Not necessarily on Mr. Obama's end (I'm not sure what he negotiated for), but Mr. Harper decided to ram it through parliament without haggling on the behalf of Canadians for a half decent deal. Surprise surprise, this means we got the short end of the stick.
The copyright deal in particular is total horse shit. We should never, ever have agreed to that.
From the New Zealand side, I'm also concerned on the IP protections & changes - rhetoric here has moved from "it will not affect pharmac (state owned sole purchaser for drugs to public health providers)" to "it won't affect your payment for prescriptions" which suggests that the agreement will affect the size of our public health budget, and outcomes, which of course our center right party already wants to cut. It also appears to be guaranteed to add more administrative overhead to the same agency, near as I can tell so there are more opportunities for their decisions to be challenged.
I'm interested in seeing the final text, but it appears we're giving up a lot to American corporate interests, in return for very little anyone can actually give any figures on.
I'm looking forward to seeing the details being release. The coverage so far has me in a very positive mood for this deal. So until we get the details, I think Toby should get a chance to say his thing.
To be clear, I'm not defending excessive secrecy or saying that the TPP is good, but there are reasons to keep trade negotiations secret.
The basic concept is that trade negotiations are volatile, with a lot of things being pitched, added in, thrown out, etc. Having the media or uninformed parties scrutinize the agreements before they are finalized could result in pushback against policies that aren't being implemented, or kill a policy that was being used as a bargaining chip. For instance, the media might report that the in-progress trade agreement requires the U.S. to import a large number of Japanese cars without any duties. They could easily spin this as killing American auto manufacturing and the pushback would require its removal from the deal, even though it was added in for an unreported/not yet written agreement where Japan would buy 10x as many cars and agree to import more US corn, or something.
So it's a bit more complicated than "why does it need to be secret if they have nothing to hide?" because there is at least conceptually danger that a very complicated international trade agreement could be battered around by media magnifying certain issues in the agreement without thorough examination. I don't think that sixty days of public viewing is nearly enough for people to understand the full scope of the TPP, but I don't think that the negotiations should be open to the public the entire way through, either. An agreement should be made, and it should be available for public viewing for a long period of time; maybe half a year (any longer and the trade agreement might lose relevance by the time it is voted on).
Yeah... I'm pretty sure the thing is basically a straight giveaway to corporate interests.
Is there some specific reason you think this, or are you just against trade pacts of any description? This agreement includes a lot of new labor and environmental laws for SEA and forces American drug companies to reveal formulas years earlier than they do currently.
Yeah... I'm pretty sure the thing is basically a straight giveaway to corporate interests.
Is there some specific reason you think this, or are you just against trade pacts of any description? This agreement includes a lot of new labor and environmental laws for SEA and forces American drug companies to reveal formulas years earlier than they do currently.
I'm mainly thinking of the ramifications on IP law from what's leaked. Obviously the full thing isn't public yet but... I have low expectations of government in that regard
IP law is the most likely to present major issues, while environmental and medicine regulation seems likely to, at worst, adopt a universal modern standard that is pretty good rather than as stringent in all areas as the currently strictest member. I don't think that is nearly as likely to be terrible so much as it won't present a unicorn because it could e.g. slightly deregulated U.S. air emissions while up regulating dozens of other countries.
In comparison, the IP issues are likely to be outright worse for everybody in an attempt to internationally destroy piracy (and parody, and criticism).
I am interested in reading about the increased protections for labor. From the early coverage it sounds like Vietnam may finally have non-government controlled unions. I'm really looking forward to the agreement being released for public consumption.
Yeah... I'm pretty sure the thing is basically a straight giveaway to corporate interests.
Is there some specific reason you think this, or are you just against trade pacts of any description? This agreement includes a lot of new labor and environmental laws for SEA and forces American drug companies to reveal formulas years earlier than they do currently.
I'm mainly thinking of the ramifications on IP law from what's leaked. Obviously the full thing isn't public yet but... I have low expectations of government in that regard
If that's the price we pay to reduce human trafficking and get cheaper drugs on the market, it's pretty small. Like, corporations harassing people over copyright sucks, but weighed in the scales against the modern slave trade, I just can't get exercised about it. Plus, the most egregious examples of patent trolling were already fully enforceable under international law. Look at the smartphone lawsuits in Korea.
