
Negotiators Lose Last Chance to Salvage the TPP by Caving on Copyright Extension - CapitalistCartr
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/negotiators-burn-their-last-opportunity-salvage-tpp-caving-copyright-term
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k-mcgrady
>> "If the copyright holder is an individual, the minimum copyright term would
extend to the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years after her death."

I'm quite a big supporter of copyright but that's absolutely ridiculous. I
think the lifetime of the creator is very reasonable. I can even understand
throwing in a decade after that so that the family of a creator who dies
young/suddenly are supported for a while. 70 years is 3 or 4 generations of
family.

~~~
rayiner
I don't see why copyright terms need to be empirically justified. Land is
passed down from generation to generation, and few people ask: "what's the
empirically justifiable duration of land rights?" If we're going to have
inheritance of property,[1] I see no reason to extend stronger protections to
dirt peoples' ancestors stole from native Americans than to creative works
they brought into the universe through their own ingenuity.

[1] Which is a controversial issue, but a separate one.

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easytiger
I can create a new copy of a book in a few milliseconds. I cannot create a new
piece of land, at all. What a dumb argument.

~~~
rayiner
What does the ease of copying have to do with the moral justification for
protecting something? Creating a _new book_ certainly isn't an act that
happens in a few milliseconds.

As for creating land--the majority of land came into private ownership in the
U.S. via one of two means: 1) granted to wealthy people by European kings; or
2) annexed by the sweat of the brow (i.e. clearing a patch of wilderness and
farming it). Those acts were sufficient to morally justify a perpetual
property right, passed down from generation to generation. In a way, authors
do something very similar to (2). Every sequence of bits is already out there
in the aether--authors do the hard work of cultivating a particular sequence
of bits into something valuable. It's no different than putting in work to
bring land out of the wilderness into civilized use.

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opo
The public domain provides the raw material for most new works. For example.
all of the original Disney cartoons would not have been possible except for
the fact that earlier works were in the public domain.

The constitution does not pretend that intellectual property is the same as
real property and for good reason. For some reason I don't see anyone who says
they are equivalent also saying that copyright holders should also pay
property taxes on copyrighted works like they do their house. So even the
proponents of this, realize that intellectual property is different than real
property.

These giant corporations that are bribing (er I mean lobbying) politicians to
extend copyright to infinite terms are destroying our cultural heritage for
short term profit.

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thechao
What about a contract like this: the copyright holder declares the value of
the copyright (on the quarter; on the year; but the declared value may only
increase); we then tax them on that value---say 1%. The flip side is that the
copyright may be purchased 'into the public domain' by simply paying the full
amount of the copyright to the owner of the copyright. (The owner has no right
of refusal; however, they may increase the value of the copyright by paying
the difference in taxes.)

For patents, have the tax be $300 for each year of the age of the patent.
Surely, a patent is worth $300 in its first year; and, any patent that is
still 'interesting' after 10 years is worth at least $3000?

Multinational patents/copyrights are payed to the originating country, so that
there's no multiple payment issue.

~~~
valar_m
This is a bad idea. You want to impose a tax on people when they create
something? Penalizing people for innovation is the exact opposite of what
copyright protection is intended to do.

If I create something, and a corporation with deep pockets wants to take it
from me, they can just keep upping their bid until the tax for me to keep it
would bankrupt me, forcing me to give it up? No thanks.

~~~
dredmorbius
With the stipulation that it's a graduated tax which applies only to
extensions, I think it's a fine idea.

Your first 7-14 years are free, a modest fee for the next 14 year extension.
Then they start rising steeply.

If the work's worth the extension, you can continue to file. If not, it lapses
to PD.

And you only get so long regardless -- 56 years should be long enough for
anybody.

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mikeash
I like the idea of an exponential increase. $1 for the first year, then double
it for each subsequent year. If you don't want to pay a $1 then it probably
doesn't deserve protection. If you can't afford $2047 over ten years then
maybe you don't need a decade of protection. You don't even need to put in an
explicit limit, since the available money on the planet will present a natural
one eventually.

~~~
dredmorbius
Yes, though the overhead of requiring annual extensions might be a bit much.

The pre-1976 scheme required a filing and fee, though it was relatively
modest. All non-registered works were public domain, and the circle-C symbol
(or phonogram cicle-P) and notice were _required_.

I really wish we'd go back to something more like that.

~~~
mikeash
It could be adjusted pretty easily. For example, do it every five years, and
multiply by 100 each time, or whatever seems to make sense. Heck, if you're
worried about people who aren't aware of the requirements getting screwed,
have automagic and free copyright for the first five or ten years, then start
requiring filing.

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Estragon
The EFF is correct that this is a travesty, but the real scandal is the
undemocratic way the TPP is being negotiated in the first place.

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snowwrestler
It's being negotiated the same way every single international agreement has
been negotiated, so that's probably not a scandal.

