Professor Flynn designs and manages a wide variety of research and... Read More →

Matthew Rimmer

Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law, Faculty of Business and Law, QUT

Dr Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Business and Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines... Read More →

Scann

CC Open GLAM Platform Lead, Creative Commons

Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann) is a longtime member of Creative Commons, currently leading the Open GLAM initiative (http://openglam.org). She has worked in digital heritage, community digitization and intellectual property for the past ten years. Harvard Fellow at the Harvard Library Innovation Lab (2018), International Visiting Scholar at Washington College of Law, American University (2019... Read More →