To be clear, I'm not defending excessive secrecy or saying that the TPP is good, but there are reasons to keep trade negotiations secret.
The basic concept is that trade negotiations are volatile, with a lot of things being pitched, added in, thrown out, etc. Having the media or uninformed parties scrutinize the agreements before they are finalized could result in pushback against policies that aren't being implemented, or kill a policy that was being used as a bargaining chip. For instance, the media might report that the in-progress trade agreement requires the U.S. to import a large number of Japanese cars without any duties. They could easily spin this as killing American auto manufacturing and the pushback would require its removal from the deal, even though it was added in for an unreported/not yet written agreement where Japan would buy 10x as many cars and agree to import more US corn, or something.
So it's a bit more complicated than "why does it need to be secret if they have nothing to hide?" because there is at least conceptually danger that a very complicated international trade agreement could be battered around by media magnifying certain issues in the agreement without thorough examination. I don't think that sixty days of public viewing is nearly enough for people to understand the full scope of the TPP, but I don't think that the negotiations should be open to the public the entire way through, either. An agreement should be made, and it should be available for public viewing for a long period of time; maybe half a year (any longer and the trade agreement might lose relevance by the time it is voted on).
This is a terrible way to conduct trade agreements. Assuming a shadowy cabal of industry lobbyists and technocrats will do anything but accidentally advance the interests of the common citizen is borderline fantastical to assume, as proved by the last half century of American labor being stabbed in the back, and everything about these agreements is more of the same. Only by allowing the scarce few people who actually want to advance the interests of the general public full access and real input to the process is anything positive going to get done.
The entire concept is absurd. I wouldn't trust someone who has both an ethical and legal fiduciary duty to successfully achieve my best interests totally blindly and without input, let alone people who have neither.
Secrecy in government is almost always a bad thing. You need it in intelligence, but I think it's worth noting that is still a cost/benefit with negative outcomes, and the secrecy is in fact in place so we can harm or kill people with said secrecy. There are practical difficulties with sharing only with Americans and not, say, Al Qaeda, so we need to choose both or neither, but the reason we want to keep it secret from AQ is so we can give them a closed casket funeral after we blow them into a thousand pieces. Do the trade negotiators want to send the American public to an early grave? Well, maybe they don't mind that outcome, looking at the agreements.
There's a very real chance that America will be poorer, less free, and less safe as a result of these agreements, and that's quite the trifecta.
The fact that organized labor in the US is overwhelmingly opposed to the TPP makes me extremely skeptical of arguments that it would improve conditions for the US's working class.
Yeah... I'm pretty sure the thing is basically a straight giveaway to corporate interests.
Is there some specific reason you think this, or are you just against trade pacts of any description? This agreement includes a lot of new labor and environmental laws for SEA and forces American drug companies to reveal formulas years earlier than they do currently.
I'm mainly thinking of the ramifications on IP law from what's leaked. Obviously the full thing isn't public yet but... I have low expectations of government in that regard
If that's the price we pay to reduce human trafficking and get cheaper drugs on the market, it's pretty small. Like, corporations harassing people over copyright sucks, but weighed in the scales against the modern slave trade, I just can't get exercised about it. Plus, the most egregious examples of patent trolling were already fully enforceable under international law. Look at the smartphone lawsuits in Korea.
Does the TPP address human trafficking? edit- Apparently, not really.
And when it comes to medicine we're expecting a rise in prices in NZ.
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pyromaniac221this just might bean interestin YTRegistered Userregular
I'm not super well-versed in the history, but haven't labor unions mostly been against free trade agreements in the past despite them being generally a good thing?
To be clear, I'm not defending excessive secrecy or saying that the TPP is good, but there are reasons to keep trade negotiations secret.
The basic concept is that trade negotiations are volatile, with a lot of things being pitched, added in, thrown out, etc. Having the media or uninformed parties scrutinize the agreements before they are finalized could result in pushback against policies that aren't being implemented, or kill a policy that was being used as a bargaining chip. For instance, the media might report that the in-progress trade agreement requires the U.S. to import a large number of Japanese cars without any duties. They could easily spin this as killing American auto manufacturing and the pushback would require its removal from the deal, even though it was added in for an unreported/not yet written agreement where Japan would buy 10x as many cars and agree to import more US corn, or something.
