back to article SECRET draft copyright treaty LEAKED: Meet the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The text of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) isn't as bad as we thought. It's worse. A draft, published by Wikileaks, offers a patent-and-copyright wish list that would see the infamous DMCA automatic take-downs spread throughout the Pacific, plants and animals become patentable with few restrictions, …

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  1. Sebastian A

    Beep beep

    The profits-before-people train is coming through. Get off the tracks or you'll become collateral damage.

    When did governments stop representing us and start representing corporations *to* us? I don't recall a specific turning point but it certainly seems to be the default these days.

    1. Don Jefe
      Unhappy

      Re: Beep beep

      I reckon the East India Company and similar organizations are owed the credit for pioneering the ramming of commercialism onto the consumer via government writ. Now we've got the power of technology so they can continue those practices at cyber speed. Yay Progress! I guess.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Beep beep

        "I reckon the East India Company..."

        Who are you sir?! You are perhaps one the few people I've ever heard who understands this connection!

        1. RobHib
          Stop

          @ecofeco -- Re: Beep beep -- It's probably more than you think!

          Who are you sir?! You are perhaps one the few people I've ever heard who understands this connection!

          'Tis probably many more than you think. I learned it at school years ago.

          I'll prove the point, just Google this:

          East India Company Flag

          The moment I saw this sight many years ago the connection forever gelled in my mind. And it ought to for most.

          'Stars and Stripes forever' -- well stripes anyway!

          (...And school also taught me that's where the stripes came from too).

      2. Yes Me Silver badge

        Re: Beep beep

        And today, I find msyelf agreeing with Don Jefe, unlike a few days ago on another matter. Impose Hollywood's and Big Pharma's view of IPR protection so we can sell more kiwi fruit, dead sheep and milk powder? There's a real risk the NZ government will take that deal. Beuh.

      3. jonfr

        Re: Beep beep

        They where actually worse then today's companies (so far, it might not get any better). For instance the East India Company ruled what is today's India, Pakistan and other countries. You can find details on Wikipedia under "Company rule in India". They also had there own set of laws, as do companies in the U.S today (and UK). Companies having there own laws is not so popular around the world today and never has been.

        You can find laws related to East India Company on archive.org under "The law relating to India and the East-India Company; (1855)".

        This restriction is because MPA and RIAA do not and have and do not want to have any understanding of technology. You can forget that this people want to understand the internet and how it works. All this people want and think about is greed and nothing else.

      4. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

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        I reckon the East India Company and similar organizations are owed the credit for pioneering the ramming of commercialism onto the consumer via government writ. Now we've got the power of technology so they can continue those practices at cyber speed. Yay Progress! I guess. .... Don Jefe Posted Wednesday 13th November 2013 23:09 GMT

        Actually, ...... and this is terrifying to oppressing establishments and causing them to increasingly catastrophically over-react and in so doing self-destruct with the knowledge of their actions increasingly recognised as being only self-serving and inequitable ..... now we've got the power of technology can those practices be stopped and/or remodelled at cyber speed, which be progress indeed with such deeds.

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    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Beep beep

      Reagan-Thatcher.

      That's when.

      Too bad we don't have any protestors trying to make us aware of these trends.

      Oh wait.... naw just ignore 'em. They need to put down the bong and get a job and figure what they are protesting about. </sarcasm>

      1. Captain Save-a-ho
        Trollface

        Re: Beep beep

        Short memory, eh? If you think that crony capitalism is a product of the last 40 years, you're sadly mistaken and quite naive. I suspect examples extend back 100s of years, but I know you can see the effects as early as 1929, once Herbert Hoover took over in the US and Ramsey McDonald came back into power in Britain.

        1. Robert Helpmann??
          Childcatcher

          Re: Beep beep

          I suspect examples extend back 100s of years, but I know you can see the effects as early as 1929...

          Right the first time. One of the big political issues that drove the then-colonies into revolt were the monopolies imposed on them that were disadvantageous to the locals (see also "taxation without representation"). The methods did not change under the newly created government, only those who benefitted from them (see also "Andrew Jackson" and "spoils system").

          Looking through the bullet points, I don't see a lot of any good. Copyright as it was originally designed included a balance between protecting the rights of the creator and the public good. There is not even a pretense of balance in the parts that are being presented in the article.

