
White House Doesn't Want You to Know the TPP's Effects on U.S. Copyright Laws - CapitalistCartr
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/white-house-doesnt-want-you-know-tpp-effects-us-copyright-laws
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mark_l_watson
After contributing money to Obama's campaign and voting for him twice, this is
annoying.

At the risk of boring the few dozen family and friends I am closest with, I
have been SPAMing them with emails about TPP and links to complain to their
Congress-critters.

~~~
anigbrowl
But Obama has always been broadly in favor of more trade - he was never one of
those candidates promising to dismantle NAFTA or use protectionist tariffs.
Much as he always made it clear that he was no peacenik and would deploy US
military power where he felt it would advance US interests.

I'm not saying you should like or agree with these policies, but I can't
sympathize with your expressions of surprise. I'm hawkish enough (as a
classical economic liberal or 'neoliberal' if you like) that I broadly support
the policies mentioned above, and it was part of why I decided I'd prefer to
see him in the job back in 2007.

~~~
WildUtah
This isn't about free trade, though.

It's about raising trade barriers together to protect incumbent industries at
the cost of consumers and competition. They want to lengthen copyright, invade
privacy, regulate internet services while empowering gatekeepers, strengthen
licensing and reporting and taxation demands on small business, expand and
unify patent regimes, and the like.

Canada, Mexico, China, Australia, and Japan are already reciprocal Most
Favored Nation trading partners. We're not going to be getting any more access
to their markets. They're not going to be selling us anything new, either.

The contents of the deal are still an official secret, but we've had leaks. It
looks like the worst kind of big cartel, Disney, telecom monopoly, NSA,
surveillance state, patent troll plan to terrorize consumers and innovating
businesses. In fact, it's probably exactly what you might expect powerful
insiders to negotiate in secret at the expense of the public.

Free trade is something different.

~~~
anigbrowl
Make sure that straw man is well and truly dead before you stop beating him.

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PythonicAlpha
The trouble with TPP and other such "advances":

Big corporations are pulling strings in the background, to annul democratic
control. With bigger institutions (e.g. Washington, Brussels, ...) it becomes
simpler and simpler to find people that are far enough from the voters and
corrupted enough to support such endeavors. The result are secret proceedings
and parliaments that become pressed to vote for big legislation where the
effects for democracy and nations can not be foreseen.

In effect, those lobbies have their way (at least oftentimes in the last
decades) and destroy democratic control and control of the big corporations.
So it comes, that big corporations have a "free hand" to do what they want but
are liable for nearly nothing.

The worst thing about this is, that when one "advance" is rejected by
democracy -- no trouble, just give it a different name, make it a little
different and give it an other 3 or 4 letters acronym ... and bring it back
next year!

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anigbrowl
1\. I'm not aware at any especial effort of secrecy about the TPP. It's normal
to negotiate treaties behind closed doors; the time for public debate is when
they come up for ratification in the Senate, which is in accordance with the
Constitutional design.

2\. This has little or no effect on US copyright law, but seeks to promote
that standard elsewhere: * What they want is the most restrictive
interpretation of U.S. policy to become the international "norm" by which all
other TPP countries will be forced to conform their national laws.*

3\. All TPP negotiating coutnries are already signatories to the EBrene
convention and in principle are alsready signed up to these terms as fr as
foreign works are concerned.

4\. The US copyright regime got to be the way it is largely as a response to
changes in European law (specifically the Sonny Bono copyright act extending
it to life + 70).

I'm heartily in favor of copyright reform but until such time as it takes
place it's entirely understandable that international trade negotiations would
be based on the law as it currently stands rather than some hypothetical
future version. Furthermore, the TPP copyright rules as discussed are
basically just an affirmation of the existing copyright regime rather than
some drastic change. The normal thing in _any_ kind of trade deal is for the
parties to try to get theri commercial marketplace rules onto the same page so
that they can minimize the legal barriers to selling goods in each others
markets.

~~~
walterbell
What's your take on TPP's proposed criminal enforcement provisions which would
criminalize noncommercial activities such as fanzines, even when rightsholders
have no complaint?