So it's a bit more complicated than "why does it need to be secret if they have nothing to hide?" because there is at least conceptually danger that a very complicated international trade agreement could be battered around by media magnifying certain issues in the agreement without thorough examination. I don't think that sixty days of public viewing is nearly enough for people to understand the full scope of the TPP, but I don't think that the negotiations should be open to the public the entire way through, either. An agreement should be made, and it should be available for public viewing for a long period of time; maybe half a year (any longer and the trade agreement might lose relevance by the time it is voted on).
This is a terrible way to conduct trade agreements. Assuming a shadowy cabal of industry lobbyists and technocrats will do anything but accidentally advance the interests of the common citizen is borderline fantastical to assume, as proved by the last half century of American labor being stabbed in the back, and everything about these agreements is more of the same. Only by allowing the scarce few people who actually want to advance the interests of the general public full access and real input to the process is anything positive going to get done.
The entire concept is absurd. I wouldn't trust someone who has both an ethical and legal fiduciary duty to successfully achieve my best interests totally blindly and without input, let alone people who have neither.
Secrecy in government is almost always a bad thing. You need it in intelligence, but I think it's worth noting that is still a cost/benefit with negative outcomes, and the secrecy is in fact in place so we can harm or kill people with said secrecy. There are practical difficulties with sharing only with Americans and not, say, Al Qaeda, so we need to choose both or neither, but the reason we want to keep it secret from AQ is so we can give them a closed casket funeral after we blow them into a thousand pieces. Do the trade negotiators want to send the American public to an early grave? Well, maybe they don't mind that outcome, looking at the agreements.
There's a very real chance that America will be poorer, less free, and less safe as a result of these agreements, and that's quite the trifecta.
None of this actually addresses the positives of conducting those trade agreements in secret; it just points out that who is in on the secret needs to be changed to focus more on the politicians and labor representatives and less on industry experts.
The "arbitration panels" are the aspect of this that concerns me most from the limited amount I've read so far. Anyone have a good idea of what that entails, or is it still classified?
I will try to reserve judgment until the document is released, but I'd be surprised if this agreement's terms do not significantly expand the power of corporations in society relative to the powers of the state and of the working class.
I'm not super well-versed in the history, but haven't labor unions mostly been against free trade agreements in the past despite them being generally a good thing?
Good for whom?
And why would unions oppose their own interests if these trade deals were conducive to them?
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pyromaniac221this just might bean interestin YTRegistered Userregular
Good for the economy in that they represent a Pareto improvement?
I don't think there's a perfect overlap of the unions' interests with the working class' interests, at least in this case. Unions in industries that would be opened up to more international competition in the event of a trade deal would be opposed to that trade deal even if it ends up proving a net benefit to the working class as a whole.
Funnily, the GOP could kill this. The labor protections are "too strong" and the weakened position on biologics is going to drive big pharma to apoplexy (not to mention, the US Trade Representative was NOT authorized to accept a deal that did anything less than expand the patents on biologics, so they'll cry betrayal or threaten suit). Big Tobacco will claim discrimination.
With that and the UAW mobilizing against the anti-Japan tariffs, we could see a left-right coalition to kill this thing, though more right than left.
A day after 11 Pacific Rim nations and the US agreed to the wording of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, New Zealand revealed Tuesday that the section on intellectual property lines up with how copyright terms are treated in the US.
The deal, which now needs approval from the pact's member nations, makes copyrights last for the life of the creator plus 70 years after death, according to the New Zealand government
Disappointing to see the US's absurd approach to copyright law become the norm, rather than other countries' approaches moderating that of the US.
edit- though from doing some more reading, it seems that several of the other countries involved already had awful, US-styled copyright regimes
Good for the economy in that they represent a Pareto improvement?
I don't think there's a perfect overlap of the unions' interests with the working class' interests, at least in this case. Unions in industries that would be opened up to more international competition in the event of a trade deal would be opposed to that trade deal even if it ends up proving a net benefit to the working class as a whole.
