Katy from Public Knowledge sez,
It’s Special 301 season at the office of the US Trade Representatvie, which means that the content industry gets its annual opportunity to tell the USTR which countries should be put on the naughty list for not doing enough to protect American IP. The first round of comments are due next Friday, February 10th, and Public Knowledge has just launched a petition regarding the USTR’s blind acceptance of big content’s claims about foreign countries’ IP laws.
This is part of how the US pressures foreign governments to adopt more stringent and draconian IP measures, like the Ley Sinde in Spain, with little regard for free speech and due process. As the recent SOPA/PIPA outrage has proven, this kind of overreach is not acceptable.
Here’s the blog post our international expert and staff attorney Rashmi Rangnath wrote, and here is the petition.
Tell The USTR Not to Do Big Content’s Bidding