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Full Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Intellectual Property Chapter Analyzed (freezenet.ca) 109

Dangerous_Minds writes: Freezenet seems to be the first website to publish a full run-down of the final draft of the Intellectual Property chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The leak was published on Wikileaks earlier. The analysis seems to confirm what the EFF has said, saying that the chapter "confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous provisions wouldn't survive to the end of the negotiations." The analysis focuses mainly on copyright enforcement on the Internet and the impact the chapter would have on personal devices, VPN services, and ISPs. One noteworthy find by Freezenet is the inclusion of a "TPP Commission" which would decide when different countries are supposed to meet outside of the 10-year cycle, discussing "market circumstances" of "the development of new pharmaceutical products." What other roles the TPP Commission takes on is unclear given that it is not mentioned anywhere else in the chapter.
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Full Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Intellectual Property Chapter Analyzed

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  • by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) on Friday October 23, 2015 @11:27PM (#50791955) Homepage

    So to summarize the effect of TPP in one semi-sentence....

    "....and the horse you rode in on..."

    • by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Friday October 23, 2015 @11:36PM (#50791989) Homepage

      No, more like by the horse they rode in on.

      This is yet another example of idiot governments rolling over and giving corporations everything they want, and utterly failing to serve the people who voted for them.

      This shit needs to stop. Because governments should be looking out for our interests, instead of lying to us and telling us what is good for corporations benefits us.

      Welcome to the oligarchy kids. We're all pretty much fucked now.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "This is yet another example of idiot governments rolling over and giving corporations everything they want, and utterly failing to serve the people who voted for them."

        You're under the dangerous idea that they ever worked for you.

        First, our brains are much worse at reality and thinking than thought. Science on reasoning:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ [youtube.com]

        Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349 [youtube.com]

        Wh

        • Except that it's no longer the USA. No megacorp really has a home country any more. They play countries against each other for the best profit.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by davester666 ( 731373 )

        Yes, we have the best gov't money can buy.

      • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

        ...utterly failing to serve the people who voted for them.

        People don't vote for someone, at least not recently.
        People either vote against the person/party they hate most or they vote for [R or D]-affiliated candidate.

        • People are only able to vote for or against what their masters let them vote for or against. It's not like there has been a really independent (and I don't even mean "not affiliated with either side of The Party" but rather "not in the pocket of some business that pretty much propped up the puppet") candidate available in any election where the outcome actually had any kind of meaning. At least none that had a nonzero chance of winning.

          Essentially, you may vote what corporation(s) get to rip you off. Not wh

      • instead of lying to us and telling us what is good for corporations benefits us.

        See, this sounds great and all, but really doesn't make any sense.

        Corporations (or businesses) and the vehicle through which private money can get products to consumers in the US. You wouldn't have widespread professional employment options without corporations, which drives your middle class. And the consumerism of that middle class drives over 70% of the massive economy. You would be fucked, and a third world country without that.

        No, pretty much your entire comfy, Starbucks sippin' existence is b

        • No, what we have is a broken form of Capitalism in which the corporations get to skew the rules, change them as they wish, have governments entrench things in law which fuck up the system and tilt the playing field in their favor.

          They get to have H1B visas, a government who keeps extending copyright so multi-billion dollar corporations can continue to profit, and actually be the agency to enforce those copyrights.

          What we have now is an oligarchy, in which the multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation

          • I'm not sure if your message was an appeal to libertarianism or not. I'll address the libertarian case.

            If the libertarians had their way and dismantled the government, Microsoft, Google, Comcast, GE, GM, IBM, Disney, Walmart, etc... would just buy it back on even more favorable terms. The only way to dismantle most of the government and keep it dismantled is if you have a highly educated majority of voters that keep blocking moves to restore it. But once you take most of the government, any majority
            • by KGIII ( 973947 )

              You don't actually know any Libertarians or understand the ideology, do you?

              • Actually, I do understand it. My point is that regardless of their vision of a free market competition that respects individual rights and allows competition to cure all ills, the reality is that libertarian law leads to oligarchy.
                • by KGIII ( 973947 )

                  You're confusing Libertarianism with an economic model. It is not. Libertarianism is a political ideology. Laissez faire capitalism is entirely different and is only subscribed to by a (actually) small group of noisy Libertarians. I'm a dyed in the wool Libertarian and am more often mistaken for a Socialist which is just plain silly but much of what I believe does end up mirroring Socialism in results, but the routes and reasonings are different.