I agree that unions != the working class. But currently we've got the government saying "It's good for labor and the environment!" while the vast majority of organized environmental groups and organized labor groups are saying the opposite. We won't know for sure until the text is released but I am *very* skeptical of pro-labor/pro-environment arguments in favor of the TPP.
I guess the one truth still holds then, Mickey Mouse will remain under copyright.
I can understand the secrecy on day to day dealings, but keeping up to date drafts away from the very people who will be authorizing the thing is a sure way to not know whether or not they will authorize it.
The president has the right to negotiate these things but there should have been a little better consultation with congress/legislatures of other countries if it has this much opposition.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
There's a whole rainbow of people in business, labour, government and other social spheres that should have been at the table but weren't. Opposition from many sides is basically inevitable at this point, even if the reasons for opposition are different and regardless of whatever silver linings may exist in the deal.
I mean you can only get angry about a document you haven't read for so long, and as far as I know there haven't been any real smoking guns in the leaked copyright section. When the final document is released I'm sure there will be things to complain about, but until there's something blatantly and obviously bad in writing, there's not much to do.
Quite honestly there are no parts of this agreement that are positively good for users. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's not improved over the earlier, horrendous demands of the U.S. negotiators. Some of the areas in which countries rightly pushed back against the U.S., and which are reflected in the final text are:
The exhaustion of rights provision (QQ.A.11) that upholds the first sale doctrine of U.S. law, preventing copyright owners from extending their control over the resale of copyright works once they have first been placed in the market. In particular, this makes parallel importation of cheaper versions of copyright works lawful—and complementing this is an explicit authorization of devices that bypass region-coding on physical copies of such works (QQ.G.10, though this does not extend to bypassing geoblocking of streaming services).
A thoroughly-misguided provision that would have extended copyright protection to temporary or "buffer" copies in a computer system was one of the earliest rightsholder demands dropped by the USTR, and rightfully so, given the damage this would have wreaked to tech companies and users alike.
But we have struggled to come up with more than two positive points about the TPP, and even then the absence of these tragic mistakes is a pretty poor example of a positive point. If you look for provisions in the TPP that actually afford new benefits to users, rather than to large, rights-holding corporations, you will look in vain. The TPP is the archetype of an agreement that exists only for the benefit of the entitled, politically powerfully lobbyists who have pushed it through to completion over the last eight years.
There is nothing in here for users and innovators to support, and much for us to fear—the ratcheting up of the copyright term across the Pacific rim, the punitive sanctions for DRM circumvention, and the full frontal attack on hackers and journalists in the trade secrets provision, just to mention three. This latest leak has confirmed our greatest fears—and strengthened our resolve to kill this agreement for good once it reaches Congress.
If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good platitude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever.
Another, and perhaps the most egregious example of this bias against users is the important provision on limitations and exceptions to copyright (QQ.G.17). In a pitifully ineffectual nod towards users, it suggests that parties “endeavor to achieve an appropriate balance in its copyright and related rights system,” but imposes no hard obligations for them to do so, nor even offers U.S.-style fair use as a template that they might follow. The fact that even big tech was ultimately unable to move the USTR on this issue speaks volumes about how utterly captured by Hollywood the agency is.
In some cases (QQ.H.7), the penalties for copyright infringement can even include jail time. Traditionally, this has because the infringer is operating a business of commercial piracy. But under the TPP, any act of willful copyright infringement on a commercial scale renders the infringer liable to criminal penalties, even if they were not carried out for financial gain, provided that they have a substantial prejudicial impact on the rightsholder. The copying of films that are still playing in movie theaters is also subject to separate criminal penalties, regardless of the scale of the infringement.
The ironic? thing about TTIP/TAFTA is that the complaints on the other side of the ocean are pretty much the same only for slightly different topics that benefit american corporations instead of european ones.
Shows how much of a lose/lose situation this seems to be for the consumer.
The TPP has just ridden roughshod over that entire debate (at least for country-code top-level domains such as .us, .au and .jp), by cementing in place rules (QQ.C.12) that countries must provide “online public access to a reliable and accurate database of contact information concerning domain-name registrants.”
