Copyright Overprotection Versus Open Science: The Role of Free Trade Agreements

This chapter aims to map the impact of copyright law on the circulation of information, progress of knowledge, innovation and development within some selected case studies extracted from a paradigmatic Free Trade Agreement (FTA): the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). On the one hand, excessively restrictive copyright rules—the Western overprotection approach—may threaten policies to foster science and innovation. On the other hand, Open Science (Open Source software, Open Access publications, Open Research Data, Open Educational Resources, Open Peer Review)—based essentially on lowering economic, technological and legal (copyright and contract) barriers to access information—seem to boost a more fair and global development approach, by stimulating free flow of ideas and information across borders. If the latter more flexible regime of intellectual property could be accepted as a favourable context for Open Science, we argue in favour of a more balanced copyright law in the FTAs context.