Over 1000 Japanese Citizens Band Together To Sue Their Government Over Participation In TPP

from the a-bit-late-now? dept

Back in March, we reported on a campaign in Japan seeking to raise awareness about the extreme copyright provisions in TPP. Of course, making copyright even more unbalanced is just one of many problems with TPP, and arguably not even the worst. Now activists in the country have launched a much broader attack on the whole agreement by filing a lawsuit against the Japanese government in an attempt to halt its involvement in the talks. As Mainichi reports:

A total of 1,063 plaintiffs, including eight lawmakers, claimed in the case brought to the Tokyo District Court that the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact would undermine their basic human rights such as the right to live and know that are guaranteed under the Constitution.

The envisaged pact would not only benefit big corporations but jeopardize the country's food safety and medical systems and destroy the domestic farm sector, according to their written complaint.

As well as oft-voiced concerns that Japan's key agricultural sector would be harmed, the plaintiffs are also worried that TPP will push up drug prices -- something that is a big issue for other nations participating in the negotiations. The new group rightly points out that corporate sovereignty jeopardizes the independence of Japan's judicial system, and said that the secrecy surrounding the talks:

violates the people's right to know as the document is confidential and the negotiating process will be kept undisclosed for four years after the agreement takes effect.

Although it is hard to judge how much of a threat this move represents to Japan's continuing participation in TPP, the legal firepower behind it is certainly impressive: according to the Mainichi story, there are 157 people on the legal team. At the very least, it shows that resistance to TPP and its one-sided proposals is growing -- and not just in the US. But you can't help thinking it would have been a good idea for concerned Japanese citizens to have made this move earlier, rather than leaving it to the eleventh hour, with TPP close to the finishing line.

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Filed Under: copyright, drugs, human rights, japan, lawsuit, safety, tpp

Japanese Court Orders Google To Remove Customer Reviews From Its Maps Service -- Globally

from the long-arm-of-the-law dept

The following story from Japan, reported by Techcrunch, might seem to be an everyday internet tale of privacy and freedom of speech interacting badly:

The Chiba District Court today issued a preliminary injunction forcing the U.S. internet company to remove two anonymous reviews for an undisclosed medical clinic in the country. While they document negative customer experiences at the clinic, neither review violates the policies that Google has in place for user generated content within the Maps service.

Nothing special there, you might think, but there's a sting in the tail:

The court ruled that Google not only removes the content in Japan, but across the entire globe too.

That's troubling, because it's yet another case of a local court asserting its right to affect what happens across the entire internet -- the best-known example being the EU's claim that its privacy regulations have to apply globally if they are to be effective. It's worrying to see a similar ruling from Japan, albeit only in a preliminary injunction, and one that Google is appealing against, because it risks normalizing that view, with serious consequences for the online world. Far from being a domain subject to no rules, as politicians love to claim, the internet would begin to turn into the one place that has to obey every country's laws.

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Filed Under: customer reviews, google maps, internet, japan, jurisdiction
Companies: google

US Pressured Japan, Canada, New Zealand And Others Into Extending Copyright

from the total-failure dept

We noted that this was likely about a month ago, but IP-Watch is confirming that the USTR has bullied Japan, Canada, New Zealand and three other countries into agreeing that copyright terms must be life plus 70 years in the latest draft of the TPP agreement. This makes absolutely no sense, in part because even the head of the US copyright office has argued for the US to look at returning to the "life plus 50" baseline standard currently required by the Berne Agreement, and which those countries already abide by. Yet, here the USTR is rejecting that idea and saying that "life plus 70" will be required. That means that those countries will now have to jack up their copyright terms for absolutely no reason, even though it almost certainly harms the public for no benefit.

It's not like these countries don't know this is a bad idea. It's been explained to them multiple times that even though the countries that have life plus 70 already are regretting it -- and yet the USTR pushed for it anyway, and these countries backed down.

As we've noted for years, this is the really nefarious part of the agreements that the USTR negotiates. While this particular change won't go against current US law, it makes copyright reform virtually impossible. That's the real point of all this: by tying us up in "international obligations," negotiated in backroom deals with no public input or review, the USTR is able to block Congress from having any meaningful chance at fixing the US's broken copyright laws. Anyone who tries to put in place more sensible regimes will be told that they're "violating international obligations" which will tie up the US government in things like those corporate sovereignty ISDS tribunals, in which merely fixing American copyright law will be seen as an unfair "appropriation" by the US government.

