Trans-Pacific Partnership

5 Feb 2011

      Howdy guys,

At the January 2011 meeting, I talked about the Trans-Pacific
Partnership. Here is the information for the group.

Short version:

It's pretty bad. We need to lobby government to stop this. There's
hope that other nations seem partially aware of the problems.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership <URL:http://www.ustr.gov/tpp> is a plan
currently being effected by the USA's Office of the United States
Trade Representative.

    […] a regional, Asia-Pacific trade agreement, known as the
    Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement with the objective of
    shaping a high-standard, broad-based regional pact.
    […]

    The first round of negotiations took place from March 15-19 in
    Melbourne, Australia. The second round of negotiations took place
    from June 14-18 in San Francisco, California.

    USTR is currently conducting an unprecedented fifty-state domestic
    outreach strategy for TPP. Read about our outreach events and
    updates on our TPP outreach page.

Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) has been discussing the leaked
internals of this secretive international pact.

    Industry is asking the US government for a number of TRIPS plus,
    WCT plus and ACTA plus provisions:

    - To seek the highest possible IP protection from TPP negotiating parties.

    - To built upon existing FTAs and use the US/Korea Free Trade
      Agreement as a baseline. Although the letter does not
      specifically mention the May 10, 2007 compromise that included
      important public health flexibilities in the US/Peru FTA, US
      Industry is clearly demanding the US government to reject the
      compromise as the basis for negotiations.

    - To go beyond the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). For
      instance, it states that the TPP should outlaw camcording in
      theaters, despite the fact that the ACTA made it optional for
      countries to have criminal penalties for camcording.

    <URL:http://keionline.org/node/1034>

Public Knowledge reminds us that this is “ACTA the sequel”.

    While a text may not have been drafted yet, content owners are
    doing their bit to ensure that the TPP would contain IP provisions
    that aggressively protect their interests at the expense of the
    rest of ours. A paper prepared by the U.S. Business Coalition for
    TPP (reported to be drafted by the Pharmaceutical Research and
    Manufactures of America, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the
    Motion Picture Association of America) and leaked on the Internet,
    indicates that rights holders are urging the USTR to include in
    TPP IP protections more extensive than those present in ACTA.
    Specifically, the paper suggests that the following issues be
    addressed in TPP:

    * Temporary copies: [cached or intermediate copies within a
      computer]

    * Circumvention of digital locks: [harsher DRM enforcement]

    * Copyright terms: The paper urges the TPP to provide for longer
      copyright terms.

    * Statutory damages: [ignore putative damages suffered by
      plaintiff; instead, calculate damages as multiple of nominal fee
      for use]

    The coalition suggests many other worrisome provisions such as
    requiring ISPs to act as copyright cops and treating individual
    infringers with the same severity as large-scale pirates.

    <URL:http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/acta-sequel-transpacific-partnership-agreemen>

The above article at Public Knowledge also discusses a leaked document
within the NZ government, which shows a good awareness of the issues
raised by the TPP in light of similar regimes and their effects on
economies and freedom.

-- 
 \        “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you |
  `\     have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither |
_o__)                       on your side, pound the table.” —anonymous |
Ben Finney <ben@benfinney.id.au>

Ben Finney

Mahesh Sharma

Mahesh Sharma

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