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Brakenshire
But it is much more powerful than the trade deals of the previous generation.
Whereas those earlier deals dealt exclusively with trade, new deals also
include 'non-tariff barriers', i.e. things which are a mixture of trade and
domestic policy, like regulation of food, product safety and the environment.
But the mechanism for negotiating the deal remains the same as before. That is
manifestly unacceptable.

~~~
snowwrestler
From the U.S. perspective, NAFTA and GATT are more powerful than TPP would be.
Both address NTBs and were negotiated this way.

On top of that, international security agreements like NATO and the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty were negotiated this way, and those arguably have
more serious import for a nation than trade.

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transfire
We need a more nuanced copyright system, that takes into account the on going
use of a work. I can completely understand the Disney should still have a
copyright on the image of Mickey Mouse. But only b/c it is still relevant to
their on-going business. The idea of somehow putting a value on a copyright,
so the public could conceivably buy it out once it's value falls into an
affordable range, that makes a lot of sense, but how to do that fairly?

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dantheman
Do you think that Disney is the only company who should be able to tell
stories involving Mickey Mouse?

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transfire
Until Disney goes out of business, I think that is just, yes.

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JoshTriplett
And yet many of Disney's most successful movies retell much older stories,
only possible because those stories went into the public domain. Bit of
hypocrisy there.

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mjevans
Those characters and stories were not (substantially) created by Disney
though.

Everyone else /should/ be able to make those same stories in similar media.
Disney /really/ needs to be more proactive about using their brand name's
trademark within advertising as the consumer protection measure as that is the
intended to function of trademarks.

That, BTW, is what is stopping others from making a Disney(tm)'s Mickey
Mouse(tm) in steamboat willy(c, expired); and not stopping others from making
a more generic 'mouse piloting a steam boat' movie.

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oliwary
This[1] linked chapter in Lawrence Lessigs book "Free Culture" is absolutely
fascinating, well worth the read if you have the time.

[1] [http://www.authorama.com/free-
culture-18.html](http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-18.html)

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walterbell
Are the criminal provisions for archivists and DMCA-for-cafes still present?

[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/)

 _“If the US gets its way, then criminal penalties will apply even against
users who were not seeking financial gain from sharing or making available
copyrighted works, such as fans and archivists,” write Jeremy Malcolm and
Maira Sutton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “Such a broad
definition is ripe for abuse.”

... while the last leaked draft of the TPP, dated November 2013, showed strong
international opposition to this criminalization plan, Canada now seems to be
the only serious hold-out. This may, suggests James Love of Knowledge Ecology
International, be because this new draft gives some countries extra time to
implement the agreement – meaning that current governments won’t necessarily
have to carry the can for their decisions."_

The European version of TPP is called TTIP:
[http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-
up...](http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-updates--the-
glyn-moody-blogs-3569438/)

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junto
Can someone explain to me what the carrot and/or stick is, in getting these
countries to sign this agreement?

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toyg
These agreements are supposed to reduce barriers in both directions, so there
is an interest for businesses on both sides to reduce friction and allow
greater access to foreign markets.

Unfortunately, this laudable process has been more and more hijacked by
special interest groups, to the point where international treaties are used as
backdoors to impose legislation that would otherwise be very unpopular at
home. An MP voting in, say, New Zealand to extend copyright terms, would get a
lot of stick; but now he can say "hey, there is some good with the bad, less
barriers are good for the economy blablabla" and vote for the whole bundle
with significant political cover; he can then collect his copyright-lobby
cheque AND keep his seat, win-win.

In a way, this is natural; this sort of dealmaking was commonplace at local
and national level at most times in history, and it took a lot of effort to
make it fairly transparent through the democratic process; now it gets done at
a global level, where there isn't a democratic process yet -- we don't vote
for a "world parliament" where this sort of issues could be thrashed out in
public, we rely on ambassadors and special envoys with wide negotiating powers
and no accountability, which naturally results in corruption.

~~~
jpollock
Actually, for New Zealand, there are huge benefits in terms of market access
for their primary industries (milk and meat).

Add to that the indirect benefits that the movie industry brings to the
tourism industry (yep, they measured it), and you have an agreement that is
beneficial to the top two industries.

New Zealand wants to sell Americans milk and lamb. Then they're going to want
to come over and teach Americans how to grow your _own_ milk and lamb.

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malandrew
TBH, I would imagine that the reason that there is no requirement to renew
copyright is because Big Content knows people are lazy and that the more
content from the past stays copyrighted by default (even if the author doesn't
care to assert that right) means there will be less free content to compete
for attention in the future.

Not requiring formal registration and renewal is a clear attempt to reduce the
commons, not merely protect the copyrights owned by Big Content.

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vinceguidry
> multinational entertainment conglomerates, who have twisted what is
> notionally a trade negotiation into a special interest money-grab

Honest question here, is there really a difference between the two? Is there
some doctrine somewhere that specifies exactly what constitutes a trade
negotiation and what is considered corruption of said negotiation? I see these
kinds of statements thrown around a lot without a lot of justification.

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rwmj
Good essay somewhat related to this, about being pro-market but anti-business:
[http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli...](http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2015/02/anti-
business.html)

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yuhong
Not that the TPP is a good thing, but personally I think that the fight to not
extend copyright terms beyond the term US have now is more important.

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abandonliberty
Article title is wishful thinking. There's no sign the TPP is failing.

If they're arguing about a last chance of salvaging legitimacy for the TPP
process, I think that was a long time ago.

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danbmil99
Sad (libertarian!) panda.