This is exactly the reason why these trade deals are being negotiated in this manner. It is not, as some will tell you, about knocking down trade barriers. There is nothing in the fact that Canada has a "life plus 50 regime" that is a "trade barrier" for the US. Sure, some will argue that things like James Bond going into the public domain in Canada is some sort of "trade barrier" with the US, but that's ridiculous. It is no such thing. So why is the USTR doing this, other than to make sure folks employed at the USTR can get cushy jobs with copyright lobbying groups when they want to quadruple their salaries down the road?

Filed Under: canada, copyright, copyright extension, copyright reform, copyright terms, japan, new zealand, tpp, ustr

Major Campaign Against TPP's Unbalanced Copyright Rules Launched In Japan

from the otaku-culture-at-risk dept

As TPP allegedly draws near to completion -- although the participants have been saying this for a long time now -- a new sense of urgency is beginning to spread among those worried by the adverse impact it is likely to have on many aspects of everyday life. This has led to an important declaration in Japan by a group of organizations particularly concerned about TPP's copyright provisions, notably plans to raise the term of copyright to life plus 70 years. As Maira Sutton reports for the EFF:

Representatives of the Japanese digital rights organizations, MIAU, Creative Commons Japan, and thinkC, presented a joint statement endorsed by 63 organizations and businesses that describes the threats that the TPP's copyright provisions would pose to Japan's culture. The event was also streamed online, where over 15,000 users tuned in to watch.

Specific features of Japan's culture are at risk from TPP:

In addition to opposing lengthy copyright terms, the anime and fan-art community are also concerned about the TPP's criminal enforcement provisions. There is a particular section that says that "competent authorities may act upon their own initiative to initiate a legal action without the need for a formal complaint" by the copyright holder. The fear is that this would lead to a major crackdown on derivative works, including written or drawn fan fiction, recorded music covers of songs, or cosplayers, who may upload photos of themselves dressed as characters. These are all elements of Japan's thriving "otaku" culture, which has spread around the world and brought in millions of dollars for Japanese creators.

As Sutton points out, both the copyright extension and the "non-complaint" provisions failed to pass in Japan because they were so controversial. The growing realization that TPP will force them on the country anyway may provide the wake-up call needed for more people in Japan to start resisting TPP's unjustified strengthening of already-unbalanced intellectual monopolies.

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Filed Under: copyright, japan, tpp

TPP Talks Hung Up On Intellectual Property Issues: Maybe Just Drop That Section

from the just-a-suggestion dept

For years, we've wondered (somewhat rhetorically*) why "intellectual property" issues are included in "free trade agreements" at all. By their very nature, intellectual property laws are the exact opposite of free trade. They are clearly protectionist restrictions on the use of information or content. You can argue that these restrictions serve a good reason, and that may (or may not) be true. But you can't argue that they have anything to do with free trade (at least not if you're being honest).

* Okay, so we actually know why they're included, and it's because the big legacy special interests in the intellectual property world -- including the recording, movie and pharmaceutical industries, long ago realized that by getting intellectual property included in trade agreements they could force countries to pass laws they didn't want. That's because these trade agreements are conducted in near total secrecy, taking input directly from these industries, but then effectively binding countries to pass the new laws that these industries want. The wonderful, but depressing, book Information Feudalism by Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite goes deep in exploring how those big industries first began this effort -- and it's only gotten more intense in recent years.

And, of course, now that these industries have convinced trade negotiators that intellectual property is somehow a trade issue, it's been a central issue in a variety of big trade agreements, including the TPP and TAFTA/TTIP. TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, is the one that's much further along, and despite promises that it would be completed quite a while ago, it's still limping along. Apparently, at the most recent meeting the main stumbling block was... intellectual property.

Yes, it appears the countries are still fighting over the intellectual property chapter in the agreement:

In the meeting from March 9, they tried to reach compromises in seven contentious areas but remained apart on intellectual property protection periods for data on medicines.

Of course, there's a simple solution here: drop the IP chapter from the TPP and focus on whatever (small) issues are actually holding back the rest of the agreement. If you're going to create a trade agreement, why not have it focus on actual trade issues, rather than on increasing protectionist barriers that serve giant legacy industry players, but at the expense of the public?

