[Open-science-nl] Stop TTIP

Mon Dec 1 05:47:45 UTC 2014

Hi all,

I guess it doesn't really need that much introduction, but nothing
much has improved about the situation around the TTIP negotiations.
This trade agreement will lay out law that will affect many Europeans
and give particularly big companies new powers.

With all good intention of those companies, it may not be that bad in
practice, but any law that will benefit shareholder value, they are
legally obliged to pick up. So will TTIP.

Does this matter for Open Science? Yes, very much. In fact, it will
jeopardize Open Science very much. One risk considered high is that
TTIP gives companies the right to sue governments over laws that give
them economical disadvantage. And, sadly, justice increasingly is a
right of those with big financial pockets (in some continents more
than others, though...)

What could happen? Well, my creativity is somewhat limited here, but
consider the Open Access mandate. I am sure some big publishers will
want a judge to rule over whether or not that affects their business
model. In fact, *any* change will affect some business model...

Now, https://stop-ttip.org/ started a petition. But it's still short
of votes in many EU countries to make an impression. The Netherlands,
for example, is close to the treshold but needs to pass the 19500.

Or, it needs your help.

Please read the petition, make up your mind around it, and let other
people on your social webs know about the petition so that they can
learn what impact TTIP will very likely have on Open Science too.

Greetings,

Egon

PS. heading to the DTL/Elixer kick off meeting. If there are others on
this list going there, let me know so that we can meet up!

-- 
E.L. Willighagen
Department of Bioinformatics - BiGCaT
Maastricht University (http://www.bigcat.unimaas.nl/)
Homepage: http://egonw.github.com/
LinkedIn: http://se.linkedin.com/in/egonw
Blog: http://chem-bla-ics.blogspot.com/
PubList: http://www.citeulike.org/user/egonw/tag/papers
ORCID: 0000-0001-7542-0286
ImpactStory: https://impactstory.org/EgonWillighagen