                  So, no... You don't understand - as is evidenced by your confu

                  • I linked political libertarianism with economic laissez-faire policy because my understanding of libertarianism as a political system is that primary focus on individual autonomy leads inevitabley to minarchy. The most likely - arguably, inevitable - economic system under minarchy is laissez-faire capitalism.

                    Your idea of safety nets leads me to believe most people would call you a Civil Libertarian, which is far different from a plain Libertarian.

                    If you want to give me links to more discussions, art
                    • by KGIII ( 973947 )

                      Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as its principal objective. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association, and the primacy of individual judgment.[1][2]

                      Libertarians generally share a skepticism of authority; however, they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing political and economic systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling to restrict or even to wholly dissolve coercive social institutions. Rather than embodying a singular, rigid systematic theory or ideology, libertarianism has been applied as an umbrella term to a wide range of sometimes discordant political ideas through modern history.

                      Some libertarians advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights,[3] such as in land, infrastructure, and natural resources. Others, notably libertarian socialists,[4] seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production in favor of their common or cooperative ownership and management.[5][6] An additional line of division is between minarchists and anarchists. While minarchists think that a minimal centralized government is necessary, anarchists propose to completely eliminate the state.[7][8]

                      The term libertarianism originally referred to a philosophical belief in free will but later became associated with anti-state socialism and Enlightenment-influenced[9][10] political movements critical of institutional authority believed to serve forms of social domination and injustice. While it has generally retained its earlier political usage as a synonym for either social or individualist anarchism through much of the world, in the United States it has since come to describe pro-capitalist economic liberalism more so than radical, anti-capitalist egalitarianism. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, libertarianism is defined as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things.[11] As individualist opponents of social liberalism embraced the label and distanced themselves from the word liberal, American writers, political parties, and think tanks adopted the word libertarian to describe advocacy of capitalist free market economics and a night-watchman state.

                      That's just Wikipedia, they do a fairly good job with it.
                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

                      I would fall, I suppose, somewhere between your run of the mill Libertarian and a Libertarian Socialist - leaning heavily towards the socialism side because reality trumps ideals. It is, for example, cheaper for me to feed you than it is for me to hire goons to keep you from taking my stuff. It's cheaper to keep you healthy than to deal with the plague. It's better to have you educated than to have to deal with your mi

                    • I think my political philosophy might overlap 100% with yours, then, I just never used the same label. My introduction to libertarianism was reading Atlas Shrugged, and I admit I was in love with the book and some of the ideas it had for a while before it sank in that out of all the wildly successful capitalists of the 19th and 20th century United States, none had the ethics of Rearden, Dagny Taggert, d'Anconia or Galt; plus her supposedly heroic pirate Ragnar was nothing more than a thief and a murderer;
                    • by KGIII ( 973947 )

                      Ayn Rand was an idiot. (I don't know how many times I've felt compelled to state the obvious over the years.) I no longer waste the time declaring why she was an idiot, I figure it should be obvious. Well, obvious to anyone that I'm making an effort to communicate with. If they don't understand that and why then, frankly, I'm not sure that they're a good place to invest my time and effort. I have better things to do.

                      It is tough to use the nomenclature. It is hard to self-identify as a Libertarian. The conno

                    • I find it a little funny that you say you are not a socialist "because I didn't emote my way to a conclusion and, instead, reached my conclusions because of reason and logic". I think the idea of socialism as based on emotions is a grave mis-representation of the original ideas. So apparently we have two mainstream terms used in politics and economics that have drifted far in the public consciousness from their original meanings.

                      I'm a big fan of the original ideas in socialism from Marx. But from wh
                    • by KGIII ( 973947 )

                      To be honest, yes, yes I was poking fun at the modern American socialist. I'm allowed some humor... It really has become a matter of emotion, at least that's what it appears like.

                      I like Marxism but I don't think it will ever work without totalitarianism and it needs to be absolute. There's no room for there to be a comparison. It also needs to eliminate the "more equal than others" that seems likely to be inevitable. Like all ideologies, nothing can be done in its pure form effectively. That's one of the re

  • by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Friday October 23, 2015 @11:39PM (#50792001)

    The name "TTP commission" strongly echoes the EU commission's name. The later is an unelected, unaccountable body that takes over nation state sovereignty, and it is interesting they chose a look alike name.

