We've discussed, at length, the ridiculousness of the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- the international trade agreement that is the "son of ACTA" and seeks to push through (in secret, of course) plenty of the things that were cut out of ACTA. It's a horrible agreement, which is still being negotiated in secret. Apparently, Canada recently sought to join the conversation of the TPP... but the US legacy entertainment industry lobbyists are trying to deny Canada's entry into the discussions (even though most other participants welcome Canada), until Canada goes even further to pass draconian copyright laws, as prescribed by Hollywood.

The IIPA, which represents the major movie, music, and software lobby associations, points to copyright reform and new border measures as evidence of the need for Canadian reforms and states "we urge the U.S. government to use Canada’s expression of interest in the TPP negotiations as an opportunity to resolve these longstanding concerns about IPR standards and enforcement."

In other words, don't let Canada join, unless it passes these horrible laws we've been demanding for years, and which the Canadian public is clearly against. If I were in the Canadian government, it seems like this is a pretty good reason to say "good riddance"... or, hell, maybe even to cut back on ridiculous copyright laws to something more reasonable, just to show that it can be done... and then to watch the industry in Canada thrive.

Two high level Congressional staffers who have been instrumental in creating or moving forward both PROTECT IP (PIPA) and SOPA have left their jobs on Capitol Hill and taken jobs with two of the biggest entertainment industry lobbyists, who are working very hard to convince Congress to pass the legislation they just helped write. And people wonder why the American public looks on DC as being corrupt.

Allison Halataei, former deputy chief of staff and parliamentarian to House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and Lauren Pastarnack, a Republican who has served as a senior aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee, worked on online piracy bills that would push Internet companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook to shut down websites that offer illegal copies of blockbuster films and chart-topping songs.

Pastarnack went to the MPAA where she'll be "director of government relations" and Halataei to the NMPA (music publishers and songwriters) where she'll be "chief liaison to Capitol Hill." The Politico article linked above notes that this kind of "revolving door" is all too common. It may not be directly corrupt, but to the public it sure feels corrupt. It certainly gives off the appearance of "hey, write us the insane bill that we want, and then we'll reward you with a super cushy high paying job." At the very least, it should raise significant questions about whether or not these two bills were written with the public's interest in mind (I know, I know, don't laugh....) or their future employers'. Technically, neither of them can directly lobby the specific committees where they worked, but they can certainly assist in the process.

“They can provide invaluable insight to people on the outside — even in the consultation mode,” one tech industry lobbyist said, noting that Halataei had been Smith’s secondhand person and knows how the Texas Republican thinks and what would be an effective lobbying strategy.

Additionally, the Senate and House panels work closely together, and both Halataei and Pastarnack have ties to staffers in the chambers they didn’t serve in and aren’t banned from lobbying.

Also, as the Politico article notes, a year from now, you can bet there will still be fights about either this or similar legislation. American politics is a disaster.

It's a curious fact that the term of copyright only ever gets longer. Since copyright is a government-backed monopoly, and monopolies are generally regarded as bad things, you might have expected some countervailing pressure against this continual extension, and that at some point Peak Copyright would have been reached. You might, if you were extremely optimistic, even expect copyright term to be reduced occasionally.

Of course, it doesn't work like that. Copyright term is like a ratchet, that only admits movement in one direction: upwards. We have become so inured to this that we rarely stop to ask why. But you only have to look at the way major treaties like ACTA are negotiated in secret to note that while industry groups are given privileged access to the negotiators, the public is not even allowed to see the draft versions of the treaty. There is simply no voice behind the closed doors which might object to the unremitting erosion of the public domain, or protest against the constant sharpening of copyright enforcement's instruments.

Here's an example of a similar state of affairs in the UK, where the detailed implementation of the Digital Economy Act – itself legislation that paid no heed to the concerns or cares of the public – is being debated. Using Freedom of Information requests, the UK's Open Rights Group (ORG) found out some details of "private" meetings that the Minister responsible, Ed Vaizey, held on the topic of the Act's new "streamlined" website blocking scheme.