        2. The Alpha Klutz

          Re: Beep beep

          Umm people have been getting fucked over on this planet for thousands of years.

          It's only in the last 100 that we've developed the technology to grow a large population of many billions ripe for fucking, and the computer technology and social sciences needed to fuck them all quickly and efficiently.

    3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Beep beep

      When did governments stop representing us and start representing corporations

      The question raises an interesting point about this article. When it says "America wants" or "NZ opposes" etc, who exactly is it talking about? Is this a government committee, a private industry rep, a bored civil servant, or what? Where exactly in "government" is this being discussed?

      1. SleepyJohn
        Go

        Re: Beep beep - Governments representing us?

        Is there any evidence for the assumption that governments have ever represented the people? I suspect this is highly doubtful. This is the old saw about 'is crime rising or is it simply being reported more openly?'

        While the internet has the power to enable particularly corrupt gangsters like American Big Media and its lackeys in the US government to control the world in order to slake their own mindless materialistic greed, it also enables us the people, courtesy of the likes of Wikileaks, to expose and damn them. It should also enable us, courtesy of the many exceedingly clever people the internet lets us connect with, to defeat them.

        There is a story in fairy-tale land about 'killing the golden goose' which should be instructive to us, trying to deal with an organisation so consumed with and blinded by greed that it cannot think rationally. The MAFIAA's golden goose is us - we, the people. We are the ones who lay its golden eggs, and if we stop doing so it will wither and die. If we don't, it will be our civilisation that withers and dies.

        If some crappy video of a farting cat can get the interest of millions of people, surely some clever folk can produce a meme to fill the public with such revulsion for corrupt American Big Media that millions will be persuaded to stop buying from it. Then perhaps, like the proverbial phoenix, real art and creativity can be encouraged to rise, above the ashes of the current grasping, sickening dross. Remember the Ratner story.

        A massive, world-wide boycott of the next blockbuster movie, which smug MAFIAA bosses confidently expect to give them a financial orgasm, would send a useful shot across their bows. Big Media is hellbent on turning us all into literal slaves, trapped forever in terror of "stealing' some thug's copyright whenever we open our mouths. It has to be stopped. Is this the sort of 'civilisation' we want to pass on to our children?

        "Daddy, was it you lot who handed these bastards control of our world?"

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @SleepyJohn

          OK, just let me get your plan straight in my head, you think you can interest the same people who are mesmerized by a farting cat, get them to reject big media, and think (what you consider to be) real art and creativity will rise up in its place?

          Why do you not think more videos of farting cats would not fill the void left by big media, since these people you're convincing with this magic meme of yours have already demonstrated their interest in farting cats?

    4. Rampant Spaniel

      Re: Beep beep

      You are correct, but they started representing 'special interests' about the same time hundreds of millions of morons decided to vote for whoever told the most lies in the media, leaving politicians in a position where they had to whore themselves to the highest bidder if they wished to keep their job.

      We get the government we deserve.

      How does one patent an animal? Can I patent bacon? Is there not prior art in the form of the animal itself?

    5. deadlockvictim

      Re: Beep beep

      Nixon was the first, wasn't he? It was followed with gusto in the early eighties by Thatcher and Reagan.

  2. Daniel B.
    Holmes

    Mexico agreeing to Copyright Extension

    Not really surprised that my own country is asking for Copyright limits to be applied globally. It is the only country that has a longer limit on copyright duration, being 10 years more than in the US post-Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

    Hopefully the leaking of TPP to the public will bring up a SOPA-style shitstorm; that was what killed the infamous ACTA as well.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Mexico agreeing to Copyright Extension

      >Hopefully the leaking of TPP to the public will bring up a SOPA-style shitstorm

      If only it had Edward Snowden's name attached then it would all all across the media by now...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mexico agreeing to Copyright Extension

      unfortunately, just like PIPA and SOPA, ACTA is not really dead; all of the pro-copyright legislation will eventually be implemented as a series of smaller laws and treaties so that the erosion of rights is more gradual and not as noticeable to the end user.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Careful what you watch, careful what you eat

    Bullet proof Robocops and roundup resistant triffids coming a knockin'

    1. The Alpha Klutz

      Re: Careful what you watch, careful what you eat

      they want to make you eat it so your DNA can be damaged too

      profit before genes

  4. Big-nosed Pengie

    Treason.