    • Since they conducted all of this in secrecy, it comes as no surprise that the future "leaders" of this illegitimate commission will be unelected. The last thing that they want is the very people in which they tried so hard to hide it from to have some accountability in its process.
      • Well, one can try to stamp on educated people sovereignty, but sooner or later, they revolt.

        If the leader acts wisely, it is able to just step down. Otherwise it turns into a bloody hell like french revolution of 1792.

  • by roman_mir ( 125474 )

    For those who are still very thick in the head and cannot comprehend the simplest thing since for the first time in history of this planet a rock was used to bash somebody on the head, I would like to repeat this axiom: governments = evil.

    Government is an evil structure by its very definition, as it is set up to provide the collective with violent means of dominating an individual. Whatever system that is fundamentally based on violence can not and will not avoid using violence to increase its own power, a

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Except with healthcare. More government control has been proven to be a good thing.

      • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday October 24, 2015 @02:16AM (#50792297)

        Except with healthcare. More government control has been proven to be a good thing.

        ... and roads. Also public health and sanitation. And peace and public order. And the aqueduct. But apart from the aqueduct, roads, public health, sanitation, peace, public order, education, and healthcare, what have the Romans ... uh, government, what has the government done for us?

        • These things do not require innovation. Medicine does, and that costs money.

          That's before governments ladle on well over a billion dollars of testing requirements on average for a new drug.

          Government-supplied medicine is based off the idea of providing a static product, when in fact you actually want a changing, improving one, and rent control doesn't work with that.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Governments aren't evil. Governments you don't control are evil. TPP is solely a deal between the US government, staffed through the revolving door, and a few multinationals. Part of the deal is forcing other governments via means legal and illegal (remember Hillary saying 'collect all compromising information on foreign leaders that you can' to their ambassador?) to accept it. So, if you're in the US, you are the problem, because you had at least nominal control over your government, and you let it lapse.

    • Corporations = evil. Wall street regulates Congress. Solution: public money creation, distributed directly to individuals in the form of a basic income.

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday October 24, 2015 @07:01AM (#50792599)

      Govenments CAN be beneficial for those who lack power if, and only if, the government itself does not ally itself with those in power. Then it is at best useless. At worst compounding the problem.

      An absence of government creates a power vacuum that will instantly be filled by whoever has the most power. In our world this essentially means that the entity with the most money will rule. And of course abuse its power to suppress anyone wanting to either rise to power himself or to force those lacking the ability to defend themselves against it to bend to his interests. In short, that "rich" entity will force the "poor" ones to work against their own interest and for his.

      Any government that supports such a system can as well be considered failed because it serves no purpose. This is the state a society would assume anyway without government.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Govenments CAN be beneficial for those who lack power if, and only if, the government itself does not ally itself with those in power. Then it is at best useless. At worst compounding the problem.

        An absence of government creates a power vacuum that will instantly be filled by whoever has the most power. In our world this essentially means that the entity with the most money will rule. And of course abuse its power to suppress anyone wanting to either rise to power himself or to force those lacking the ability to defend themselves against it to bend to his interests. In short, that "rich" entity will force the "poor" ones to work against their own interest and for his.

        Any government that supports such a system can as well be considered failed because it serves no purpose. This is the state a society would assume anyway without government.

        Basically governments are not evil. They're inanimate and natively without anthropomorphic characteristics. Its the people in government that determines if it is good or evil.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      That's just another run-off-the-mill anarchist position. You sound like anarchism had never been proposed as a political view before and as if there had never been any serious debate about this. This has already been discussed and rejected by most thinkers more than a hundred years ago.

      Despite the fact that probably everyone wants a lean government and it is surprisingly hard to get one, you position has the fatal flaw that you need a government apparatus to control corporations via anti-cartel laws and reg

      • by dryeo ( 100693 )

        Your abolishing of the government would lead to extreme corporate fascism and totalitarian oligarchy, possibly even dictatorship, and you'd end up as a slave worker in no time.

        I think the parent poster is planning to be part of the oligarchy rather then a slave worker. He's probably in for a rude surprise but who knows, maybe he'll end up as dictator for life.

