I admit it: I am something of a TPP tinfoil hatter. I see it, and its proposed European twin, TAFTA, as one of the most dangerous items looming on the political horizon. We have limited knowledge of what is in TPP, via leaks, because the whole thing is being negotiated in secret. Well, secret from us. And from our representatives in Congress. But hundreds of corporations know what's there because they've been invited to participate in the negotiations. The public? Meh, they'll find out the hard way after it's a done deal.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has posted a new article about the potential effects of TPP on copyright law among the signatory nations (including the U.S.). In short, it seems the proposals take the worst of all laws regarding copyright and lock every TPP nation into them, as a minimum.
You may not like a particular law, such as the restrictions on bypassing or defeating DRM (Digital Rights Management) but you can always hope to change it. For example, it used to be illegal to unlock a cell phone; the Library of Congress ruled that it was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Public pressure resulted in Congress passing a law overturning that decision last year.
But imagine if TPP had been in force and the unlocking restrictions were included in the treaty. Congress and the President would be powerless to make the change that they did. It would have been considered a violation of the TPP and opened the U.S. government (and our public treasury) to a claim for possibly hundreds of millions of dollars, to be decided by an arbitration panel drawn from investment bankers, international trade lawyers, and retired multinational CEOs. Pigs are likely to fly sooner than such a panel would rule for the public rather than the multinational corporations they have spent their lives serving.
Below the fold are five key points of law that the EFF identifies as likely to be included in the TPP, and thus enshrined as law that will be permanent and unchangeable barring a renegotiation of the treaty (don't hold your breath for that to ever happen).
Excessive Copyright Terms
Already life of the creator plus 70 years, but Disney seems to always persuade Congress to add another 20 years every time Mickey Mouse is about to slide in the public domain.
Criminalizing DRM Circumvention
Forget about transferring content you own to another medium, say for instance, if MP3s go the way of the 8-track tape and you want to update your purchased collection to work with new software or hardware.
Internet Service Providers (ISP) and Website Liability
Safe harbor provisions have largely kept ISPs and website owners protected from legal actions by third parties for the activities of users. The MPAA and RIAA, among others, would like to change that, making it easier to target them unless they adopt draconian measures to prevent any infringements of copyright. The U.S. "fair use" exemption is missing from the TPP proposals.
Criminal Penalties for File Sharing
Originally those FBI notices at the start of videotapes (and now DVDs) were meant to warn against commercial copying and that's why the fines were so high. It would take a lot of sales of counterfeit tapes to make it worth the risk of hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties. Nowadays, given half a chance to indulge themselves, the entertainment industry and their Mafia-like extortion squads (MPAA and RIAA) enjoy threatening with those astronomical sums people who post a video of a kid's birthday party where they're singing "Happy Birthday to You" (still under copyright, see item number 1 above).
TPP parties not only want to lock in the civil financial penalties, they want to ensure that file sharing will be a criminal offense. It must be nice to think of government as your own personal hit team, ready to dispatch federal agents and rely on federal prosecutors whenever you claim someone is sharing your stuff without permission. I doubt that you or I could order the FBI or U.S. attorney to raid the neighbor's garage to get back that loaned-but-never-returned hammer and send our neglectful neighbor to the slammer.
Criminalization of Investigative Journalism and Whistleblowing
Well, if there's anything corporations like more than secrecy, I don't know what it is. Maybe money. But they use secrecy in order to squeeze more money out of everyone and everything, sometimes illegally, so the two go hand in hand. Naturally, they'd prefer that their dirty deeds never see the light of day.
Enter the TPP, with new provisions to criminalize the release of "trade secrets", a broad enough term to encompass just about anything they don't want the public to know. Like maybe that their new secret sauce is actually made with toxic waste or that the reason they can cut the price on one of their electronic toys is that they moved the factory to a country where they can employ 10 years olds for a couple of bucks per day.
Head over to EFF and read the article. Then let your Representative and Senators know that TPP is an unacceptable sweetheart deal for corporations which will harm average citizens.