flickr: Public Citizen

The Trans-Pacific Partnership has been kept under secrecy for a long time, but today Wikileaks has published a selected chapter of the treaty that focuses on intellectual property rights and privacy. Let us know your thoughts below. 

### via The Verge & Wikileaks

WikiLeaks has published a leaked draft of a secret international trade agreement that could create stricter laws governing digital copyright and freedom of speech. The leaked chapter focuses on intellectual property rights, and is part of a broader agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that has been in the works for several years now between the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and several other countries. Though the draft is being written in secret, it's rumored to be moving toward a fast track through Congress. Some details of the agreement have been leaked in the past, but today's come from a quite recent draft, dated August 30th, 2013 — it's also the only one to detail which countries are in support of which proposals.

The Sydney Morning Herald received an early look at the leaked draft, and notes that it focuses on the United States' federal and corporate interests, while largely ignoring the rights and interests of consumers. "One could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations, and the copyright parts of the text support such a view," Matthew Rimmer, an expert in intellectual property law, tells the Herald. "Hollywood, the music industry, big IT companies such as Microsoft and the pharmaceutical sector would all be very happy with this."

READ MORE AT THE VERGE. READ WIKILEAKS REPORT