    • Of course copyrights and patents are used to create a monopoly power for specific individuals. That was what they were designed to do. Why would you spend a couple of years to write a book if the moment you showed it to a bunch of publishers they could copy it and sell it as their own? Or why would you send in a demo "tape" to music label if they could just take the song and have an established group release it? What incentive would you have to create the next great mouse trap if as soon as it hit shelv

      • > Why would you spend a couple of years to write a book if the moment you showed it to a bunch of publishers they could copy it and sell it as their own?

        2 Counter Examples that blow this "argument" right out of the water:

        * Fashion Industry thrives inspite of complete lack of copyright [ted.com] proves your premise entirely wrong

        * /sarcasm Someone should Mathematics / Mathematicians that for the last few thousand years they have been doing it wrong!

        Not everything has to be viewed through myopic capitalism and the

    • by tomthepom ( 314977 ) on Saturday October 24, 2015 @09:21AM (#50792895)

      however in a free market capitalism monopolies are temporary and their existence depends on them providing a good enough product / service in the most cost effective way possible.

      ...or product dumping, price fixing, dividing markets, buying up competitors etc. etc.

      In the real world businesses hate competition, and will do anything legal to prevent it.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Anonymous Coward

        Baahh said the sheep. The only stupid quotes are coming from you. Allow me illustrate.

        Does the government establish an agreed upon set of laws that we all are supposed to follow. You know, kind of like threatening highway bandits with punishment or putting people in jail for fraud.

        TPP was not agreed upon within any reasonable forum, format or political debate. It was done in secret and leaked online by Wikileaks.

        See your idealism instantly destroyed. You made a fool of. When will you people get it? In an ideal world you maybe right. But when the world is no longer ideal, you're not only wrong. You're being made a fool of!

    • by Anonymous Coward

      People forget that modern Government is based on power structures that today we otherwise look upon as being uncivilized and/or brutal. But we have to ask ourselves. When did it all change? The answer is, it didn't, its all in our heads. Our preconditioning is that a) everything is supposed to be this way b) we are now part of a civilized and otherwise fair society.

      Saying this I feel that I could can be taken grossly out of context. By no means do I not want to live in a fair and civilized society or more i

    • For those who are still very thick in the head and cannot comprehend the simplest thing since for the first time in history of this planet a rock was used to bash somebody on the head, I would like to repeat this axiom: markets = evil.

      Markets is an evil structure by its very definition, as it is set up to provide the collective with violent means of dominating an individual. Whatever system that is fundamentally based on violence can not and will not avoid using violence to increase its own power, and a mar

      • For those who are still very thick in the head and cannot comprehend the simplest thing since for the first time in history of this planet a rock was used to bash somebody on the head, I would like to repeat this axiom: markets = evil.

        Tee hee hee. Putting insults on the front of it doesn't make it true.

        Among other things, a "market" is a body of existing or potential buyers for specific goods or services. What you're saying, know it or not, is that people are evil. Well, that's true in its own way, but it's only a small part of the story.

        Markets is an evil structure by its very definition, as it is set up to provide the collective with violent means of dominating an individual.

        You don't even know what a market is, do you? A market is when people want to buy stuff. 1100-1150; Middle English, late Old English < Vulgar Latin *marcÄtus, Latin mercÄtus trading, traffic

    • Government is an evil structure by its very definition, as it is set up to provide the collective with violent means of dominating an individual. Whatever system that is fundamentally based on violence can not and will not avoid using violence to increase its own power, and blah blah blah blah

      As much as starting your own business means you will sexually harass your female employees, defraud your investors, dump toxic waste in the river, and join the international slave trade. For what some businesses have

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      I hope you aren't so foolish as to also assert that lack of government == good.

      To an extent I agree with you. Centralized positions of power tend to be attractive to those psychotically attracted to power. And the proper solution, when possible, is to decentralize the power. When that cannot be done, the only reasonable answer is to so design things that striving to attain power does not increase your probability of getting it. It is for this reason that I propose replacing elections by a lottery along

      • Yes, I think that absence of government is good and that government is evil by very definition. I think that all and any ills of the world do not warrant reduction of individual freedoms at all under any circumstances. Yes, governments tend to form in the power vacuum that exists when there is no centralized authority. No, that does not mean that the power vacuum being filled with a government is a good thing, it is a horrible thing, the real question is what to do to actively prevent that from happenin

  • by jmd ( 14060 ) on Saturday October 24, 2015 @12:17AM (#50792125)

    In the future the global legal framework will be created and enforced by corporations. The nation-state will lose its sovereignty.

