Law Professors Ask President Obama To Open Up TPP Process

from the stop-the-secrecy dept

A group of over 80 law professors, including many prominent and well-known ones, have now called on President Obama to open up the secretive TPP process. They point out that, especially after the recent leak of the TPP’s IP chapter, it’s shown that the closed, secretive, non-transparent process leads to bad results. Instead, they argue for an open process, like the recent Marrakesh Treaty concerning copyright issues related to the blind. In that negotiation, proposals were made publicly and shared, so that there was widespread public comment and discussion. There is simply no good reason for the US government to continue negotiating this massive, and tremendously important treaty in secret. The lawyers are clear that they’re not against the overall TPP agreement — in fact, many support it. But they cannot accept the backroom process by which it has been negotiated.

We, the undersigned intellectual property law academics and scholars, write to you to ask you to support immediately changing the secretive TPP negotiation process in law and in practice, and follow instead the example set by the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled, as explained below.

Intellectual property law is incredibly far reaching in its impact – implicating everything from the price of medicines and textbooks to the ability to exercise free expression and create new business models on the Internet. The TPP’s intellectual property chapter would restrict Congress’s ability to legislate on these key issues, and would do so without public input. Indeed, reported proposals in the TPP would foreclose many policy proposals currently under consideration, including proposals to reform copyright law proposed by the Library of Congress, proposals to reform “data exclusivity” periods for biologic medicines included in the President’s budget, and proposals to amend exceptions for the circumvention of technological protection measures to promote interoperability of cell phones proposed by the Administration itself.

They also point out (nicely), that the administration should know better by now. Not only was the Marrakesh Treaty a success, but ACTA failed because of the USTR’s insistence on doing everything in backrooms, and avoiding any and all transparency. So far, it looks like they haven’t learned their lesson yet, but pushing the load of crap that is the current IP chapter on TPP seems likely to only give the USTR yet another refresher course in what happens when they decide to make deals like this in backrooms to favor Hollywood and Big Pharma, rather than having an open review in public.

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Comments on “Law Professors Ask President Obama To Open Up TPP Process”

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23 Comments
out_of_the_blue says:

"they're not against the overall TPP agreement"!!!

WELL I AM! It’s globalist corporatists stripping sovereignty from people everywhere. Bad for everyone except the 1% or perhaps 0.1%.

So what the hell is your point here? To promote people who are FOR the globalist power grab? So long as it’s done right out in the open?

So you need to state your position on TPP itself, Mike. — Not that I expect you to. Getting ANY position out of you has proved impossible.


Here’s an interesting admission direct from the globalists at the Council on Foreign Relations:

Last month, Silicon Valley purported to be shocked by revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has routinely accessed the servers of tech giants Google and Yahoo, which store data for hundreds of millions of users. In response, the companies pledged to step up privacy protections.

There is only one problem: Such protections run counter to the business model and public policy agenda that tech companies have pursued for decades. For years, U.S. information technology (IT) firms have actively backed weak privacy rules that let them collect massive amounts of personal data.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140246/abraham-newman/privacy-pretense

S. T. Stone says:

Re: "they're not against the overall TPP agreement"!!!

Getting ANY position out of you has proved impossible.

Only because you don?t look for a solid position. You look for statements which you can take out of context and turn them into a troll attack.

Even if Mr. Masnick laid down a solid position on a given subject, you?d attack him for not laying down a ?solid enough? position. (?Oh, you don?t have a golden bullet solution to piracy, but several ideas on how companies could potentially mitigate the effects of piracy? SO YOU?RE AN IDIOT WHO DOESN?T KNOW HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM! Typical Techderp pro-piracy nonsense!?)

You see the world and everything in it ? especially copyright ? as a black-and-white affair with no room for anything inbetween. That?s why you?ll never come off as a quality commenter or anything less than a troll: you?ll never accept the shades of grey (50 or otherwise) in which the world actually exists.

Now leave the intelligent comments to our regular visitors. I?m sure you can find something else that will occupy your time. How about a nice game of global thermonuclear war? (You can even be Russia!)

Rapnel (profile) says:

Got no goods

I’m not sure I get it. Why is IP/Copyright being negotiated as part of a bundle in some big ass trade agreement. As we’ve clearly seen there are no trade barriers to media. Like, none, at all. At least not the real kind like oceans, mountains, armies and earth quakes negotiated for moving milk, medicines and mercedes.

I’ll tell you what, if I was trying to get my bricks across the water and make some money I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to be bundled up with these ass hats.

It’s an insidious repertoire. They can’t even fucking deliver their own goods so they feel like everyone should latch onto their sinking fucking vessel? Something’s seriously wrong with this. Seriously.

Anonymous Coward says:

‘There is simply no good reason for the US government to continue negotiating this massive, and tremendously important treaty in secret’

of course there is! the USA wants to be in control of as much as possible, world wide that is beneficial to it and it’s businesses but detrimental to everyone else. and if anyone thinks that it will stop here, just look at what the entertainment industries do. as soon as they get an agreement on something, they go back and ratchet up what they want. so far, internet firms and businesses have stupidly gone along with this but the days are numbered. why else does anyone think this ‘deal’ is going through in secret? the less people who know about it and what’s in it, the better the USA likes it. then consider if it gets through here, how long before the same conditions are instilled on to the EU? they wont be quite as stupid and easy to walk over, but will be under tremendous pressure to follow suit! that then means the whole world under USA control and totally fucked!! the USG cant do what is right in it’s own country. think of the complete screw up it’s gonna make of the planet!!

Mark Traina says:

PRESIDENT OBAMA has TOTALLY FUC… UP this time!

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Who is PRESIDENT OBAMA: http://zealnote.com/2013/11/30/obama-childhood-friend-claims-obama-has-always-been-homosexual-lying-cocaine-addict/comment-page-1/#comment-1688

FACT: “To be FORWARNED is to be FOREARMED!”

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NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the ADVANCEMENT of WHITE PEOPLE

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