TPP – The Big Brother of IP Enforcement And Worse
And now let’s hear what the next international trade agreement being negotiated has in store for us all. What is the TPP you ask? The TPP is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that is currently in (yes, you guessed it) secret negotiations among a small group of participants. After 10 earlier rounds, a new phase of negotiations is being held in West Hollywood, CA. I know you’re probably wondering why trade negotiations would be held in the sequined movie capital of the USA, but it becomes clear when you realize that these negotiations are following the same script written for SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA. Not only is it the same repetitive dogma, but it’s one that is written by the same groups, the major IP stakeholders that have been trying to push this legislation all over the world with increasing frequency.
TPP protests in West Hollywood (via @AnonyOps)
The current uproar over ACTA will have to be repeated with TPP, which many consider to be even more dangerous than any of the previous legislations that caused massive global protests. Just like ACTA, the ultra-secret TPP negotiations have been ongoing since 2002, when it was called the Pacific Three Closer Economic Partnership (P3-CEP) which included Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore. In 2005, Brunei entered into the negotiations which then became known as P4. Currently, six additional countries are negotiating to join the group: Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Japan, United States, and Vietnam.
Though the players are different than in ACTA, the conversation is pretty much still over the same requirement for legislative and law enforcement tools over one of the most controversial aspects of this agreement: Intellectual Property (IP). Once again, they have started from square one in trying to reintroduce specific IP provisions that have already been negotiated down in previous treaties and current national laws in many countries. As the United States continues to push its antiquated IP regime onto the rest of the world, the dangers of each new treaty are becoming more apparent through these types of secret negotiations away from the public eye. And the major stakeholder is not the citizen as it should be, but the lobbyists and trade organizations that speak on behalf of the corporate world and profitability.
For a better understanding of where we stand with TPP, listen to some experts speak at the recent TPP workshop which was sponsored by the American University’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and the non-profit advocacy organization Knowledge Ecology International:
What started out as tariff elimination has now become a global conversation about rights and protection: the rights of the citizens, as well as their civil and bodily protection. The difference with this treaty is that it covers all market sectors and products, and is being positioned as a new foundation for all future treaties to follow. With expectations such as this, it is critical that the nations get it right. But what has caused the global alarm to sound partially includes (source: LoOG, Techdirt, EFF):
- The USTR wants to “up-harmonize” the IP protection rules globally to match US copyright standards (TRIPS-Plus).
- The law enforcement aspects will once again dragnet the wrong players and impact civil liberties by eliminating due process.
- A wide scope of impacted industries will experience a backsliding of concessions that have been fought over and won (i.e. fair use, generic drugs, etc.)
- The censorship regime that continues to be pushed by special interest groups seeks to challenge the democracy that is inherent to the Internet.
- Innovation will continue to be stifled as long as the US government chooses to champion protectionist mechanisms such as the current IP regime that the USTR is trying to export globally.
- A continued decrease in transparency on these treaty negotiations goes against everything that democracy stands for. The TPP final document won’t be declassified until 4 years after its implementation or after final negotiations if there is no implementation.
Because these negotiations have been shrouded in secrecy like never before, all of the information for public dissemination has come from leaked documents. Although there is a lot of push back by foreign governments against the United States regarding their overzealous nature of IP protection, it’s anyone’s guess as to how the actual final wording will look. But from all of the initial alarms that are sounding from a diverse group of affected sectors, now is the time to raise the awareness of our local legislators. We need to demand more transparency and public discourse on these trade agreements that seem to be rapidly replacing the methods by which our governments make laws that will affect us all.
Here are some more expert opinions and information regarding the TPP text that has been divulged to date. There are still many other sections of this sweeping legislation that we don’t know about that will deeply affect all of our lives:
- SOPA and Its Implications for TPP
- Public Interest Analysis of the US TPP Proposal for an IP Chapter
- TPP Section-By-Section Analysis
- EFF’s Trans-Pacific Partnership Analysis
- Senator Wyden’s Questions at the 2011 Trade Agenda
- USTR’s TPP section
It looks like we are going to have to keep our eyes and ears open to these international negotiations that are circumventing our national legal channels for very narrow interests. While every country has a vested interest in getting the most for their citizens in any trade agreement, it’s no longer a game of winner-take-all when there isn’t much left to share because of the harm done by our own tunnel-vision activities. The people have relied on our governments to protect our best interests with accelerating diminishing returns. Isn’t it finally time that the people take matters into their own hands to create the type of world that we can all co-exist in responsibly and harmoniously?
Up next: Stay tuned for just such an effort that is currently under way: Reddit’s Free Internet Act
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