    From the governments become more corrupted from representing their people to the privatization of military forces to Google and other corporations owning, paying for research that they can 'sell back' to consumers, your world will be controlled by corporations. Democracy, socialism and communism will no longer exist thanks to capitalism.

    This is a good time to read "When Google Met Wikileaks" by Julian Assange

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Another treaty that was negotiated by the leaders of world governments without concern about the state of the citizens they represent and kept as much in secret as possible.

  • This [youtube.com] video explains the evidence in a recent study. It shows why what Americans want has practically no effect on what American politicians do.
  • We were clearly told by the appointed future president that it was the "gold standard" of agreements. Although for show she suddenly has reservations about it I'm sure once elected it will be fully supported. When it comes to stopping the freight train of "free trade" vote Trump or Sanders.
    • Do you really believe that Trump or Sanders would be seated by the Electoral College? Those elites will put Clinton or some establishment Republican in the White House.

      We need to get Americans involved in their government as they are in most of Europe and Australia, and as selfish as Americans are, this will only happen after the next global economic crash.

      To paraphrase Churchill: America can always be counted on to do the right thing...after having exhausted all other available options.

  • These are just the last gasps. Intellectual Monopoly is on the way out. It cannot be enforced. The economy is too fast for the bureaucrats to control now. Sure the laws will be there but they will be ignored and only used occasionally for political revenge. it will just be a cost of doing business.

  • "The new Commission would be a self-governing, continuing body authorized to issue policies and regulations affecting our economy, our manufacturers, our workers, our immigration procedures, as well currency, labor and environmental practices," Hunter wrote. "It is one thing to enhance executive authority with respect to a narrow set of trade policies, it is another to fast-track the creation of a new international structure before a single detail about that structure has been made available to the public."

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      It doesn't fit the constitutional definition of treason. Malfeasance, yes. In fact I would suggest that one could find a hundred counts of malfeasance, so that if the sentences were served sequentially those involved would never get out of prison. And I believe this could be done for most members of Congress, as well as for the President. Certainly anyone who votes for this atrocity should be arrested for malfeasance. But no prosecutor would even file charges.

      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Legally it's more like sedition perhaps, literally it is still treasonous. I don't care much for law, it's an ass.

    • Why is Obama so hell bent on passing this? I can understand how this would be popular with corporations and some legislators, but why in his second and final term is Obama bent on passing this seriously flawed bunch of shit?

      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Good question, I can only assume he wants to line his pockets with cash from the companies who will benefit from the changes. Ex-presidents should receive a large stipend/pension but not be allowed to take money from anyone after their presidency.

  • Every effort should be made to stop ratification. Unfortunately in Canada, Trudeau refused to really say anything claiming the text wasn't available (strangely enough the mainstream media all bought the excuse that he didn't know anything about the TPP, which strikes me as odd) so with the majority that can go any way. The top contenders in the US for president that are openly anti-TPP get attacked on all fronts. One of the minor parties pulling out won't stop the TPP, but two or three might.
    • by dryeo ( 100693 )

      We (Canada) are kinda stuck with having to go along with America as we're too dependent on trade to refuse to sign. And of course Trudeau will find himself surrounded by advisers reminding him of this as well as all the benefits to the country (actually the rich).
      Basically as long as America signs, we (Canada, Australia and NZ) are screwed.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    That governments had a two-fold purpose to refusing to discuss the TPP during negotiations:

    1). A legitimate wish to keep the trade negotiations in an open-ended state, with the fewest possible restriction on the trade negotiators;
    2). An illegitimate wish to stifle public discussion of the ramifications of global trade agreements, focus on winners and losers, and the implicit freedom we give capital even as we withhold the same freedoms, rights and practical considerations that restrict workers, employment

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      OK. I *WILL* say the TPP is wrong per se. That some kind of trade treaty would be desirable doesn't make this, or anything closely similar to this, acceptable. I even assert that voting for this treaty should be taken as positive proof of malfeasance. (I'll agree that it doesn't say anything about the reason for the malfeasance.)

      Also, please note the distinction between misfeasance and malfeasance. http://dictionary.reference.co... [reference.com]
      Usually malfeasance is a felony, as opposed to misfeasance or nonfeasance

  • Negotiated in secret, without even elected representatives able to review it? I will break it in secret - seems fair to me.

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