Julian Assange might be holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but his organisation WikiLeaks is still capable of causing a rumpus. Yesterday it published the “secret negotiated draft text” for the intellectual property rights chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a high-profile economic treaty involving the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Chile and Peru. The section published by WikiLeaks covers music and digital services, but also medicines, biological patents and civil liberties, so it’s wide-ranging. The initial responses to its contents from internet rights campaigners have been distinctly unimpressed. “One could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations, and the copyright parts of the text support such a view,” IP lawyer Matthew Rimmer tells the Sydney Morning Herald, which had an early look at the draft. Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has heavily criticised the report’s suggestion of extended copyright duration and anti DRM-circumvention prohibition. “The USTR is pushing for regulations that would, for the most part, put the desires of major content and patent owners over the needs of the public,” claims the EFF.
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