TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/tpp-leak-confirms-worst-us-negotiators-still-trying-trade-away-internet-freedoms

by jim-greer • 13 years ago

463 70 13 years ago

When did governments go from trying to act in the best interests of their citizens so as to make their lives better and safer to restricting individual freedoms so as to create bigger profits for private companies?

jsmeaton• 13 years ago

http://money.howstuffworks.com/campaign-finance1.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_boy_network

chongli• 13 years ago

This problem (corruption) is a lot older than that. Hell, it's as old as government itself.

olefoo2• 13 years ago

Thus has it ever been. The history of government is the history of privilege and it's protection. That the Enlightenment of the 18th Century brought forth modern notions of representative democracy was in large part a reaction to the failure and catastrophic overthrow of the feudal order that had existed prior to that time. The American and the French revolutions made it clear that some form of safety valve that allowed class conflict to be mediated and ameliorated was better than the alternatives as far as the interests of the upper classes.

dangero• 13 years ago

Can you recommend any good books on this topic? You just blew my mind.

brosco45• 13 years ago

Power corrupts.

_bfhp• 13 years ago

Is it even useful anymore to talk as if there's any separation between governments and private companies at this point?

grecy• 13 years ago

A good place to start looking was allowing unlimited campaign contributions.

No democracy functions that way.

diorray• 13 years ago

"Water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless"

sounds• 13 years ago

Like I mentioned in the other thread on the TPP Leak, the TPP could immediately have the following effects, if it is enacted into law by the participating nations. I picked the ones you would most likely notice:

1. 3-strikes laws in all participating nations. Note that the US and France have already effectively abandoned their attempted three-strikes laws [1] [2] [3], but would likely reinstate them.

2. dvdcss and UEFI Secure Boot circumvention (including shim loaders) will become illegal in enough countries to have chilling effects on open source innovation

3. significant extension of patents for medication, increasing healthcare costs

4. additional regulation of internet backbone providers – to perform deep packet inspection for government investigation of copyright infringement. This would use taxpayer dollars to enforce dying copyright regimes. I assume governments would be delighted to have justification to tap the internet at backbones.

5. End of works entering the public domain. Copyright term extensions are likely just as the US has done, so the public domain may not see new additions for a long time.

I want to mention the significant curtailing of fair use in Europe, which would train young artists not to remix or reuse others' ideas. However, it might take up to 5 years to feel the effects.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/france-defangs-it... (I'm citing Ars here mainly because they follow copyright law pretty closely. Please use google for other sources.)

[2] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/heres-what-an-act...

[3] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/major-isps-agree-...

Svip2• 13 years ago

I have to ask; are there fair use laws in Europe? I was always under the impression that was a US law.

chalst• 13 years ago

Yes, more or less, but they are generally not as generous as the US.

E.g., the UK equivalent of fair use, "fair dealing", is limited to a definitive list of circumscribed purposes of the unauthorised use of copyright material, e.g., in writing a review. By contrast, US law has a non-exclusive set of tests to check if an unauthorised use is fair use, of which purpose is just one factor to be weighed in the balance.

I gather that Germany does not have any fair use law [1], but in practice a regime similar to the UK's has been established through several precedents in the German courts. France seems to be in a similar situation, with a more generous court interpretation of fair use [2].

Wikipedia tells me that Israel has a fair use law similar to the US; cf. [3].

[1] http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/08/8-... - note that vog's comment below seems to refute this source

[2] https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2011/01/who-said-france-d...

[3] https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2008/01/israel%E2%80%99s-...

belorn• 13 years ago

Yes, but under different names.

Sweden for example has the Right to quote law.

Svip2• 13 years ago

I just realised something; why would this agreement curtail European fair use equivalent laws? I thought it was Trans-Pacific agreement, specifically leaving out Europe.

mindslight• 13 years ago

And keep in mind the people giving money, respect, and utilization to Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Youtube, Xbox, Steam, etc are helping to support this continued insanity. These type of services are not the Internet future - they're the past reincarnated to deliver over IP.

purringmeow• 13 years ago

What alternative way of distribution are you proposing? What do you think is the future?

r0h1n2• 13 years ago

It gives me hope that large and significant countries like India and China are not (yet) part of the TPP, and thus this isn't applicable to the entire world.

I'm sure the US realizes this, which is why there's been some talk to bring in India, South Korea, Thailand and even China (I say "even" because China apparently feels that the TPP is an "anti-China club") into the TPP fold.

> Bring India into the TPP [Politico], http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/bring-india-into-the-t...

Given India's long-standing objections towards strict copyright and patent laws, and as an Indian, I hope we stay clear of the TPP.

joeshevland5• 13 years ago

As an Australian (US by birth unfort, I actually hate my country of birth at this stage because of their governance), I'm actually looking to China and non-partisan countries to fix this mess. The solution isn't going to come from a country so entrenched in corruption.

pjc50• 13 years ago

Don't think that China isn't partisan; they're Chinese partisans supporting Chinese interests and companies instead. They don't have the same level of global meddling capability as the US - yet.

r0h1n2• 13 years ago

Pray, what are "non-partisan countries"? And why do you think China is one?

duncan_bayne3• 13 years ago

Maybe it's time to kill Copyright for good (in both possible meanings of good):

http://praxeology.net/anticopyright.htm

Edited: and by "maybe it's" I mean "It's about damn time".