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/10/latest-tpp-leak-
shows-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/10/latest-tpp-leak-shows-us-
still-pushing-terrible-drm-and-copyright-term-proposals)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/10/17/latest...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/10/17/latest-
tpp-leak-shows-even-harsher-copyright-rules/)

[http://japanitlaw.blogspot.com/2013/01/tpps-effect-on-
fanzin...](http://japanitlaw.blogspot.com/2013/01/tpps-effect-on-fanzine-
environment.html)

~~~
anigbrowl
OVerblown, when was the last time you heard of anything like that inside the
US? Of course there's no way to make definitive statements unless and until an
official draft is presented to the Senate for ratification, but the reality is
that authorities are much more interested in going after obvious knockoffs of
commercial property (fake DVDs, t-shirts or whatever) than obviously fan-
driven projects that do not represent themselves as 'the real thing'.

If anything, the trend in US courts is towards expanding the boundaries of
fair use. I think you might be interested in this recent case:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cariou_v._Prince](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cariou_v._Prince)

~~~
walterbell
All the articles are based on leaked drafts and interpretations by local
lawmakers who are not allowed to take notes, e.g. TTIP (similar to TPP)
lawmakers in the EU are allowed to read the drafts but not to leave with
copies. The leaks have been consistently reported by multiple countries who
are at the negotiating table.

If the concern is overblown, why has the US offered to delay enforcement of
_non-commercial_ criminalization laws until current governments are out of
office? Are existing US laws not sufficient to prosecute commercial
violations?

Under TPP, trends and views in U.S. courts may be less important than an ISDS
arbitration panel which would rule on any multi-country conflict between a
country and a corporate investor. Under current law, a country can tell a
corporation e.g. that _" guesses don't make valid patents"_, e.g.
[http://t.thestar.com/#/article/business/2015/02/11/canadian-...](http://t.thestar.com/#/article/business/2015/02/11/canadian-
reply-to-500-million-us-pharma-suit-guesses-dont-make-valid-patents.html) .

There are already $30B of corporate ISDS claims against EU nations,
[http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-
up...](http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-update-
xlvi-3592332/) , and that is before the expansion of scope that will come with
TPP and TTIP, which will reportedly require that countries (including the US)
submit to non-public arbitration.

~~~
anigbrowl
Criminal enforcement proceedings take place in courts, _by definition_. Now
you've switched to arguing about ISDS claims, a completely different subject.
I'm not here to sell you the TPP; I've given my opinion and a good faith
answer to your initial question, I have better things to do than follow a
moving set of goalposts around.

~~~
walterbell
Based on the limited available information, my understanding is that ISDS
claims are arbitrated by an extra-national panel, then they become law in the
affected country, then the country's courts are bound to enforce the ruling.
So the question of "what is normal in US courts" seems inseparable from ISDS
and any other extra-national trappings of TPP/TTIP.

Thanks for your original answer. I agree completely that the reported
proposals seem absurd and inconsistent with precedent. Yet, the reports of
leaked documents have been consistent in their absurdity, for more than a
year. The push for fast-track does not inspire confidence that such a complex
agreement will receive sufficient due diligence and public review by affected
stakeholders, before being subjected to an all-or-nothing vote.

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rayiner
This is what I think about whenever someone talks about "international law."

~~~
eplanit
Indeed, and a similar shiver down the spine when they talk abstractly about
"reform".

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shmerl
Great overview of what's going on behind such "trade" agreements:
[http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/](http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/)

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walterbell
Last week's TPP discussion with 80+ comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9078954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9078954)

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collyw
What happened to democracy? I know no absolutely one that is in favor of this,
yet it seems like it will happen.

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mindslight
Our lazy friends who give money to (Netflix, iTunes, etc) are directly
supporting this.

~~~
happyscrappy
Some people's time is important. Teenagers with lots of time and little money
can futz around with being a pirate.

~~~
dublinben
Projects like PopcornTime are just as easy to use, if not easier to use than
Netflix/Amazon. It doesn't require a credit card, and has no region/platform
restrictions.

~~~
sroerick
Out of curiosity, do you know what it would take to make a PopcornTime for
ONLY Creative Commons and Public Domain material?

Just a CC/PD tracker?

