The Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) has joined its voice to those warning that the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty negotiations are heading into dangerous waters. The treaty text is such a mess, the ADA warns, that the IP provisions should simply be ditched.

The TPP text, which leaked earlier this month, has been analysed and found wanting to be outright dangerous.

The ADA, founded by former Chief Justice of the High Court Sir Anthony Mason, lends its weight to the list of shortcomings already noted by The Register – criminalisation of copyright infringement, bans on parallel importation, excessive protection of TPMs, and intermediary (ISP) liability – and lists a few others.

These include:

• Extension of the reproduction rights to technical/temporary copies;
• Extension of copyright terms;
• Limits on internet retransmission; and
• Lack of protection for exceptions for the blind and visually disabled.

Its post, penned by ADA executive officer Trish Hepworth, also states that the treaty as it now stands “will reduce [Australia's] domestic flexibility and leave us with little room to negotiate in future international agreements.”

“Instead of the deadlock over detail, we could simply throw the IP chapter out of the free trade talks, and agree to be bound by the plethora of international agreements that already regulate copyright,” Hepworth writes. ®