TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms
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1. 3-strikes laws in all participating nations. Note that the US and France have already effectively abandoned their attempted three-strikes laws [1] [2] [3], but would likely reinstate them.
2. dvdcss and UEFI Secure Boot circumvention (including shim loaders) will become illegal in enough countries to have chilling effects on open source innovation
3. significant extension of patents for medication, increasing healthcare costs
4. additional regulation of internet backbone providers – to perform deep packet inspection for government investigation of copyright infringement. This would use taxpayer dollars to enforce dying copyright regimes. I assume governments would be delighted to have justification to tap the internet at backbones.
5. End of works entering the public domain. Copyright term extensions are likely just as the US has done, so the public domain may not see new additions for a long time.
I want to mention the significant curtailing of fair use in Europe, which would train young artists not to remix or reuse others' ideas. However, it might take up to 5 years to feel the effects.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/france-defangs-it... (I'm citing Ars here mainly because they follow copyright law pretty closely. Please use google for other sources.)
[2] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/heres-what-an-act...
[3] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/major-isps-agree-...
E.g., the UK equivalent of fair use, "fair dealing", is limited to a definitive list of circumscribed purposes of the unauthorised use of copyright material, e.g., in writing a review. By contrast, US law has a non-exclusive set of tests to check if an unauthorised use is fair use, of which purpose is just one factor to be weighed in the balance.
I gather that Germany does not have any fair use law [1], but in practice a regime similar to the UK's has been established through several precedents in the German courts. France seems to be in a similar situation, with a more generous court interpretation of fair use [2].
Wikipedia tells me that Israel has a fair use law similar to the US; cf. [3].
[1]: http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/08/8-... - note that vog's comment below seems to refute this source
[2]: https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2011/01/who-said-france-d...
[3]: https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2008/01/israel%E2%80%99s-...
[1] http://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/44a.html
[2] http://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/63a.html
[3] However, you are not alloweed to break an effective copy protection on that way ... which is kind of contradictory, becase if lots of people manage to create those copies privately, that "copy protection" mechanism wasn't really "effective", was it?
http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/englisch_urh...
Sweden for example has the Right to quote law.
http://praxeology.net/anticopyright.htm
Edited: and by "maybe it's" I mean "It's about damn time".
Edited again: this quote from Jefferson is highlighted on that Anti Copyright Resources page, and nicely captures the spirit of why we might choose to kill Copyright:
... He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
Copyright is absolutely necessary to allow authors to make money from their work. Short term rights, 10-30 years of so, benefit the authors the most. Long terms of 100+ years only favor the distributors.
In single-author creative endeavors, like book publishing, you want to encourage people to create all they can before they get hit by a bus.
No it isn't.
Writers can sell books. They can write for magazines and journals. They can write for TV. They can write for radio. They can write plays. Etc.
None of these things require copyright.
Books: Writer writes a book, self publishes it, and starts selling it. It starts selling really well. Big company comes along, buys one copy of the book, and starts publishing copies of it all over the place. They publicize the book, make money from it, and pay nothing to the author.
Magazines and Journals: Magazine comes out. I take it, scan it, remove all the advertisement, and completely legally post it online for free. No one buys the magazine, because why should they. No one even looks at the advertisement in the magazine, so they cant make money from that either. TV and Radio are the same.
Plays: Writer rights a play, sends it to a play producer, producer likes the play, produces it, pays the writer nothing, because, why should he, it's not like the writer has rights in his work.
Open Source Software: You, as a programer, write some great open source software. Company comes a long, takes the software, incorporates it into their closed source project, improves it, and NEVER redistributes the code. Because they don't have to. After all, OSS is only a thing because under the copyright law you can release things under a given license.
Hmm, does not look like such a good world, to me at least. People should really think about these things before screaming "death to copyright." Do copyright laws need to be changed so the copyright term is some kind of fixed, reasonable time period. Yes. Do we need to get rid of it all together. NO! Remember, life is about balance.
