IP Justice: FTAA Treaty Chapter on IP 'Threatens Freedom and Free Trade'

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

http://www.ipjustice.org/FTAA/release20031020.shtml

International civil liberties group IP Justice published a report today entitled “FTAA: A Threat to Freedom and Free Trade,” that analyzes key sections of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Treaty. The FTAA Treaty will govern the lives of 800 million Americans in the Western Hemisphere in 2005.

Similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the FTAA Treaty seeks to bind the 34 democracies in the Western Hemisphere (including the US) to a single trade agreement. It will require all countries to change their domestic laws on a wide range of topics, including intellectual property rights.

The draft intellectual property rights chapter in the FTAA Agreement vastly expands criminal procedures and penalties against intellectual property infringements throughout the Americas. One clause would require countries to send non-commercial infringers such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharers to prison. It is estimated that 60 million Americans use file-sharing software in the US alone. (...)

[Armstead]

1. Free Trade is a scam

The sooner people realize it is neither "free" nor really about simple "trade" the better.

"Free Trade" of the sort championed by the corporatists and the mushy centrist Democrats is nothing more than transferring rioght-wing corporatism to the global stage. Gut civil lasws and make them subservient to "the marketplace."

[Armstead]

2. kick

[Catholic Sensation]

3. 800 million americans?

Jeez, our population will go up by 267% in under two years?

[denverbill]

5. All South Americans and North Americans are Americans.

Not just people from the United States.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

4. Wow, now the "free trade agreements" are demanding prison time?

for people who share music?

Remeber this when they tell us these agreements are just about tariffs. It is a new government, and notice we never got to VOTE for it.

[graphixtech]

6. Jim Hightower

addressed the FTAA in Kansas City on Saturday October 18, 2003 (Rolling Thunder Event). Several union leaders addressed the nightmare of FTAA "NAFTA on steroids".
Here is a photo from the march:



other photos can be found at
www.kcindymedia.org
(in Media/Protest activities)