Even As Copyright Office Has Called For Shorter Copyright, USTR Tries Locking US Into Longer Terms
from the because-ustr-doesn't-give-a-fuck dept
This is hardly surprising, but even as the head of the US Copyright Office, Maria Pallante, has called for the US to roll back the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, so that copyright would last the life of an author plus an additional 50 years -- rather than the 70 years it is today -- the USTR is working to make sure that can't happen. The latest report from the latest round of negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement says that the US has effectively bullied all the other participants into agreeing that the floor for copyright terms must be life + 70.Officials settled on the arrangement after agreeing with the US's position on the length of term for copyrights. US representatives want copyrights to last 70 years from the release date of films and music and the deaths of authors of books.As we've noted repeatedly, this is an old trick for copyright maximalists. Go into secret, backroom international trade agreement negotiations, and get them to agree to something like this -- and then when the issue comes up for reform in Congress, scream loudly how we can't possibly reduce the term of copyrights, because it would "violate our international obligations" and create havoc. We've been reporting on this kind of trick for about a decade and it's been going on for much longer than that. The plan is really nefarious. You get very friendly USTR officials (whose next job will likely be working for the industry to push things through in this secret negotiation, for which there is no public debate or ability to let the public have real input on. Then, when an issue actually comes up for debate in Congress, insist that it's impossible to change due to the "international obligations" that these same industries were responsible for slipping into the agreement in the first place.
It's really a disgusting practice -- and despite being called out on it over and over again, the USTR seems to be more than willing to simply do it again. This is yet another reason why Congress should not give the USTR "fast track" authority, as it will back them into a corner, and block their ability to reform copyright law as they would like and the way that even the Copyright Office itself has said copyright law should be reformed.
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Filed Under: copyright, copyright reform, copyright term, international obligations, life plus 70, maria pallante, tpp, ustr
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Response to: Ninja on Feb 4th, 2015 @ 7:16am
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Re: Response to: Ninja on Feb 4th, 2015 @ 7:16am
Something that would let Disney protect the mouse house while still letting less profitable things drift into the public domain.
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How can it be repealed?
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Re: How can it be repealed?
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Re: How can it be repealed?
Or hope enough other countries have their shit together enough to have their politicians vote it down so it doesn't enter into force (also like ACTA)
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Re: Re: How can it be repealed?
Thanks to the magic of Provisional Application, countries can be bound by these treaties for decades WITHOUT ratifying them.
Just ask Russia, which last year was ordered to pay $50 Billion (with a B) to investors for not honoring the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty (ECT).
Russia never ratified the ECT and announced its decision to not become a Contracting Party to it on August 20, 2009. As per the procedures laid down in the Treaty, Russia officially withdrew from the ECT with effect from October 19, 2009.
Nevertheless, Russia is bound by its commitments under the ECT till October 19, 2029 because of Article 45 (3) (b) states that "In the event that a signatory terminates provisional application…any Investments made in its Area during such provisional application by Investors of other signatories shall nevertheless remain in effect with respect to those Investments for twenty years following the effective date of termination."
That is, although Russia signed the treaty, it never ratified it. And yet under its terms, it can still be sued, as here -- another good reason never to sign up to these kind of agreements.
TPP insiders assure us, "Don't worry; the public will have a chance to study the treaty before it's ratified." But by then it's too late.
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Re: How can it be repealed?
I'd be more in favor of tanking the USTR. Between "it" and the NSA, I can't decide which is the more obnoxiously imperialistic force of the two. One (NSA) enables the assault of US citizens by over-riding the constitution, while the other enables corporations to assault consumers world-wide.
What a depressing century this's turned out to be. It seems we wasted the last one fighting communism, when we could have allied with the commies to fight fascism. Bastards! It almost seems like the commies were right all along.
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Re: How can it be repealed?
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A way to undo the ratchet
Some clever wording can work around that. Instead of merely reducing the copyright term, make it the greater of "the reduced copyright term we really want" and "the legacy longer copyright term as present in international obligations X, Y, and Z, but not more than life plus N years". That puts a ratchet in the opposite direction: as soon as the "international obligations" are repealed or updated to a shorter copyright term, the country's copyright term will decrease, and new treaties can't prevent that since the wording explicitly lists the ones which count.
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You seem to be under the impression that these extensions *aren't* exactly what those members want.
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Congress seems fond of abducating their authority to others these days
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Re: Congress seems fond of abducating their authority to others these days
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Re: Re: Congress seems fond of abducating their authority to others these days
It seems that Congress learned its lesson about ceding its Constitutionally-prescribed war-making authority to the president after the Iraq "WMD" fiasco. That may be why Obama decided to go to war against Libya without asking Congress (as the Constitution requires) and then flatly refused Congress's demand to abide by the War Powers Act, which governs a president's undeclared, unauthorized (and generally unconstitutional) wars.
Though in general, Congress's abdication of authority may make little difference, as very few of them even read the bills they sign.
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Preview of 2019
I suspect this is exactly what will happen when 2019 rolls around and the copyrights on all 1923 works are finally set to expire, 20 years later than they should have thanks to the Copyright Term Extension Act. Copyright maximalists will point to the TPP and insist that not doing anything will "violate our TPP commitments with our international partners."
They will do everything in their power to get a law passed that extends copyrights for all works whose authors died less than 70 years ago. Disney will get its wish and Mickey Mouse will remain under copyright for several more decades, as Walt Disney died in 1966. Of course, the politicians will make a big show in which they claim to be "supporting the public domain" by pointing to those works published in 1923 whose authors died over 70 years ago. Sadly, those works published between 70 and 95 years ago by an author who died more than 70 years ago will remain under copyright.
Of course, this means the U.S. will have the worst elements from both the old and the new copyright laws. In other countries with a life+70 copyright law, ALL works published by an author enter the public domain after 70 years. But under this scenario, the U.S. will have a more maximalist copyright durations than even its TPP and EU partners!
Unfortunately, this is the better case scenario. The worse one is that copyright maximalists convince Congress to "harmonize" America's copyright term with Mexico's life+99 law in a renegotiated NAFTA.
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Re: Preview of 2019
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Wait...
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What makes content producers so special???
Why should any media content creator get to create once and get paid for life?
The rest of us get paid hourly to create our content, be it fries and a cheeseburger or 30,000 lines of code or the next Cray Supercomputer.
I want to write one or 2 scripts and get paid for it for life too, but that's not going to happen, so f' the rest of 'em, they can do more work, create more content to keep getting paid. 15 years is probably too long as well, but it beats life of creator + 50 or 70 years...
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Re: What makes content producers so special???
There are a few rare exceptions to this, the very occasional work that wins the lottery and becomes a cultural touch stone, like Sherlock Holmes.
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My Incentive Has Arrived
/s
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Re: My Incentive Has Arrived
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Long term copyright would be more justifiable if it included some kind of common sense clause about works falling into the public domain after ten years or so if they are not otherwise made available by the rights holder.
But the sad reality is that nothing about copyright will change unless it meets the approval of the massive corporations that own our legislators. And corporations don't give a rats ass about culture, art, history or the general public welfare.
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Value In Ability To Use
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Re: Value In Ability To Use
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Somebody wasn't paying attention
That's better than the 95 years after publication that currently exists. Basically, under the above terms, author copyrights remain the same, but copyrights of films and music get reduced by twenty-five years.
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