UK Information Commissioner Says Wikileaks Means Governments Should Be More Open

Son Of ACTA (But Worse): Meet TPP, The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

from the any-which-way dept

Thu, Jan 6th 2011 7:43am — Mike Masnick

Back in December we noted that the industry lobbyists fighting for increased protectionism via copyright and patent laws never stop trying, and as soon as one thing finishes, they pop up somewhere else. Specifically, we were noting calls from the industry for the USTR to negotiate a hardline in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which involves a bunch of Pacific Rim countries: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, U.S, and Vietnam -- though Japan and Canada may join as well. Apparently, the US government has already indicated that it will not allow any form of weakening of intellectual property law for any reason whatsoever in this agreement. In fact, the USTR has directly said that it will only allow for "harmonizing" intellectual property regulations "strictly upwards," meaning greater protectionism. Given the mounds of evidence suggesting that over protection via such laws is damaging to the economy, this is immensely troubling, and once again shows how the USTR is making policy by ignoring data. This is scary.

The folks over at Public Knowledge have put together some initial information on the TPP, noting that it's basically "ACTA the Sequel." It's actually worse than that. As KEI has discussed TPP will be a much stricter form of agreement:

Unlike ACTA, the TPP will be subject to a dispute resolution process, which means that the U.S. and other countries will be subject to "fines" if they are not in compliance with the agreement.

Not surprisingly, just like ACTA, it appears that the USTR has decided that "transparency" as required by the Obama administration really means no transparency. Once again, KEI notes the ridiculousness of this:

The Obama Administration has developed a policy on transparency for the TPP negotiations which apparently does not involve any commitments to sharing the text with the general public, even after it has been given to all member countries in the negotiation and to hundreds of corporate insiders on the USTR advisory board system.

It appears the lesson that the USTR learned from all the complaints about a total lack of transparency on ACTA was that it could get away with basically refusing to include the public (the biggest stakeholder here) entirely.

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Filed Under: acta, copyright, tpp

21 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2011 @ 7:56am

So how long until we start the second civil war?
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- weneedhelp (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 8:16am
  
  Re:
  That's laughable. Ill tell you how long...never. The avg American citizen could care less... about anything it seems anymore. Its sad.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2011 @ 8:45am
    
    Re: Re:
    Too busy being comfortable with their Opium(iphones, entretainment, pot and so forth) to be bothered to lift a finger for the war vs the US constitution.
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    - Another Anonymous, 1 Mar 2012 @ 11:50am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      If I were in America, I'd partake in that civil war. I'm starting to see the world changing for the worse, and I don't particularly care for it.
      
      Hell, I'd partake in a civil uprising in my own country if we had one.
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Nina Paley (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 7:59am

Acronyms
I immediately thought "Toilet Paper Protocol."

They also gave us the All Censor Together Agreement (ACTA) and Cenorship Of Internet Communications Act (COICA, better called CLOACA).
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- Mike C. (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 12:08pm
  
  Re: Acronyms
  Nah - it's the Toilet Paper Protection Act... we gotta save s#(t!!!
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btrussell (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 8:06am

I can see how this will affect "piracy."

More and more people will realize the Governments are ignoring them and their concerns and will start ignoring the Governments and their laws more and more.
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KnownHuman (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 8:12am

Surprised?
With few exceptions, sequels rarely live up to original. Did you really think TPP was going to be the Empire to ACTA's Star Wars?
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- The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 10:25am
  
  Re: Surprised?
  No idea but I'm now going to hear the Imperial March in my head every time I see Obama walking to a podium.
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crade (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 8:28am

So they want to take the most restrictive aspects from each country's laws? That's a bit over the top even for what I've come to expect. I don't think Canada will want to join judging from the reation to ACTA, but we could definately be forced to.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2011 @ 9:18am

They won't be able to pin TPP on the Bush administration at least.
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Almost Anonymous (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 9:51am

If only...
"""It appears the lesson that the USTR learned from all the complaints about a total lack of transparency on ACTA was that it could get away with basically refusing to include the public (the biggest stakeholder here) entirely."""

Yeah, if only there was an easy place to go, maybe like a wiki website, where documents could be made available for downloading, or "leaked", to the general public in situations where governments are unreasonably hiding material.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2011 @ 9:52am

Am I the only one who wants to write a real-life "A Call to Reason" and be on hand for the real-life Corellian Treaty?
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Chargone (profile), 6 Jan 2011 @ 11:17am

the annoying part about this is that, if memory serves, the USA has no business being in that agreement in the first place. (it started off involving a lot less parties and with more tightly focused goals... and more chance of actually being useful. oh, AND specific statements to the effect that it had nothing to do with copyright and such. if i remember rightly at least.)
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herbert, 8 Jan 2011 @ 10:02am

so which country is the instigator of this 'new' agreement then? which industries are going to be included in the making of the 'rules' to be layed down? what encouragements (bribes?) are going to be given to conforming countries representatives? what threats will be issued against the countries that wont (or dont want to) conform? what excuses are going to be used to keep public concerned bodies out of the negotiations? which governments are actually going to give a rat's ass about their own people?
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taffy, 27 Jan 2012 @ 11:57pm

can't we sue the states for espionage? lol
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Emma, 28 Jan 2012 @ 12:37pm

I have a question. Why are all these bills being pushed forward now? Like literally I've never seen this barage of bills being pushed soo much. Is it a reaction to the Arab Spring movement? Are these countries trying to prevent such revolutions from happening again?
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- Ziggy, 29 Jan 2012 @ 10:26am
  
  Re:
  Not prevent them, cause them. This raises public unrest and the governments have cause to implement even more Draconian laws to deal with them in the future. In other words, they get to grant themselves more powers.
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oz, 31 Jan 2012 @ 7:33am

Come on everyone to I2P! i2p2.de
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a, 7 Feb 2012 @ 3:40pm

It's a Tra-PPA
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Tex Arcana (profile), 11 Feb 2012 @ 7:36pm

"Zeig Heil", everyone?
That's a bit disingenuous, tho... Can't blame the Germans for this steaming pile of poop.

Nope, this falls square on the shoulders of the MAFIAA and their purchased politicians, who have pretty much succeeded in making this joint the "Corporate States of AmurrriKKKa", where thoughtcrimes will land you into prison, with no chance of parole.

I am embarrassed and saddened to see that our lives and freedoms have been sold out to the highest bidders... especially since they've made those bids with the $850 billion they stole from us to begin with.

I think this might just trigger the next civil war... When was the last time a politician said "no" to an angry mob of armed people??
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