Filed Under: intellectual property, japan, secrecy, tpp, transparency

Content Protection Company Makes Bogus ContentID Claims On Gameplay Videos; Sega Steps In To Clean The Mess Up

from the how-abusive-entities-ruin-YouTube-using-this-one-simple-trick dept

YouTube's ContentID system is again being abused to take videos out of the control of the uploaders. The latest wave of bogus ContentID claims comes from (possibly) Japan's eLicense, which is seemingly staking a claim to as many Sega-related videos as possible in order to siphon ad money away from the account holders. (via GamePolitics)

One YouTube account holder was hit with over 100 ContentID claims alone, while others have had some hits and some misses. Nowhere on eLicense's site does it say the company is authorized to make ContentID claims on behalf of Sega. Sega America has since responded to the uproar, denying having anything to do with the hundreds of filed claims.

Regarding eLicense, this company is not working on behalf of SEGA in any capacity. We are issuing a Cease & Desist to eLicense and reaching out to YouTube directly to work on resolving this problem.

eLicense is acting independently and Sega intends to take the necessary action to prevent this from happening again.

Please help us in spreading the word wherever you see it online, feel free to link back to this post. Thanks all for reporting and documenting this issue!

Now, there are a couple of confusing factors. eLicense is a Japanese company and it could be possible that Sega Japan has retained its services. If so, the American arm of Sega doesn't seem to be aware of this. Among the evidence in favor of pointing the finger at this eLicense is this tantalizing headline from its website touting its move into ContentID management.


But it could be that Japan's eLicense (which actually spells its name "e-License" on its site) has nothing to do with this debacle. It could be a nearly-identically named American company whose official spelling ("eLicense") matches up with the name listed in Sega's statement.

However, this eLicense -- while apparently in the business of protecting game developers from infringement (its [unarguably lousy looking] client page contains logos for EA, Out of the Park, Pogo and Sports Interactive) -- doesn't have Sega listed as a client either.

No matter which eLicense it is, the claims are bogus. And some gamers/YouTube account holders aren't too happy with the fact that challenging bogus claims puts their accounts at risk. If a challenged claim fails, it's a strike against their account. So, many have just taken the hit and allowed another company to start monetizing their personal uploads.

The good news is that Sega has been very responsive. Many of those affected by these bogus claims have reported that these have been removed. Others are still waiting to have the claims lifted, but it's obvious an effort is being made by Sega to clean up this mess.

Back to the bad news: this is yet another failing of the ContentID system and YouTube's general approach to copyright claims. Nearly any entity can make a claim on someone else's uploaded videos and the burden of proof is passed along almost entirely to the accused. With ContentID, this process is nearly automatic. We've seen multiple cases of abuse in this system by bad actors who have used content that isn't theirs to make bogus claims on hundreds of gameplay videos solely for the purpose of grabbing ad revenue without actually having to earn it.

Sega's past efforts in the IP enforcement field haven't always been on the side of its fans and customers, but it is heartening to see it has made a proactive effort to retract eLicense's unauthorized claims.

Filed Under: contentid, japan, lets play, takedowns
Companies: elicense, sega

Latest Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Agreement Leaked: Would Be A Disaster For Public Health

from the transparency-needed dept

For years, we've discussed the ridiculous and unnecessary secrecy concerning trade agreements negotiated by the USTR. The text of the negotiating documents and even the US's general position is kept secret until the very end, at which point concerns from the public and innovators no longer matter. Instead, the USTR relies on legacy industry "advisors" who are mostly interested in protecting what they have from disruption, change and innovation. For all the talk of how these agreements are "free trade" agreements, they tend to be anything but. They are focused on protecting a few industries against competition, disruption and innovation. The former US Trade Rep Ron Kirk was unusually honest a few years ago in admitting that these agreements would never get adopted if the public actually knew what was in them. A year ago, Wikileaks helped leak the "Intellectual Property" chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, and now it's done so again with a more recent version of the chapter. Public Citizen has put together a thorough analysis, highlighting a key change: the US pushing to delay access to affordable treatments for cancer and other diseases, in direct contrast to the pledges of the Obama administration.

Large brand-name drug firms want to use the TPP to impose rules throughout Asia that will raise prices on medicine purchases for consumers and governments, and be in effect for the next several decades. With billions at stake, Big Pharma wants the TPP to be a road map for rules that will govern Pacific Rim economies for the next several decades.

