Watch The President Use Fair Use To Support A Trade Deal That Undermines Fair Use

from the three-step-test dept

Fri, Jun 10th 2016 6:18pm — Mike Masnick

Lots of people are talking about the fact that President Obama went on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night to "slow jam the news" and play up a bunch of his accomplishments while stumping for the TPP agreement. If you haven't seen it yet, it's here:

Here's the key part on TPP:

"I believe it is of the utmost importance to work alongside other leaders. That's why I signed the Iran nuclear deal, that’s why we reopened diplomatic ties with Cuba, and that is why I negotiated the new trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP," Obama said, to the backdrop of the Roots.

"Now, hold on there, Prez dispenser. Are you saying you’re down with TPP?" Fallon responded.

"Yeah, you know me. Look, Jimmy, the TPP allows American businesses to sell their products both at home and abroad. The more we sell abroad, the more higher-paying jobs we provide at home. It’s that simple," Obama said.

"So what are you saying, that this trade deal would put Americans back to work, work, work, work, work?" Fallon said, singing Rihanna as Obama joined in.

The President is being misleading, but we'll get to that. The really amusing point, as pointed out by Johnjac is that the little Rihanna homage breakdown there is legal thanks to fair use. But the TPP, contrary to the claims of some, actually looks to limit fair use, by putting in place a test (that US fair use wouldn't currently qualify for) -- and making any fair use optional.

So... that seems like a bit of irony. But it's the kind of thing almost no one is going to comment on, because ha ha, the President is singing and it's funny.

As for the claim that the TPP allows American businesses to sell their products both at home and abroad, that's... not really true. Most American businesses can already sell their products at home (obviously) and abroad. The TPP only removes tariffs and other restrictions in a few limited cases. It's not really going to open up that many markets. And as we've seen with other trade deals (e.g., NAFTA) it's arguable how much it helps to put Americans who are out of work "back to work." But if this were just about trade then he might have a point, but as we've pointed out over and over again, trade is such a small part of the TPP. So much more of it is about "non-tariff barriers" which is basically another way of talking about setting up protectionist laws like stronger copyright and patent requirements.

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Filed Under: barack obama, copyright, fair use, jimmy fallon, president obama, slow jam, tpp

28 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2016 @ 6:31pm

It's Obama
He is used to lying to get his and his corrupt buddies way.

I am wondering which party figures it out first... that supporting a lying politician gets everyone no where. I almost thought the repuke did with all the hate against Drumpf, but no dice it seems.

I do not even see much threat of party implosion from the left but they already agree with the ends justifying the means. A liar is fine so long as they keeping paying lip service to their ideals regardless of actually doing it or not.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2016 @ 7:35pm

Obama is just a tool. I said it back in 2008 when people were blindly screaming "OBAAAAAAAAMA".
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2016 @ 8:27pm

I heard Obama replaced all the paintings in the white house with mirrors.

He is a corrupt narcissist half wit that has set civil rights back decades by always playing the "people dislike what I do because I am black" card
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2016 @ 11:50pm

So what does that have to do with the article? No one cares about your personal prejudices.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 1:49am

Yeah wow.
(You guys still have it so that an Enter while in the subject line submits my comment straightaway without a body. Maybe an are you sure? confirmation dialog before sending when the comment is blank?)

I wonder if Obama was pushed by his lobby masters to try to rally the public. Amazingly Boxer got back to me saying she's reversed position on the TPP and stands against it.

It is disturbing how an article criticizing one of Obama's actions seems to bring out Obama haters, and they don't actually offer criticisms. The point isn't that Obama is a bad president or a bad guy, the point is why.

Because, you know, if he didn't do so many awful things, he wouldn't be so bad a president. Right?
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2016 @ 2:38am

Legacy
Let's face it, he was better than putting full retard Palin a heartbeat from the Oval Office or Magic Underwear Romney in it, but President Obama's main contribution was the pretense that institutionalized racism has been retired at the federal level.

I love that the President pulled the biggest federal fast one of all time by making everybody pay into the medical pool and not letting the Republicans take credit for accomplishing that, but really, his legacy is "First Black President." Herman Cain could 'a' done that.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2016 @ 2:51am

Re: Legacy
Still not actually commenting on the article guys, wonder why.....
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art guerrilla (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 3:01am

Re: going full meta...
so what does *that* have to do with the article ?
no one cares about your personal prejudices about personal prejudices...

about the article: yeah, ain't it kool that the leader of the frei world, like, raps and shit, and, um, that obviates war krime droning of brown peoples all over the globe...
so, we've got that going for us...
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2016 @ 3:12am

And yet... Nope still not actually talking about the issue at hand. Thanks for playing though.
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Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 5:09am

Re: It's Obama

I am wondering which party figures it out first... that supporting a lying politician gets everyone no where.
Apart from getting everyone elected to office and/or in a position to negotiate favourable laws and "trade" deals to make themselves and cronies even more of the already ludicrous money they already control, you mean? Of course it doesn't get "normal" people anywhere, but they don't count, do they?
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 5:15am

Re: Yeah wow.
Yes, if he was actually a decent president, he would actually be a decent president. But he isn't, so that's neither here nor there.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 12:26pm

Decent presidents
I would submit it's impossible to get a decent president into office, and it has been that way for some time, possibly before I had the capacity to vote. (In my first presidential election I had to choose between Mondale and George H. W. Bush.)

