The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is a multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive Intellectual Property (IP) laws across the world and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.

Among the many concerns raised on TPPA, the digital policy in the Agreement skew towards protecting and extending the rights of big corporations at the expanse of the small innovative companies and the general public. The IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of expression, right to privacy, and hinders or removes the space for individuals, businesses and universities abilities to innovate.

Digital rights of Malaysians will be violated as the TPPA-IP chapter will require significant changes in our copyright laws - which include obligations for countries to expand copyright terms, restrictions on fair use, place greater liability on Internet intermediaries, adopt heavy criminal sanctions for copyright infringement - these, are threats for journalists, whistleblowers, innovators, archives curators, researchers and designers.

For an example, the copyright enforcement rules incentivize website owners to take down content or block users from their site from a mere copyright infringement allegation, so when the journalists publish information that reveals a corporate ‘trade secret’ and is accessed, disclosed, or made available through any kind of computer system, even if it is for the purpose of revealing corporate wrongdoing. They could face criminal liabilities or civil penalties.

Plus, excessive copyright terms will harm the availability of books, photographs, and all creative works in the public domain. The situation worsens and almost impossible when obtaining permission to use orphan works because the rights holder is unknown, deceased, or is nowhere to be found, and so preserving or archiving copies of them could be legally risky.

The same goes for use of textbooks, documents, movies, photographs, or other copyrighted works for school assignments and projects could be restricted even further because such rights are not enshrined in the TPPA.

The TPPA undermines parliamentary democracy - the Parliament cannot amend the provisions of TPPA, even though the TPPA will be presented on Jan 26 and 27, 2016 to an early Parliament session, and the Members of Parliament can only either agree or disagree, they cannot debate or amend it as the negotiation was over when the ministers from the 12 Pacific-rim countries concluded on Oct 4, 2015 after numerous rounds of closed-door negotiations since March 2010.

Therefore, we are here urging all the Members of Parliament to vote against TPPA in the coming Parliament special sitting.

Endorsed by:

Centre to Combat Corruption & Cronyism (C4),

North South Initiative,

Pax Romana ICMICA,

Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (Empower),

Projek Dialog,

Pusat Komas,

Sinar Project.