A U.S. proposal in the text – to provide long automatic monopolies for biotech drugs or biologics, which includes most new treatments for cancer – contradicts the policies included in recent White House budgets and if adopted would undermine key cost savings touted by the administration. The past budgets have included a specific pledge to shorten the same monopoly periods so as to reduce cost burdens on Medicare and Medicaid.

If the TPP is ratified with this U.S.-proposed provision included, Congress would be unable to reduce monopoly periods without risking significant penalties and investor-state arbitration.

Thankfully, other countries appear to be pushing back on this proposal, but the US is always the 800-pound gorilla in these negotiations. Still, as Wikileaks summarizes, the US is pushing strongly for "drug-company friendly" language that undermines existing agreements under TRIPS. In particular, TRIPS has long allowed countries to authorize the production of cheaper generic drugs to deal with significant health problems. Big Pharma -- showing how it really feels about public health -- has been angry about this for years, and appears to be using TPP as a vehicle to try to undermine it. Of course, they know better than to kill off this provision entirely, but rather, are looking to undermine it. Wikileaks explains:

Also new in the May 2014 text is a "drug company-friendly" version of the TRIPS agreement for compulsory licensing of vital drugs patents. This is a diminished version of the TRIPS agreement that was present in the 2013 text. In theory, by issuing a compulsory licence, a government can authorise cost-cutting generic competition with patented drugs, in exchange for royalty payments to the patent holder. It is a key tool to promote affordable access to medicines. The new exceptions are set out here and here, having deleted the option for "Other Use Without Authorisation of the Right Holder" in the August 2013 text. The current global norms for justifying exceptions to patents are set out in the TRIPS agreement under either Article 30 or 31. Article 30 is a 3-step test that is restrictive in what it grants exceptions for, and is open to interpretation with regards to procedures for doing these tests. Article 31 (referred to in the August 2013 text and now gone) is the one generally used on all compulsory licensing for HIV and cancer drugs. Whilst it is more restrictive, it is limited to cases where patent holders are paid, so as long as a drug qualifies (as most HIV and cancer drugs do) it is possible to get an exception to the patent held by big pharmaceutical companies, breaking big pharma's monopoly on life-saving drugs.

However, the new version of the text of the TPP IP Chapter has deleted the option to use this assessment procedure, requiring many judgement calls on aspects such as how this might "prejudice" the patent holder. This will mean that the procedure is more restrictive and open to interpretation, and therefore lobbying and manipulation. In short, the TPP will greatly reduce the ability for creating more affordable drugs to save more lives, and increase the pharmaceutical industry's ability to retain monopolies.

Elsewhere in the document, we see that the US and Japan (who appear to be aligned a lot against everyone else) are pushing for the following:

For greater certainty, a Party may not deny a patent solely on the basis that the product did not result in an enhanced efficacy of the known product when the applicant has set forth distinguishing features establishing that the invention is new, involves an inventive step, and is capable of industrial application.

Consider this to be the "Eli Lilly clause." As you may recall, Eli Lilly is currently demanding $500 million from Canada under a corporate sovereignty ("investor state dispute settlement" or ISDS) tribunal, because Canada rejected some of its patents for not being any more effective than existing offerings. For most of us, it seems like a perfectly reasonable reason to reject a patent: your patented drug doesn't do anything to make it more useful than existing products. Canadian law agrees. But big pharma, like Eli Lilly flips out, because they want to produce new drugs that they can patent as old patents run out, hoping to trick people into wanting the new, much more expensive "new new thing" rather than the old, generic, cheaper offering that is just as (if not more) effective.

A bunch of countries are pushing for the right to cancel a patent if it "is used in a manner determined to be anti-competitive," but of course, the US and Japan are completely against such a thing. Instead, the US and Japan say it should only be cancelled on grounds that would have been justified for refusing to grant the patent in the first place. In other words, most of the countries recognize that patents can be abused in anti-competitive ways and want to protect against that. The US and Japan, on the other hand, appear to be happy with enabling anti-competitive abuses with patents. That says something.