But let's look at your arguments anyway:
Books: so what? The author has made money from the sale of the books ("selling really well") and will continue to do so, particularly with the free publicity. They have the "authorised" copy and are first to market. How does it hurt them that someone else also makes money?
Magazines and Journals: Go ahead. Do it. I assure you absolutely no-one will complain because no-one will even notice. They're disposable media. Seriously, no one will care.
EDIT: Sorry, missed TV and radio: are you serious? Do you know how much TV channels pay to be the first to show a particular show? You can't possibly think that they do that just for fun, right? Radio just wants listeners...being a poor copy of another station is not going to get you listeners.
Plays: ....and never gets any work again. Or just have them sign a contract up front like most working people do.
OSS: Just like BSD you mean?
Looks like a pretty good world to me. And who was screaming other than you? And no, not all things should be balanced: we didn't get "limited term slavery" when full slavery was abolished.
What, you don't think it's the same? Why not? Is it because you enjoy the kind of work that has automatic intellectual property protection in the form of server side code or binary compiled code? While book/music/movie authors entire final work product has to be made public in order for that author to monetize it. Yes, first to market is great. But when second to market literally means a day later in todays day and age, where is the advantage?
Any way, if you really believe what you are saying, start public domain releasing all of your work, you have the option. Prove that you can make a living that way, and maybe others will follow you and the world will change. Though, something tells me you will fail, but I can be proven wrong.
As to your slavery argument, ignoring the historical facts which truly resulted in the awful circumstance of "limited term slavery," the condition of being a slave or a free person is not an example of 2 extremes. Having a bunch of white people own a bunch of black people as slavery is extremely bad and evil. Not having slavery is good, it's basically norm. The other extreme would be to free all the black slaves, and give them a white person as a slave each. Clearly and evil extreme as well.
I'm a bad example. The company I'm currently working with uses all OSS code and it is already released. I don't have the authors permission to make it public domain, I'm afraid. I'm restricted by copyright...
All my personal work is indeed released without copyright restrictions, though I'd be tempted to use a non-commercial clause just because it's an un-even playing field: I don't get to ignore other people's copyright just because I don't use it on my work.
In short, your argument is basically "if you don't like slavery, just release all your slaves". I'm restricted by copyright. So are you. Why should I accept that condition just so some lazy sod can make money more easily?
2. I am not attacking you personally. I am challenging you to practice what you preach. You may use exclusively OSS code in your business, but the glue code that runs the OSS bits, the business model, your list of suppliers, etc. All of that is IP, release that. I don't actually expect you to do that, you know perfectly well that I think that would be unfair. I am simply trying to make you see how exposed people like book authors are. Their entire business is on display, for everyone to see. Their book is the entirety of their work, and unlike you, without copyright, they would have no protection what so ever. Even without copyright, you would always have a choice whether to make your work public, they would not.
3. Stop comparing Copyright Law to Slavery. It's insulting to the memory of the people who actually were slaves to compare ownership right in specific expression with ownership rights in other human beings.
> screaming "death to copyright."
People - professional and amateur philosphers and economists - have thought very deeply about these things. Did you read the articles I linked to at Anti-Copyright Resources?
> Remember, life is about balance.
"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win." - Rand
Oh, and BTW, poison is not the opposite of food. Lack of food is the opposite of food. Poison is the opposite of medication. Lack of food causes death. Too much food causes death (leading cause of death in US). Too much poison causes death. Too much medication causes death (through weekend immune system and by creating drug resistant bacteria and viruses). Like I said, everything in life is about balance.
So, coming back to copyright, too many copyright protections stifle innovation by preventing derivative works. Too few copyright rights stifle innovation by limiting creative peoples ability to monetize their work in a meaningful way and encouraging even crazier DRM schemes. Again, balance is a complex, and yet the only way, to achieve the optimal good in this situation, which is maximizing creative output of the future generations. “Truth resists simplicity.” ― John Green.
If the TPP is approved in all participating countries, it has the potential to really wreak havoc. What we are seeing here whether or not you understand it that well is bad news for open source, bad news for anyone that uses the Internet and bad news for countries that rely on cheaper generic drugs to treat illnesses.