  5. Christoph

    "Criminalisation of copyright infringement by all signatories"

    Does it say how they will wangle this so that it will NOT apply to big companies stealing copyright material from individuals?

    1. Remy Redert

      The big companies will just hire expensive lawyers and tie you up in court for 10+ years, then settle for a few pennies if you've somehow managed to not go bankrupt first.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        as a criminal offense

        you don't go bankrupt - the state does. Of course, since business and the state seem to be getting cosier by the minute, it's likely that any company charged with copyright crimes would see the charges dropped - depending on factors such as size of donations to election campaigns etc.

  6. Funnytom

    wow. I really don't want to live in Australia anymore. If any of these laws get passed and someone is found guilty of something, it will have some hideous interactions with our laws on illegal wealth, where the cops can confiscate any stuff which you can't which may have been earned through illegal means.

    Pirated MS Office or Windows? Used it to write an application for a job which you got? We'll take your house, car and clean out your bank account while we are at it. Get me off this planet.

  7. T J

    Australians play Uncle Sam's pink oboe

    Don't believe any of the old bollocks and hype about Australians being stand-up, defy-at-all-odds, revolutionaries - none of it was ever true, it was all propaganda, smoke, hot-air and bullshit, always.

    As a nation we LOVE to bend over and take it right up the colon from the lowest, highest, or in fact any bidder.

    1. Myvekk

      Re: Australians play Uncle Sam's pink oboe

      Not I, but our politicians do.

      Unfortunately, there are no candidates for election who might stand up for us, instead of against...

    2. Winkypop Silver badge

      Re: Australians play Uncle Sam's pink oboe

      When they said "all the way with LBJ" they weren't kidding....

    3. Levente Szileszky

      Re: Australians play Uncle Sam's pink oboe

      Yes, I actually never understood that: just how on Earth managed Australia to culture the MOST SUBSERVIENT PoS political class that actually puts ANOTHER COUNTRY ahead of their own corrupt political interests (forget their constituency's...)

  8. ecofeco Silver badge

    Damn those hippie protestors!

    Damn those hippie protestors for trying to warn us of the corporate world takeover!

    1. willi0000000

      Re: Damn those hippie protestors!

      yes!

      damn them for not warning us loud enough!

      damn them for not making idiots listen!

      [damn dirty hippie scum, it's all their fault]

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some big corporations behave like Nazis

    Many big corporations, and prominently the American ones (you can find examples in the books of Edwin Black), have profited enormously from World War I and World War II, from the Vietnam War, Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, as it is ever more difficult to start new conflicts for the benefit of the American military-industrial complex (vide Syria), the greedy psychopats look to other, creative ways of domination and exploitation. To me, the moronic ideas of a new world order coocked up by the bild erberg club looks like the Orwell's 1984 come true. Let's not fool ourselves - all this patent and copyright racket ( as well as the "Patriot" Act) go against the American Constitution, against the law, encourage criminal activities by non-elected officials and are against reason. What they actually do is they put big corporations above the law, free to kill (Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa) in remote locations, free to criminalize in all other locations, and free to eternally enslave us, so that eventually all of us work in the same conditions as the people who today work for Apple in the Foxconn factories in China. Unless we demand from our elected representatives to block this sick legislation, the slave sweatshop is the 21st century direction for the humanity (and this prophecy does not apply to the corporate members of the board).

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Some big corporations behave like Nazis

      Orwell's 1984 come true

      Wrong book. Nineteen Eighty-Four1 describes a straight-up oligarchic totalitarian state. What we're seeing is the corporatist bread-and-circus of Brave New World and the like.

      This isn't surprising. Heilbronner noted in 21st Century Capitalism that the fatal flaw of central planning was the lack of tension between the state and a powerful private sector; that tension on the one hand limits the excesses of both and on the other spurs innovation (through competition). But it also creates powerful incentives for the public and private sectors to mirror one another, by becoming twin domains for the same actors even while they remain separate in principle. Politicians are businesspeople.

      Don Jefe was correct to refer to the East India Company, but more generally it was the rise of the stock corporation and other forms of self-organization among the bourgeoisie which started us down this path. In other words, we've been on it ever since the beginnings of Early Modern Europe. Of course governments before that were no friends to common folk; it's just that government organized around real estate and the hierarchical control over populations - i.e. feudalisms of various sorts - are inherently hostile to industry.