Heaven forbid governments maintain public databases concerning domain-name registrants for official government sites. What a chilling prospect.
The EFF did strike me as being more than a little shrill about this whole thing, although i've been giving them the benefit of the doubt because they were some of the first movers in saving this country from SOPA, which would have indeed been that bad.
The TPP has just ridden roughshod over that entire debate (at least for country-code top-level domains such as .us, .au and .jp), by cementing in place rules (QQ.C.12) that countries must provide “online public access to a reliable and accurate database of contact information concerning domain-name registrants.”
Heaven forbid governments maintain public databases concerning domain-name registrants for official government sites. What a chilling prospect.
The EFF did strike me as being more than a little shrill about this whole thing, although i've been giving them the benefit of the doubt because they were some of the first movers in saving this country from SOPA, which would have indeed been that bad.
Criminalizing reading ebooks on your phone, or journalism, or allowing outsized copyright infringement penalties, etc. are not substantial problems?
This agreement is worse than the current state of affairs for hundreds of millions of people, and better for a handful of corporate fat cats.
How woefully abused are we that "only moderately worse than today" is the standard we're willing to accept?
The EFF did strike me as being more than a little shrill about this whole thing, although i've been giving them the benefit of the doubt because they were some of the first movers in saving this country from SOPA, which would have indeed been that bad.
Criminalizing reading ebooks on your phone, or journalism, or allowing outsized copyright infringement penalties, etc. are not substantial problems?
This agreement is worse than the current state of affairs for hundreds of millions of people, and better for a handful of corporate fat cats.
How woefully abused are we that "only moderately worse than today" is the standard we're willing to accept?
It's just hard to go with after one side of the argument has been battering me for years with "TPP is end of the internet as we know it." Is it part of a gradual erosion of consumer rights? Yes. Is it apocalyptic? No.
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From the New Zealand side, I'm also concerned on the IP protections & changes - rhetoric here has moved from "it will not affect pharmac (state owned sole purchaser for drugs to public health providers)" to "it won't affect your payment for prescriptions" which suggests that the agreement will affect the size of our public health budget, and outcomes, which of course our center right party already wants to cut. It also appears to be guaranteed to add more administrative overhead to the same agency, near as I can tell so there are more opportunities for their decisions to be challenged.
I'm interested in seeing the final text, but it appears we're giving up a lot to American corporate interests, in return for very little anyone can actually give any figures on.
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...Toby might want to look into all of the trade agreement that Germany had with America & it's European neighbors.
The basic concept is that trade negotiations are volatile, with a lot of things being pitched, added in, thrown out, etc. Having the media or uninformed parties scrutinize the agreements before they are finalized could result in pushback against policies that aren't being implemented, or kill a policy that was being used as a bargaining chip. For instance, the media might report that the in-progress trade agreement requires the U.S. to import a large number of Japanese cars without any duties. They could easily spin this as killing American auto manufacturing and the pushback would require its removal from the deal, even though it was added in for an unreported/not yet written agreement where Japan would buy 10x as many cars and agree to import more US corn, or something.
So it's a bit more complicated than "why does it need to be secret if they have nothing to hide?" because there is at least conceptually danger that a very complicated international trade agreement could be battered around by media magnifying certain issues in the agreement without thorough examination. I don't think that sixty days of public viewing is nearly enough for people to understand the full scope of the TPP, but I don't think that the negotiations should be open to the public the entire way through, either. An agreement should be made, and it should be available for public viewing for a long period of time; maybe half a year (any longer and the trade agreement might lose relevance by the time it is voted on).
Is there some specific reason you think this, or are you just against trade pacts of any description? This agreement includes a lot of new labor and environmental laws for SEA and forces American drug companies to reveal formulas years earlier than they do currently.
I'm mainly thinking of the ramifications on IP law from what's leaked. Obviously the full thing isn't public yet but... I have low expectations of government in that regard
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In comparison, the IP issues are likely to be outright worse for everybody in an attempt to internationally destroy piracy (and parody, and criticism).
If that's the price we pay to reduce human trafficking and get cheaper drugs on the market, it's pretty small. Like, corporations harassing people over copyright sucks, but weighed in the scales against the modern slave trade, I just can't get exercised about it. Plus, the most egregious examples of patent trolling were already fully enforceable under international law. Look at the smartphone lawsuits in Korea.
