March 2, 2017: As RCEP negotiations continue in Japan this week, copyright experts have voiced their concerns about the way the agreement’s intellectual property chapter could undermine the public interest

Parts of the RCEP’s IP chapter could be modelled on the flawed TPP, which extended copyright provisions in favour of corporations at the expense of people’s rights. 

In a statement [1] released in the lead up to the current round of negotiations, over 60 copyright scholars expressed their concern that the IP standards proposed in the RCEP could “cause unintended effects of stifling creativity, free speech, and economic growth”.

These experts want to see a greater focus on the public interest and greater transparency of negotiations.

Digital rights advocates the Electronic Frontier Foundation take this further and argue [2] that copyright provisions don’t belong in trade agreements at all.

Find out more:

• Law Professors Address RCEP Negotiators on Copyright [2] (Electronic Frontier Foundation, Feb 24, 2017)

• Statement of Public Interest Principles for Copyright Protection [1] (Statement open to endorsement, Feb 2017)

• Is the RCEP the TPP by another name? [3] (AFTINET, Feb 2017)