      When the bourgeoisie wrested control of the polis from the aristocracy, by introducing far more efficient economic structures,2 they made things better for the middle class, which was by and large a Good Thing; but mostly they made things better for industry and its owners. And once that ball starts rolling, there doesn't seem to be any stopping it.

      1Orwell preferred the title spelled out. In fact, he didn't even want to name it after a particular year; that was his publisher's influence. Of course, this is an area where publishers often show some wisdom, else we might have had Baz Lurhman's overproduced version of The High-Bouncing Lover last year.

      2This also led to the downfall of institutional slavery, as Eric Williams famously argued (though he likely borrowed the thesis from C. L. R. James). Plantation slavery couldn't compete with wage slavery under capitalism; slavery produces a very inelastic labor force.

  10. Eguro

    At least we'll have Rollerball tournies to entertain us - yay future

  11. Drew 11

    Almost makes you yearn for the upcoming global economic collapse, doesn't it?

    Looking forward for a bunch of corporates and their politician employees to get flushed down the toilet.

  12. RAMChYLD

    Personally

    It made me wish that December 21, 2012 had been the end of the world.

    Good news is, tho, the EFF is going all out to destroy this one. Let's wish them luck.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The revolution will not be televised...

    ...because the material falls under the provisions of Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Please desist from protesting, posting dissenting comments on websites, and reading inflammatory material (I.E. the news). Go back to watching TMZ and reading the Daily Mail.

  14. Schultz
    FAIL

    Utterly unrealistic

    Eventually, this laundry list will meet the democratic process in the (non-?) ratifying countries. I hope.

    1. P. Lee

      Re: Utterly unrealistic

      >Eventually, this laundry list will meet the democratic process in the (non-?) ratifying countries. I hope.

      Nope. The government signs the treaty and then forces it through parliament "to meet its international obligations."

  15. JustWondering
    WTF?

    Wait a sec ...

    "including “biological processes for the production of plants and animals.”"

    They are going to patent screwing?

    1. LaeMing
      Unhappy

      Re: Wait a sec ...

      I was thinking that too - licence to breed is coming and unfortunately the qualifications to get one will not be related to the ongoing viability of human civilisation.

  16. LaeMing
    Facepalm

    Just a thought.

    When everyone is in jail, who will buy all the product to pay corporate "leaders'" bonuses? Or pay any taxes to pay politicians' salaries? Or pay taxes to pay for keeping everyone in prison, for that matter?

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

      Re: Just a thought.

      That's what quantitative easing (aka money printing) is for, silly! See how the markets react when they threaten to taper QE - they don't need consumers, just compliant governments willing to print all the money they need.

    2. jubtastic1
      Unhappy

      Re: Just a thought.

      Ah, you're thinking of european prisons, where the focus is on rehabilitation, the prisoners have rights and the system costs money, whereas the US prison system focuses on punishment, removal of rights and is so profitable a whole percent of their adullt population is in jail, where prisoners are paid 25c an hour if they work, or they can go to solitary. A workhouse.

      "But Jubs, I'm not an american, and we don't have those prisons here"

      You also don't have eternal copyright and monsanto doesn't own the rights to your dog, at least not until the paperwork is signed off eh?

      As an aside, this whole thread has blown my mind, this clearly isn't the world I thought it was and certainly not the world I want my children to inhabit.

  17. Mystic Megabyte
    Stop

    The only way to beat them

    is not to buy their stuff. Don't buy...

    Anything blu-ray

    DVDs until they are in the remainder bin

    Anything with soya beans in it

    Roundup

    Subscriptions to Sky, Netflix etc.

    etc.

    Let's get back to the era where people made their own entertainment. Fuck'em

    1. Dr. Mouse

      Re: The only way to beat them

      "Let's get back to the era where people made their own entertainment. Fuck'em"

      Sounds like a good way to make your own entertainment, as long as you put a bag over their head...

    2. Ben Tasker

      Re: The only way to beat them

      is not to buy their stuff. Don't buy...

      Anything blu-ray

      DVDs until they are in the remainder bin

      The problem with doing those two is that the bastards just then use it as an excuse to try and push this kind of shit through - oh our profits are down, evil pirates everywhere....

      Even if people weren't buying because all their content was shit (getting that way), they seem to have established that lower profits must only happen as a result of copyright infringement.