This is a terrible way to conduct trade agreements. Assuming a shadowy cabal of industry lobbyists and technocrats will do anything but accidentally advance the interests of the common citizen is borderline fantastical to assume, as proved by the last half century of American labor being stabbed in the back, and everything about these agreements is more of the same. Only by allowing the scarce few people who actually want to advance the interests of the general public full access and real input to the process is anything positive going to get done.
The entire concept is absurd. I wouldn't trust someone who has both an ethical and legal fiduciary duty to successfully achieve my best interests totally blindly and without input, let alone people who have neither.
Secrecy in government is almost always a bad thing. You need it in intelligence, but I think it's worth noting that is still a cost/benefit with negative outcomes, and the secrecy is in fact in place so we can harm or kill people with said secrecy. There are practical difficulties with sharing only with Americans and not, say, Al Qaeda, so we need to choose both or neither, but the reason we want to keep it secret from AQ is so we can give them a closed casket funeral after we blow them into a thousand pieces. Do the trade negotiators want to send the American public to an early grave? Well, maybe they don't mind that outcome, looking at the agreements.
There's a very real chance that America will be poorer, less free, and less safe as a result of these agreements, and that's quite the trifecta.
Does the TPP address human trafficking? edit- Apparently, not really.
And when it comes to medicine we're expecting a rise in prices in NZ.
None of this actually addresses the positives of conducting those trade agreements in secret; it just points out that who is in on the secret needs to be changed to focus more on the politicians and labor representatives and less on industry experts.
I will try to reserve judgment until the document is released, but I'd be surprised if this agreement's terms do not significantly expand the power of corporations in society relative to the powers of the state and of the working class.
Good for whom?
And why would unions oppose their own interests if these trade deals were conducive to them?
I don't think there's a perfect overlap of the unions' interests with the working class' interests, at least in this case. Unions in industries that would be opened up to more international competition in the event of a trade deal would be opposed to that trade deal even if it ends up proving a net benefit to the working class as a whole.
With that and the UAW mobilizing against the anti-Japan tariffs, we could see a left-right coalition to kill this thing, though more right than left.
Disappointing to see the US's absurd approach to copyright law become the norm, rather than other countries' approaches moderating that of the US.
edit- though from doing some more reading, it seems that several of the other countries involved already had awful, US-styled copyright regimes
I agree that unions != the working class. But currently we've got the government saying "It's good for labor and the environment!" while the vast majority of organized environmental groups and organized labor groups are saying the opposite. We won't know for sure until the text is released but I am *very* skeptical of pro-labor/pro-environment arguments in favor of the TPP.
I can understand the secrecy on day to day dealings, but keeping up to date drafts away from the very people who will be authorizing the thing is a sure way to not know whether or not they will authorize it.
The president has the right to negotiate these things but there should have been a little better consultation with congress/legislatures of other countries if it has this much opposition.
https://www.wikileaks.org/tpp-ip3/
Chapter QQ.
Love it.
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I mean you can only get angry about a document you haven't read for so long, and as far as I know there haven't been any real smoking guns in the leaked copyright section. When the final document is released I'm sure there will be things to complain about, but until there's something blatantly and obviously bad in writing, there's not much to do.
No smoking guns?
It's ALL smoking guns as far as I am concerned?
A few choice quotes from that great EFF text
Shows how much of a lose/lose situation this seems to be for the consumer.
Only corporations win
Heaven forbid governments maintain public databases concerning domain-name registrants for official government sites. What a chilling prospect.
Where does it say official government sites?
Criminalizing reading ebooks on your phone, or journalism, or allowing outsized copyright infringement penalties, etc. are not substantial problems?
This agreement is worse than the current state of affairs for hundreds of millions of people, and better for a handful of corporate fat cats.
How woefully abused are we that "only moderately worse than today" is the standard we're willing to accept?
It's just hard to go with after one side of the argument has been battering me for years with "TPP is end of the internet as we know it." Is it part of a gradual erosion of consumer rights? Yes. Is it apocalyptic? No.
Will it pass Congress? Now there's the question.