Today, the new digital age is recreating a number of much older ideas. Producing software collaboratively and with various free software licenses is building a new digital commons. This is not all. We also have the Wikipedia, which at least in less politically contended areas, has produced a new encyclopaedia, again built collaboratively. Music, films and various other forms, earlier regarded distinct from software, are also in the process of discovering the new world where copyright rules only in the courts and cannot be maintained in the real one. It is this new age of knowledge, creativity and software commons that is confronting the old world of “intellectual property”.

The difference between the FTAs and the earlier trade talks under the WTO regime is that while the multilateral talks under WTO are relatively open with texts in the public domain, the FTA talks are shrouded in secrecy.

The Free Trade Agreements that India is negotiating has serious implications for Indian agriculture, food and access to medicines and industry. If proper protection is not taken, FTAs through exceptions, it will act as the floor in all trade negotiations, effectively subverting our position in WTO.