Is there any candidate in recent history who would not be tap-dancing for the TPP on Jimmy Fallon? I'm pretty sure they're all owned by the Chamber of Commerce to the last.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 12:28pm

Re: Decent presidents
Sorry, not Mondale. Dukakis. Mondale was in 1984 against Reagan.
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John Fenderson (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 2:57pm

Re: Decent presidents
I'm older than you by a couple of presidential cycles, and I think that it has been impossible to get a decent president since before I could vote.

Well, I would say that it's not technically impossible to get one elected, but it's impossible for one to remain a decent president after getting into office.

The problem is less the specific people in office than the institutionalized corruption of the political system as a whole.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2016 @ 5:54pm

Re: Re: Legacy
"Still not actually commenting on the article guys, wonder why....."

Because most readers own the wit to infer that the classes of indictment explicit in those comments are additionally and entirely expectedly implied for the behavior detailed in the article. That is, previous actions lead to a total lack of surprise for most of us at the President's asshattery on TPP.

We forgot YOU were going to be here.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 11 Jun 2016 @ 6:47pm

The point of the article is not "President stumps for TPP and that's a surprise"
The point of the article is that the President used a feature of copyright to stump for the TPP that he could not use once the TPP is passed.

And he's not using it in a Wow, because there's no law, I can do this awful thing, which is why we need the law sort of way.

I think it's bad form to use the article as license to generically insult the president, on the implication that someone else as president would do differently.

They wouldn't. This problem can't be solved by changing who is President.
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klaus (profile), 13 Jun 2016 @ 12:47am

Re:
My take on 2008 is that after 8 years of George W Bush people would have voted a douche or a turd sandwich into office.
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Seegras (profile), 13 Jun 2016 @ 1:30am

It's called Mercantilism
The more we sell abroad, the more higher-paying jobs we provide at home

Yeah, and we do that by instituting protectionist laws around the world. That is mercantilism by any other name.

And it won't help at home of course, because those "higher paying jobs" will be "lawyers", and not much else.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jun 2016 @ 5:41am

What would you expect
This is, after all, on a TV show OWNED BY COMCAST!
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John85851 (profile), 13 Jun 2016 @ 11:00am

Re: Decent presidents
I agree that it's impossible to get a decent president also.

Logically, the most qualified person (man or woman) to run for president would be a CEO of a company. But CEO's only have to worry about their company, not the entire country. And CEO's get a butt-ton of money in salary and stock-options, but the president's salary is fixed.

So, instead, we get popularity contest every 4 years between career politicians, military leaders, and even a real estate mogul/ reality show host.
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John Fenderson (profile), 13 Jun 2016 @ 11:47am

Re: Re: Decent presidents
"Logically, the most qualified person (man or woman) to run for president would be a CEO of a company."

I strongly disagree with this. First, the job of being President isn't analogous to the job of being CEO. Second, the nation is not a company and should not be run like one.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 13 Jun 2016 @ 11:56am

Re-reading this, I realize my point was lost.
I think the problem with Obama is a Jackass sentiments without explanation is that they imply Obama is a Jackass [for obvious reasons]. But the reasons aren't always obvious.

While I have plenty of criticisms of Obama, when someone just decides to express their dislike for him, my presumption is that they're doing so for the most popular one: that Obama is (allegedly) a Kenyan Muslim sleeper-cell Terrorist.

Of course this presumes that the person so expressing themselves is an idiot, so I want to invite people to be more specific.

So yeah, saying Obama is a corrupt narcissist half wit doesn't mean all that much. Saying what specifically he did that drives one to call him that is the meat of the statement.

Unless the sentiment is that Obama is bad because he's a Kenyan Muslim terrorist, in which case I get sad because my nation is peopled with imbeciles, and I am once again reminded of this.

Even with more egregious examples such as President George W. Bush, he was guilty of so much jackassery that were I to express this, my reasons would not be the same as others. Lying to the people to start the Iraq war is a more obvious one. Burning a spy for political reasons (the Valerie Plame affair) stokes my personal ire because that sort of thing was regarded as crass in the cold war. Facilitating war profiteering and covering up war crimes really made it clear our administration wasn't even trying to pretend to serve the people or the nation anymore.

Even in clearer cases, such as George W. Bush, if I si
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Wendy Cockcroft, 14 Jun 2016 @ 5:55am

Re:
That is nonsense. I've got enough real issues with President Obama's policies, I don't need to make them up.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 14 Jun 2016 @ 5:57am

Re: Re: Re: Decent presidents
Thanks, John. A lawyer would be best qualified to be president on the grounds that he'd be making and amending laws, both domestic and international. The last thing you want is a clueless profiteer on the make with his finger hovering over the nuclear button. Remember when we nearly ended up with President Mitt "Gordon Gekko" Romney?
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Wendy Cockcroft, 14 Jun 2016 @ 6:00am

Re: Re-reading this, I realize my point was lost.
^This. I'm annoyed with Obama for persecuting whistleblowers, for the drone strikes program, for kill lists, for failing to rein in the surveillance state, and for pushing "trade agreements" that are entirely against the public interest. We've got enough to rag on him for without making stuff up.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2016 @ 7:06am

He also used parody, protected by freedom of speech. The "down with TPP...yeah you know me" line is obviously in reference to the lyrics from "Down with OPP" by Naughty By Nature.
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Rainbow Zombie, 2 Jul 2016 @ 4:24pm

Celebrate Barack Hussein Obama's Legacy
Sometimes I can't decide if Obama was the Deviant in Chief, the Pervert in Chief or the Jihadist in Chief. Mostly I think he was all three.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 2 Jul 2016 @ 4:59pm

Re: Celebrate Barack Hussein Obama's Legacy
Mostly, he was the George-W.-Bush-In-Chief.

Except for George W. Bush.
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