Gadgets Blog » Rumors

The expansion of the Internet has generated an evolving platform for which information can be exchanged. While this has revolutionized the ease of information access, there have been some strong negative consequences, especially for intellectual property rights. Illegal downloads and torrents have made acquiring digital property a breeze, but the legal stipulations remain complex and litigated.

One proposed solution, a multi-national pact known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, would offer forth a series of international standards on intellectual property rights. The agreement, which has been negotiated in depth since 2008, has been a source of controversy on an international scale. While supporters of the agreement cite the need for new standards of property rights in an increasingly digital distribution model, critics point to some highly dubious consequences that are present within the treaty.

According to an article on OS News, President Obama has recently offered a support for this agreement in a speech at the Export Import Bank’s annual conference in Washington:

“We’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,” Obama said in his speech, “Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people [...] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it’s only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can’t just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.”