      It's a catch-22 really, don't buy and they'll try this stuff, do buy and you're lining their pockets (and they'll still try this stuff).

      Somehow I think it's almost more productive to try and devise a way to stop the planet for long enough for me to hop off....

      1. LaeMing

        Re: The only way to beat them

        No, stop the planet long enough to throw /them/ off.

  18. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. raving angry loony

      Re: Wikileaks

      I quite it's time for El Reg and others to stop flogging the character assassination of Assange angle and start paying more attention to what Wikileaks and other such organizations have been leaking.

      This is an excellent start. Start, I say.

  19. Sir Runcible Spoon
    Mushroom

    Global Thermo Nuclear Copyright

    The only winning move is not to play.

    1. Charles 9

      Can't even do that.

      Copyright is like thermodynamics: you can't win, you can't break even, and most importantly, you can't leave the game.

      1. Dr. Mouse

        Re: Can't even do that.

        Damn you, I've lost!

  20. Arthure B. Hynde
    Mushroom

    Patenting animals and plants...

    ... coming from a country that opposes the evolution theory?

    If GOD created all beings he own them. Who the **** are you claim any rights in regards to their makeup, use etc.?

    Make up your minds, morons.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Patenting animals and plants...

      I think the difference is they think they are God.

      PS, let them. Then send the GoldFish PureBred Breeders Club on them! One of them is bound to keep a [stolen copyrighted likeness off a] goldfish in the oval office!

  21. Alistair
    Flame

    Wow.

    I just peeled off a three page rant.

    And then decided not to post it -- a lot of it was almost incoherent.

    Its bad enough that the objectives in here feed only CORPORATE interests, but that the effort was done entirely or at least attempted entirely in secret turns my stomach.

    Government of the people by the corporates for the corporates.

    This makes it clear how wrong things really are in the world today.

    10 minutes of relevant listening

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0zp9uX9B6I

    (yeah its youtube, you don't have to comment ya know)

  22. raving angry loony

    It's the tag team of East India Company and London Company of Stationers back with their fondest wish list - and it looks like they'll be getting it.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In America, our government tried to hide the spying that it is doing on American citizens from the Citizens. Snowden exposed this. However the governments response was go proceed with spying on every citizen with full speed ahead. Now the US government is trying to hide this from the American people. When are the people in the US going to realize that there is a hot war going on between them and the US government benefiting major corporations?

  24. Josh Holman

    I don't see what the big deal is...

    Of course we're at war with EastIndia, we've always been at war with EastIndia.

  25. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    Am I the only one...

    Am I the only one... who after reading about this kind of reprehensible arsehattery, feels a sudden need to start downloading and distributing as much copyrighted material as possible just to spite and stick a finger up at them while we can?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't worry, everything's OK

    The UKIP will be along Real Soon Now (TM) to defend the UK's independence.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems one thing's been left out of this piece of toilet paper: a copyright trade embargo for any country that signs the treaty but does not ratify it. This would put pressure on the various signatory governments to ratify it since this would be enforceable by the ones that DO ratify it, barring the non-ratifiers from obtaining any copyrighted content from ratifying countries.

    Sort of like how American states set a drinking age of 21 because they don't want to lose federal transportation support.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What the hell?!

    George Orwell warned us about this in his iconic work "1984".

    As it stands, every time I play a DVD at the moment if it is (1) damaged and my player has kludged "read no matter what" firmware and HW mod, (2) purchased from any second hand shop, (3) copied, format shifted, or otherwise transferred through an "unauthorized" device such as through a Macrovision filter so it will play on my antique circa 1997 TV, I'm breaking the law.

    Bluray is even worse, you have to be connected to the Internet just to play a disk due to the requirement for firmware upgrades and woe betide you if you happen to still have dialup or 3G dongle because it will NOT work.

    At this point the gloves are off, Its time the MPAA and M*ns*n*o had a wake-up call.

    We the people DEMAND action, this bill has to die before we end up enslaved.

    AC but I am human and have ethics.

  29. cupperty

    The UK and Europe are also discussing a treaty

    See

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy

    The worrying feature of this treaty (discussed in the link) is that it gives American corporations the ability to sue democratic countries for, for example, not allowing their mining exploits on environmental grounds.

    It is a race to the bottom.

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