As
we've discussed, the ACTA took all of this country's worst copyright ideas --many of them enshrined in the controversial DMCA -- made them considerably worse, then foisted them upon much of the globe with little to no real public discussion. The EFF notes that a new global trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is trying to take things even further -- exporting usually-draconian U.S. intellectual property beliefs onto a list of partner countries, including New Zealand, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Just ike the ACTA, the agreement is
being negotiated in total secrecy:
We don’t know what’s in the TPP IP chapter, and that’s the point. The TPP is being negotiated in secret. Entertainment industry executives who are members of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property will likely get to see the agreement drafts again but the rest of us will be kept in the dark. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The US Trade Representative could release the TPP IP chapter that it has tabled, and call for comments from all affected stakeholders, rather than just the members of the entertainment industry and the few DC-based lobbyists who were willing to sign Non-Disclosure agreements last year. It finally did so for ACTA, but only after negotiations had already concluded.
directs our attention to the fact that a
draft of the TPP has been leaked, and like the ACTA there are portions focused on making ISPs content nannies, including increased ISP liability for user copyright violations and new mandatory systems for disclosing the identities of these users to the entertainment industry. Most of these requirements go well beyond U.S. law, with many focused on making ISPs and governments worldwide the personal police forces for a handful of giant companies that are unwilling to adapt to the new business models in the broadband age. The EFF offers up a long list of Congressional Representatives that can be contacted to complain about this latest display of regulatory capture.