Edited again: this quote from Jefferson is highlighted on that Anti Copyright Resources page, and nicely captures the spirit of why we might choose to kill Copyright:

... He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

chrismcb• 13 years ago

What do ideas and inventions have to do with copyright? No, it isn't time to kill Copyright, that would be a very bad idea. But certainly reduce the limits. Much less than the current "greater than the average lifespan"

x00545• 13 years ago

It makes no sense to link the duration of the copyright work to the life of the author. Say some one writes a book and then promptly gets hit by a car. Why should their book have less of a copyright term then a book written by and author that goes on to live for 80 more years. Copyright term should be set number of years after first publication. 20-30 years would be reasonable.

Copyright is absolutely necessary to allow authors to make money from their work. Short term rights, 10-30 years of so, benefit the authors the most. Long terms of 100+ years only favor the distributors.

Joeri• 13 years ago

You are arguing against patents, not copyright. Copyright is not the protection of invention, it is the protection of expression.

001sky• 13 years ago

This is pedantic; the idea of a 'creation' easily spans both cases.

duncan_bayne3• 13 years ago

No, I'm not. The resource is specifically "Anti-Copyright Resources". You're reading a lot more into one Jefferson quote than you should be :)

linuxhansl• 13 years ago

Of course. The US is becoming a service/IP economy. It is no longer producing many physical goods. So pushing these laws worldwide is essential for economic success.

hdevalence• 13 years ago

No, because these laws arguably hinder economic success in these industries.

The success of the internet, which is largely built around open protocols, and open source, would indicate that perhaps copyright/patent maximalism that forces a "get permission first" culture is not a good idea.

For an extremely detailed argument on why copyright and patents hinder innovation in general, see the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Boldrin and Levine. You can find a copy on the internet using, e.g., Google.

For a more story-based exposition, see the "This American Life" episodes "When Patents Attack".

thrownaway24242• 13 years ago

"It is no longer producing many physical goods."

LOLWUT, as they say on the internet. The US currently enjoys more industrial production than at any time in its history. It is still the largest producer of manufactured goods in the world.

"U.S. Manufacturing in International Perspective" http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf

US Census Bureau - New Manufacturing Orders http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d2p7r4l1574rh_&c...

mcphilip• 13 years ago

If you're impressed primarily by absolute dollar amounts of value added, then sure, U.S. manufacturing looks good on a bar chart comparison of G7 countries.

However, the rest of the FAS report is stuffed full of metrics showing the rapid decline of the manufacturing sector.

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

Was anyone honestly expecting anything good to come from TPP? We've known since the first draft leak back in 2011 leaked that the whole purpose of TPP was not to benefit anyone except copyright lobbyists and pharmaceutical companies. Why else do you think these talks are being secretly held?

If the TPP is approved in all participating countries, it has the potential to really wreak havoc. What we are seeing here whether or not you understand it that well is bad news for open source, bad news for anyone that uses the Internet and bad news for countries that rely on cheaper generic drugs to treat illnesses.

What a sad world we live in when lobbyists and rogue politicians are conspiring to destroy the world. And while it could be worse, if TPP passes this is only the beginning of what would be a very destructive agreement.

frank_boyd• 13 years ago

"We must handle this in secret! Trust us! It's for your own good! We just want to protect you from the danger!"

Why do I keep hearing this bullshit from all governments all over the World? (The last time, it was the NSA saying we should let them set up the police state.)

Secrecy has nothing to do with democracy. It kills it. (And that seems to be the goal, lately.)

joeshevland5• 13 years ago

Anyone else starting to feel worn down and disgusted by the behavior of your government? I don't see a lot of change, just a lot of dissection of how bad it is. If the mechanism to change the problem is broken, how do you change the problem?

junto• 13 years ago

What I find worst of all, is that our governments are using our tax dollars to negotiate and write this stuff behind our backs in order to shaft us, the people.

joeshevland5• 13 years ago

Its almost Terry Pratcher'esque. I'm seriously depressed about how shit our system is.

CalRobert2• 13 years ago

I emigrated. I suggest all others of like minds do the same. Let the US suffer brain drain for a change (unintentional rhyming ftw!)

vijayr• 13 years ago

Where did you move? Also, is there any guarantee that other countries won't create similar laws/agreements etc in future (may be not today, but what about tomorrow)?

mercurial• 13 years ago

I find it striking that these people are seemingly willing to spend years negotiating on this, and presumably spend a lot of money in the process, while not having learned anything about the failure of the previous agreement. It seems also clear that the US trade representative is not interested in balancing the interest of the public with business interests.

ordinary• 13 years ago

History shows that a people roused is a force without equal. But it also teaches us that rousing a people is far from an easy task, and it becomes harder the more often you try it, or the more often it's necessary.

This creates an incentive to try again and again and again. The costs are minimal (lobbying is cheap when you're a multi-billion dollar industry), the risk of blowback practically non-existant (no one boycots Disney), and the potential rewards are huge.

Therefore, I think you're incorrect when you say these people have not learned anything. Defeating one treaty or proposed law does nothing to prevent them from trying to pass the same reforms at a later point.

joeshevland5• 13 years ago

Punch drunk from the abuse, how much worse can it get?

benbojangles• 13 years ago

Why isn't China in the TPP?

Fuxy• 13 years ago

This is completely idiotic and obviously not in the best interest of the citizens of that country.

Why do we even have this crap? Trade agreements are obviously just a way for big corporations make into law all their stupid ideas.

Corporations shouldn't have a say in law to begin with that will inevitably lead to abuse of power.

This looks just like a price setting agreement between large corporation (clearly illegal) but instead of setting prices the set laws in their favor. Considerably worse and should be just as illegal.

Sniperfish• 13 years ago

Some interesting discussions by KEI http://keionline.org/node/1825

Having not been following the TPP terribly thoroughly I did not realise how wide in scope some of its provisions would appear to be.

TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms

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