Close Comparison Reveals Negotiators Repeating TPP's Mistakes A secretive trade agreement currently being negotiated behind closed doors could lay down new, inflexible copyright standards across the Asia-Pacific region. If you are thinking of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), think again—we're... "RCEP fails to improve much on the TPP in areas where it quite easily could; most notably in the language on limitations and exceptions, which fails to require countries to include an equivalent to fair use in their copyright laws.

Finally, the proposed language on related rights for broadcasters is actually worse than the TPP. The TPP negotiators were wise to mostly avoid this topic, being that it is currently still under negotiation at WIPO, whereas RCEP has plunged ahead and sought to enshrine obligations for the protection of broadcasters that remain controversial and untested around the world.

Worst of all is that none of these problems would have come to light if the text of the agreement had not been leaked. Like the TPP before it, the RCEP is being negotiated in a secretive fashion, behind closed doors, without adequate input from Internet users or any other of the stakeholders whose lives and livelihoods it will affect. "