In the copyright section, it appears that US goes beyond existing US law in asking that "making available" be considered one of the exclusive rights protected under copyright law. Some US courts consider "making available" to be considered part of the "distribution" right, but others have disagreed (saying that the distribution right only covers works that have actually been, you know, distributed). While the legacy entertainment industry likes to pretend this is settled law and merely making available equals distribution, that's not entirely clear. No matter, in the agreement, the US (and Japan) push to require everyone to include "making available" as an exclusive right for copyright holders.

There was great fanfare a few years ago when the USTR announced that, for the first time ever, it would include some language about fair use to appease those who were concerned about how these agreements only ratcheted up the enforcement side of copyright, and not the public's rights. Except, when the details finally leaked, we realized the proposed language was actually about limiting fair use by putting a much stricter definition on it. That language is still in the agreement. There still appears to be debate about copyright term length, with at least some pushing to extend the copyright term, because, hey, copyright terms always expand. This comes despite even the head of the Copyright Office agreeing that copyright terms should be reduced.

The US is also looking to definitively kill off any chance of an Aereo-like solution (even if Congress were to pass a law in response to the Supreme Court), by saying that such a service shall not be allowed without authorization of the copyright holder. The agreement would also extend broken anti-circumvention rules that block non-infringing and perfectly reasonable uses. The US is (of course) pushing for more criminal copyright efforts (Vietnam and Malaysia are pushing back). The US, against pretty much everyone else, is also pushing for statutory damages to be a necessary option for civil copyright cases, despite the massive problems we've seen with statutory damages in the US and how it enables shady practices like copyright trolling.

There's a lot of debate about whether or not recording a movie in a theater should be a criminal act. The US, of course, is pushing for what appears to be an extreme definition where any recording should absolutely be seen as criminal. Other countries would like it to be more flexible, leaving it up to the countries to decide if they want to make it criminal. Singapore says the taping should be willful, and Mexico says it should only apply to a significant part of the film. The US doesn't care. If you accidentally record a bit of a movie? Go to jail.

There's a lot more in there, but, once again you can clearly see why the US remains so against any transparency at all in these negotiations. Having to actually answer for why they're only concerned with protecting the rights of the legacy copyright industry and pharmaceutical industries, while paying little to no attention to the impact on public health, knowledge and innovation, would apparently put a damper on their future job prospects.

Filed Under: copyright, criminal copyright, exceptions, fair use, japan, patents, public health, tpp, us, ustr

$600 Billion 'Fat Finger' Causes Deals Worth More Than Sweden's Economy To Be Cancelled

from the whoops dept

Techdirt has written before about so-called "fat finger" errors in the world of finance, where traders mistype and end up buying or selling huge quantities of stocks, often causing major losses to their employers. The London Evening Standard has a new fat finger story, but one with a couple of interesting twists:

Share trades worth more than the size of Sweden’s economy had to be cancelled in Tokyo today after what is believed to be the biggest “fat finger” error on record.

It is thought to be the most extreme example of a trader in financial markets inputting hopelessly wrong figures while working under intense pressure. The identity of the trader is not yet known.

Orders for shares in 42 major Japanese companies, including household names such as Toyota, Honda, Canon and Sony, totalling 67.78 trillion yen (£381 billion [$600 billion]), were overturned, according to the Japan Securities Dealers Association.

Naturally, the most striking feature of this particular fat finger is its size: $600 billion, bigger than Sweden's economy ($552 billion). The second unusual aspect is that this error cancelled sales by mistake, rather than make them. That was fortunate for the company concerned, since it probably limited the damage caused.

But even more than for the cases we've written about in the past, the fact that a single trader was able to make a mistake on this extraordinary scale, and that the system did not block or even query it in any way, suggests that the trading software is appallingly designed and the management dangerously lax. The fear has to be that, without robust systems in place to stop such actions, one day a fat finger might not simply cause a company to lose a big chunk of money, but take out an entire country's economy -- or even trigger the meltdown of the world's financial system.

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Filed Under: fat finger, japan, stock market

The Future Is Now: Cheating In Online Games Leads To Arrests In Japan

from the not-the-best-use-of-your-time dept

Any video game producer who produces a product for which online play is a large component also has to fight an ongoing arms-race against cheaters and hackers who gain an unfair advantage in the game and threaten the gamer ecosystem. It's annoying, it sucks, and the fight is unending. For online games, that's just kind of the deal. Most companies work with programmers and 3rd party service providers, like Steam, to try to ban players who cheat. Other companies, such as Blizzard, choose to try to twist copyright law into some kind of anti-cheater pretzel. Japan, on the other hand, appears to be done screwing around.

