IP Justice has published a new report on the FTAA Trade Ministerial in Miami
"Excessive Force: Bush Bullies Foreign Trade Ministers and US Protesters."No major deals were made, except to try to agree to less, an "FTAA-lite" agreement, where a country's market to the US will be according to the degree that it is willing to change its domestic laws.
The draft FTAA Treaty still contains provisions to criminalize P2P file-sharing, to outlaw legitimate consumer circumvention more broadly than the DMCA, to extend the term of copyright to more than 70 years after the death of the author, to restrict personal use to a single copy and more.
The US is already reaching bi-lateral deals with many countries in South and Central America on intellectual property rights, and the next year will be crucial for setting global intellectual property law.
The Bush Administration's security agents and Miami police repeatedly used violence and excessive force against anti-FTAA demonstrators and journalists in Miami during the meeting.
IP Justice has also published a
petition to FTAA Foreign Trade Ministers to reject the treaty's entire chapter on intellectual property rights.
