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Launched on October 23, 2007, America, the EU, Switzerland and Japan began negotiating a new intellectual property enforcement treaty, ACTA. Other nations as well, including Canada, Australia, Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Singapore, and the UAE. Ostensibly for counterfeit goods protection, critics say it's more about Internet distribution and information technology rules to subvert Net Neutrality, privacy, and personal freedoms.
Powerful interests want stronger global intellectual property rights, and are pursuing them through the:
-- WTO;
-- World Customs Organization (WCO, "the only intergovernmental organisation exclusively focused on Customs matters);"
-- the G 8;
-- the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Advisory Committee on Enforcement: WIPO is a UN agency "dedicated to developing an accessible international intellectual property system which reward creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development...;" and
-- the Intellectual Property Experts' Group's (IPR) protection and enforcement efforts to "achiev(e Pacific region) free and open trade and investment."
So far, few details are known, yet ACTA is being secretly fast-tracked to completion.
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