Newspapers in the land of the rising sun are reporting that three teenagers have been arrested for cheating in the online first-person shooter Sudden Attack. Yes, arrested.

Yomiuri Online, one of Japan's largest newspapers, reports that this is the first time gamers have had criminal liability charged against them in Japan for allegedly using cheat programs. One of the gamers is a university freshman, another is a 17 year-old vocational school student, and the last of the trio is a 17-year-old high school student. In Nexon's statement about the legal charges, the company explains that these three players allegedly used the cheat tools repeatedly in the game. IT Media reports that distribution of cheats was also allegedly involved.

Yup, things just got a little more real in the realm of pretending to shoot everyone you see. Yes, cheating is annoying. But criminal? That seems like a massive overreaction and tremendously dangerous. Cheating in online games goes back all the way to the dial-up days and companies have always taken it upon themselves to keep cheaters out of their games. They may not like the arms race, but that hardly means it should reach the level of criminal liability -- especially when the line between cheating and just gaining some kind of advantage may get blurry pretty fast. It's reasonable to argue that if the game maker allows something to happen in the game, then it's on that game maker to set things up to block actions it doesn't like. Opening it up to the criminal justice system seems like a recipe for disaster.

Cheating is wrong, but couldn't Nexon simply ban these players? Maybe the company tried, but was unsuccessful. Or maybe Nexon should've tried harder to combat the cheats. But making them a crime?

It's easy to point at cheaters and say they aren't worth defending, but nobody really wants to open up this can of worms where we can all be charged with crimes for messing around in a game.

Filed Under: cheating, criminal, japan, video games

Japanese Anime And Manga Fans Worried About How TPP Will Kill Important Fan Fiction

from the don't-mess-with-dojinshi dept

Over a decade ago, we first wrote about how manga and anime in Japan was thriving in part due to the rise of fan fiction (even for-profit fan fiction) and the fact that the lawyers for official publications didn't try to shut it down. Instead, they realized that such fan fiction was often quite good for the original, official versions of the products. Over the years since then, we've had a bunch of similar stories. Rather than trying to hit fans with copyright infringement claims, publishers were willing to embrace those fans and it helped everyone in the industry.

However, many in the fan fiction -- dojinshi -- market in Japan are now worried that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement may now kill off that happy, mutually beneficial (even if technically infringing) setup. At issue is that the TPP may require more stringent enforcement of copyrights, even when the copyright holder has no problem with what's happening.

Usami and other creators of fan fiction, however, could face the possibility of legal prosecution as copyright violators in the future, depending on the outcome of TPP negotiations.

Some countries are apparently demanding that Japan clamp down on knock-off and pirated works in the intellectual property arena, even if the copyright holder does not object to it.

The more cynical among you might point to the fact that the dojinshi market's proof that copyright maximalism can be counterproductive, and allowing free flowing "infringement" among fans creating derivative works, so bothers some people that they feel the need to kill off such an important counter-example to the maximalist narrative. However, those involved in the space in Japan recognize that not enforcing copyright law has been better for everyone:

Many experts say the Japanese anime and manga subculture has thrived due in part to a tacit understanding in society that fan fiction should be accepted to a certain extent to allow room for amateurs to shine.

The recent Comic Market is one indication of the level of demand for dojinshi and other works of fan fiction. A total of 520,000 visitors attended--many of them teenagers or in their 20s--while about 35,000 groups sold dojinshi and other related goods.

Some are even worried that it might extend to cracking down on cosplay:

“The creation of derivative works has helped the expansion of the market (for anime and manga), a rich gray zone built based on a gentleman’s agreement between original artists and amateur creators,” [lawyer Kansaku Fukui] said.

If the copyright law was enforced without a formal complaint, not only dojinshi, but also parodied creations of movies and literature, could be subject to a crackdown, Fukui said.

He added that even cosplayers could be a target, especially if their costumes were elaborately made and if a video of the costume play was uploaded on the Internet.

“If people think about the possibility of coming under questioning, they might cower,” he said.

I would imagine that the various negotiators of the TPP probably aren't all that familiar with anime, manga or cosplay -- but pissing off fans of all three probably isn't particularly wise.

Filed Under: anime, copyright, cosplay, dojinshi, fan fiction, japan, manga, tpp