[Infowarrior] - Sneaky Change to the TPP Drastically Extends Criminal Penalties

[Richard Forno]

(Accidental or Intentional?  My bet is Intentional.  --rick)


https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/sneaky-change-tpp-drastically-extends-criminal-penalties

Sneaky Change to the TPP Drastically Extends Criminal Penalties

When the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was first released in November last year, it included provisions dictating the kinds of penalties that should be available in cases of copyright infringement. Amongst those provisions, the following footnote allowed countries some flexibility in applying criminal procedures and penalties to cases of willful copyright infringement on a commercial scale:

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How could this happen, when the TPP had supposedly already been finalized when the original text was released in November? The answer is that the original text had not been “legally scrubbed.” The legal scrubbing process, which was ongoing from November until the re-release of the text last month, was meant to be a process in which lawyers, trade ministry staff, and translators, go over the deal word-by-word, to ensure that it is legally consistent and free of unintended errors or loopholes.

It is most certainly not an opportunity for the negotiators to make any substantive changes to the text. Since the change highlighted above is unarguably a substantive change, the only basis for the change to be made during legal scrubbing would be if it were an error. But is it an error?

We don't know for sure—though EFF has contacted the USTR for clarification, and we will update this post if we receive an answer. But logically, the original text doesn't seem to have been an error, because there seems to be no rational basis why countries should be allowed to limit the availability of ex officio action, but not to similarly limit the availability of the other criminal remedies.

Think about it. What sense is there in sending someone to jail for an infringement that causes no harm to the copyright holder, whether they complain about it or not? And why should it matter that the copyright holder complains about something that didn't affect them anyway? Surely, if the copyright holder suffers no harm, then a country ought to be able to suspend the whole gamut of criminal procedures and penalties, not only the availability of ex officio action.

This is no error—or if it is, then the parties were only in error in agreeing to a proposal that was complete nonsense to begin with. But most likely, this is an underhanded attempt to renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership before its ink is even dry. In an agreement that was an undemocratic power grab from the outset, this devious move marks the lowest point to which the negotiators have yet sunk. It gives us all even more reason, as if any were needed, to demand that our representatives refuse to ratify this dreadful agreement.


https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/sneaky-change-tpp-drastically-extends-criminal-penalties


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It's better to burn out than fade away.