Continuations

If you are a long time reader of Continuations, you will know that I wrote repeatedly about ACTA, the attempt to strengthen global intellectual property rights that was soundly defeated by the European Parliament. At the time I mentioned that the next attempt at roughly the same would be the TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Not unlike ACTA, most of the TPP negotiations have taken place in secret and the TPP too contains further extensions and strengthening of copyright and patent p...

Yesterday was the 4th of July but it also marked another independence day of sorts. The European parliament voted resoundingly against adopting ACTA (by 478 to 39 votes with 165 abstaining). ACTA you may recall was an attempt to create a new global intellectual property rights regime that would dramatically extend the rights of copyright holders everywhere. ACTA was conceived behind closed doors and kept secret for a long time, which isn’t surprising given its content. After the defeat of PIP...