'Intellectual Property' Mess Holding Up The TPP
from the maybe-just-drop-it dept
As negotiators are seeking to finish up the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement as soon as possible (they had originally promised a done deal by October), it appears that the controversial "intellectual property" chapter is causing the most problems, according to Sean Flynn, who is at the current negotiating round in Lima.Officially, the Chief Negotiators have backed off the prior commitment to end the TPP negotiation by October, but are still clinging to a goal to end the negotiation by the “end of the year.” But privately, none of the negotiators or stakeholders at this round would express any confidence that the intellectual property issues could be resolved by then. The issues still under contention are massive.Furthermore, it appears that some of the negotiators are realizing that it's a bad idea to lock in certain concepts, as would be set under the TPP, especially as various court rulings are changing the way copyright laws are viewed, and while a new copyright reform process is ongoing. People seem to be recognizing that agreeing to specific norms that may quickly be undermined by national laws would be a waste of time.
The intellectual property chapter has grown to over 80 pages of text – including all the bracketed suggestions and alternatives. Some negotiators describe it as the longest text currently under negotiation.
Many of the issues are completely blocked. There has not been any new negotiation text offered on the most controversial pharmaceutical provisions since the Melbourne round over a year ago. There is currently no mandate from many countries to negotiate (they only “consult” and “discuss”) the pharmaceutical reimbursement chapter. Barbara Weisel described the pharmaceutical issues as being in a “period of reflection,” and had no comment on when that period might end.
The recent spate of proposals for policy changes for US copyright law have caused a stir. The US is being asked how it can hold on to demands for parallel importation restrictions after the Kirtsaeng ruling, 70 year copyright terms after the Copyright Office proposed shifting them back to 50 years with formalities required for extensions, and strict restrictions on anti-circumvention liability exceptions when the Obama Administration and the Library of Congress have endorsed reforms that would violate the US proposal. Barbara Weisel stated that USTR is “doing what we can to work with Congress” to make sure that the TPP will not restrict policy options. But negotiators have said that there has been no visible movement on the USTR’s positions on Copyright issues, which will be negotiated this week.And, of course, once again, the USTR appears to have no plans to be transparent in the slightest.
And there is no plan to release any text to the public. This is stark contrast to the last to plurilateral agreements including countries in the region. The Free Trade Area for the Americas and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement both released full texts of the negotiating document with brackets indicating text under consideration before the finalization of the texts. For ACTA, there were four publicly released texts between April 2010 and May 2011. For the TPP – none yet, despite the Chief Negotiators’ pronouncement of end of year finalization plans.Considering how much controversy there is over these items, it seems ridiculous that we still can't actually see what's being negotiated in our name -- especially when there's quite reasonable fears that it could mess with the democratic process of potentially rewriting copyright law.
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Filed Under: copyright, intellectual property, negotiations, pharmaceuticals, tpp
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Response to: bob on May 21st, 2013 @ 3:43am
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HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA
WOOOO
HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA
"once again making things up". That's good one.
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WTF
The rabbit carrying the gun
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Only one side of the argument is attempting to buy the government and rewrite the laws.
Therefore the original quote would apply to the copyright maximalists. If you are complaining about pirary, it only exists because the public has lost any respect for copyright and government -- and this is also the fault of the copyright maximalists.
You cannot now suddenly complain that members of the public casually engage in the kind of behavior that the copyright maximalists have set such a fine reprehensible example of.
I hope that cleared things up for you.
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Somewhat off-topic: Why do you think whenever there's a show on TV about cops/justice, you never see them go after white-collar criminals and bureaucrats? They only go after criminals in lower society, often using entrapment and other such devious methods in order to catch someone red-handed on camera, like waving candy in front of a toddler.
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Agreements
Copyright needs to be dialed back and must and i stress this, must be changed to help the public and the content creators move forward and not backward. With the internet the gatekeepers have become obsolete, the gatekeepers are trying their hardest to remain relevent and that is just holding up any other agreements.
Maybe the people involved in this agreement must put forward a proposal that is 100% against what the gatekeepers are demanding, cut copyright to 10 years make fair use more relevent, make sure that the monopoly they have is weakened and put forward a ruling that content creators cannot sell there copyright to others but only license businesses to use their content and have the content creator be able to cancel that at any time without recriminations against them.
Maybe if these trade agreements are started to be used to weaken copyright in the interest of growth maybe then the monopolists will stop trying to strengthen their hold on content creators once and for all through these agreements , with the end result that they fail and all the time and money spent on them is wasted yet again.
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The President, Congress, and the general public doesn't appear to like this.
We MUST pass this before they start asking questions!
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Techdirt, you're a joke
Our motto is "Be a fan, Go to Jail".
This TPP deal must be done now, not October or sooner. NOW! So we can lock up all those fandom nerds in FEMA camps indefinitely. Fandom nerds needs to get real jobs and some wives.
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Foolishness
Due to the large shift in Copyright laws then it is indeed foolish to include 80 pages on Intellectual Property. Let us keep in mind that even if there is one single unacceptable point in TPPA then the whole document would need to be scrapped where years of work would then be lost. These documents can't have late amendments unlike common law proposals can meaning that they should aim to high general happiness to begin with.
They should really have kicked intellectual property out of the entire discussion when they only go and ruin the party for everyone else. Maybe those rest should now open their own trade discussion where IP is banned.
Well if they want to release unacceptable trash then how about the radical idea of not releasing it? If they aim another ACTA+ then clearly this will not pass democratic approval.
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The right thing to do, is to share knowledge in an attempt to progress and better all of mankind. Not horde it so only a select few benefit at the expense of everybody else on the planet.
I swear this is the reason why we still don't have solar powered roof shingles for houses. Can't charge people for electricity if they're making their own!
Keep on burning that fossil fuel! We're finally melting that pesky ice in the Arctic so we can get drill rigs in there. Anyone who cries about tornadoes and hurricanes is a pussy!
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http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/obamas-2-ocean-globalist-plan/
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