What a sad world we live in when lobbyists and rogue politicians are conspiring to destroy the world. And while it could be worse, if TPP passes this is only the beginning of what would be a very destructive agreement.
I'm sure the US realizes this, which is why there's been some talk to bring in India, South Korea, Thailand and even China (I say "even" because China apparently feels that the TPP is an "anti-China club") into the TPP fold.
>> Bring India into the TPP [Politico], http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/bring-india-into-the-t...
Given India's long-standing objections towards strict copyright and patent laws, and as an Indian, I hope we stay clear of the TPP.
In any case, the heavily ingrained belief of government benevolence in contemporary Western societies, is horrific. But not surprising, with minds like Edward L. Bernays at work (his 1928 book Propaganda should be mandatory reading for everyone).
And interesting should mean "provides important insights" not that it's a fun read (there's always Malcom Gladwell for that).
That's not an obvious truth, and doesn't deserve self-important snark.
I've also read 'Propaganda', and would also recommend it despite its age.
His opposition tried to tarnish his image by claiming he was introducing "state socialism", after which he himself started using the same term about his welfare programs, and explicitly made the point that it was intended to counter the influence of the socialists and calm the masses.
Bismarck, which was an ultra-conservative monarchist, actually went further than the majority of the socialist opposition at the time in anticipation of further demands, in order to quell their support.
Hobbes, Machiavelli, Clausewitz and Rousseau. If you are really a glutton for punishment go on to Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche. If you are wanting a slightly more americanized version; Howard Zinn's "A People's history of the United States" is a good and fairly accessible book.
A couple of Wiki pages that might point you toward other resources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck
Just remember that actual history is messy and not necessarily rational and that any interpretation ( including mine ) of historical events is more wrong the more sweeping and all-encompassing it is.
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-America-Penguin-Classics-Toc...
[1/3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZt2HhFXB3M
[2/3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbRApO3k_Jo
[3/3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFjCJFsbS0U
Another series by Curtis, "The Century of the Self", explores similar themes in the context of psychology (Freud and Reich), propaganda (Bernays), and the rise of market-based democracy:
No democracy functions that way.
And they gave me a visa, so there's that.
This creates an incentive to try again and again and again. The costs are minimal (lobbying is cheap when you're a multi-billion dollar industry), the risk of blowback practically non-existant (no one boycots Disney), and the potential rewards are huge.
Therefore, I think you're incorrect when you say these people have not learned anything. Defeating one treaty or proposed law does nothing to prevent them from trying to pass the same reforms at a later point.
Why do I keep hearing this bullshit from all governments all over the World? (The last time, it was the NSA saying we should let them set up the police state.)
Secrecy has nothing to do with democracy. It kills it. (And that seems to be the goal, lately.)
Why do we even have this crap? Trade agreements are obviously just a way for big corporations make into law all their stupid ideas.
Corporations shouldn't have a say in law to begin with that will inevitably lead to abuse of power.
This looks just like a price setting agreement between large corporation (clearly illegal) but instead of setting prices the set laws in their favor. Considerably worse and should be just as illegal.
Having not been following the TPP terribly thoroughly I did not realise how wide in scope some of its provisions would appear to be.
The success of the internet, which is largely built around open protocols, and open source, would indicate that perhaps copyright/patent maximalism that forces a "get permission first" culture is not a good idea.
For an extremely detailed argument on why copyright and patents hinder innovation in general, see the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Boldrin and Levine. You can find a copy on the internet using, e.g., Google.
For a more story-based exposition, see the "This American Life" episodes "When Patents Attack".
LOLWUT, as they say on the internet. The US currently enjoys more industrial production than at any time in its history. It is still the largest producer of manufactured goods in the world.
"U.S. Manufacturing in International Perspective" http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf
US Census Bureau - New Manufacturing Orders http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d2p7r4l1574rh_&c...
However, the rest of the FAS report is stuffed full of metrics showing the rapid decline of the manufacturing sector.