There is a secret treaty that has wound its way through global governments. The secret treaty is called TPP. What is TPP? TPP is short for the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, or the evil Son of SOPA. The TPP agreement is between Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, and the United States.
The secret treaty was even kept from the U.S. Congress. However, the Washington Post reports that Verizon (VZ) and Cisco (CSCO) have had access to the secret treaty and they seem to be supporters. Many argue that a number of the terms that the U.S. inserted are unreasonable.
InfoSecurity-Magazine.com explains that a detailed analysis of the intellectual property chapter of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is similar or worse than SOPA or ACTA. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) were halted largely by popular activism.
Copyright owners
The author says the common factor in both was the potential for copyright owners to force their will on the internet. Two of the key issues were to make ISPs liable for infringing content, and the ability to suspend the internet accounts of repeat infringers. A further criticism of ACTA is that it was negotiated in secret, and both the public and the national parliaments expected to simply accept the deal.
The article goes on to analyze the TPP IP chapter provided by WikiLeaks. The analysis shows that TPP is following a similar, but potentially more severe, path to that of ACTA or SOPA. Dr. Monica Horten, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics & Political Science says the secret treaty, is the Holy Grail for big content.
…the Holy Grail for Hollywood and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).’ “It’s what they tried to do with the EU Telecoms Package, as well as in ACTA and in SOPA. It is Hollywood’s Holy Grail for online copyright enforcement”
Secret proposal
The blog reports that the U.S. and Australian government’s secret proposal supports efforts to make ISPs primarily responsible for removing copyrighted content from the internet. But the secret proposal also includes search engines, linking sites, and possibly even cloud computing services. Dr. Horten says TPP enforcement would be carried out by,
…disconnection of users (termination of Internet accounts), blocking and disabling of content, and even some level of monitoring obligation.
The US proposals also include a demand, that upon request, (rb- not surprisingly) any ISP would be obligated to provide details on their customers. Michael Geist, a Canadian law professor at the University of Ottawa told the author, “would require an overhaul of Canadian copyright law and potential changes to privacy law.”
Extending corporate copyrights
The U.S. is also planning to change copyright laws to benefit big pharma. TPP would extend corporate copyrights up to 120 years. Through manipulation of the process, big pharma could prevent affordable medications from ever being available to treat cancer, AIDS/HIV, or the common cold.
Opposition to TPP
Thankfully InfoSecurity Magazine says the secret TPP is not yet a done deal. Dr. Horton points out a brewing Internet cold war between the US and Canada. “The Canadians oppose it,” she added. “… Canada seems to be joined at least partially by an assortment that includes Mexico and Malaysia.”
Meanwhile, 80 U.S. law professors sent a letter to President Obama, Congress, and Ambassador Michael Froman to object to the secrecy of the TPP. The lawyers warn that the “TPP is following a process even more secretive than ACTA, which is amplifying public distrust and creating an environment conducive to an unbalanced and indefensible final product.”
Internet freedom advocacy group The EFF analyzed the TPP also. The EFF’s review of the “temporary copies” language found the U.S. proposal would make anyone who ever views content on their device could potentially be found liable of infringement. The TPP language follows:
Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary (including temporary storage in electronic form).
The Free Press said, The chief negotiators are congregating in Utah on Nov. 19–24 to hammer out key details — and President Obama has signaled his intention to move the treaty forward.
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Click here to tell Congress and the White House to reject the TPP.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.