As the list of participants shows, the main groups present were the copyright lobbying organizations - BPI, Publishers Association, MPAA, UK Music, UK Interactive Entertainment – some big Internet names (Google, Yahoo), several UK ISPs and a few government advisers. Judging by the minutes of that meeting, also obtained under an FOI request, Google actually expressed support for "an accelerated Court process to generate blocking orders" – thanks, a bunch, Google – while Yahoo worried about "the broader implications of site blocking on an international scale". The ISPs, as might be expected, focused on how they might be affected.

There was just one group that might vaguely be construed as representing the people – Consumer Focus. This organization describes itself as a "statutory consumer champion", "persuading businesses, public services and policy makers to put consumers at the heart of what they do." According to the minutes, Consumer Focus (CF):

emphasised that action against infringement needs to be effective and proportionate, pointing to the risk of over-blocking. The rights holder proposal paper goes further than the scope of Newzbin2. CF queried the feasibility of expediting the Court process. CF reiterated the importance of developing the legitimate market, as a preferable alternative to enforcement measures which may impact on consumers.

That's all good stuff, but it was clearly a voice crying in the wilderness since the copyright industries' groups had got together to prepare a joint seven-page "Proposal for Code of Practice Addressing Websites That Are Substantially Focused On Infringement", which they used to frame the discussions with Vaizey.

The meeting was clearly stacked in favor of the copyright industries against the public interest, with only a token voice speaking up for the consumer. Conspicuous by their absence were several other important stakeholders whose views should have been heard. For example, the UK human rights group Liberty would surely have had something to say about the proposed online censorship, as would ORG itself, which has fought on behalf of the general public in the area of digital rights for years.

In fact, when people found out about these "private" meetings that had excluded so many other organizations, ORG and some others were finally invited to another meeting with Vaizey, for an interesting reason:

The meeting was organized by Dominque Lazinksi of the Tax Payers Alliance after a Twitter storm following ORG and other group’s exclusion from the website blocking meetings.

The moral seems clear: if you want to break up the cozy club of industry insiders plotting even longer, harsher intellectual monopolies, you have to kick up a hell of a fuss.

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This is pretty ridiculous. Just as the Senate is debating the PROTECT IP bill, the Copyright Alliance, a lobbying group created and funded by a bunch of the big legacy copyright maximalist companies, apparently got to set up an "educational display" in the Senate Russell Building Rotunda. The Copyright Alliance has no shame about how it's using this "educational display" to influence the vote:

The exhibit is an opportunity to showcase for lawmakers and visitors to the U.S. Capitol Complex the importance of copyright to creators across America, by focusing on people behind the lens, sharing stories about the images, and helping viewers understand the investment and commitment made by photographers capturing our nation’s many stories.

I'm curious if the Senate allows such other totally biased parties to set up exhibits like that during debate on other bills. How about pharmaceutical lobbyists setting up an "educational" nursing station in the Senate, just to show the "importance" of protecting pharma. And I'm sure the banks would love to set up an "educational" bank vault in the rotunda during Wall Street reform hearings. How could anyone in the Senate see such a biased effort as being okay?

On of the sneakier parts of ACTA is that the White House has insisted from the beginning that the document is not a binding treaty. Instead, it insists that ACTA is merely an "executive agreement." Of course, the only real difference is that an executive agreement doesn't require the Senate to ratify it. Basically, the US is calling it an executive agreement so that the administration can sign on without any oversight or scrutiny on the treaty. The Europeans, in the meantime, never got the "ix-nay on the inding-bay eaty-tray" notice from the US folks, and have been happily declaring ACTA a binding treaty as it clearly is.

However, many legal experts have noted that this raises serious constitutional questions, as the Constitution simply does not allow this kind of agreement to be signed without Senate approval. Amusingly, Senator Biden -- back during the previous administration -- was one of the leading voices in trying to prevent President Bush from signing an "executive agreement" with Russia, without getting Senate approval. One wonders if he's magically changed his mind.

However, more and more people are getting concerned about this breach of the Constitution. James Love points us to a new paper at the American Society for International Law by Oona A. Hathaway and Amy Kapczynski, which worries about the precedent this will set if Obama signs it as an executive agreement and bypasses the Senate entirely.

No comparable agreement has been concluded in this way. Thus if concluded as a sole executive agreement, it would represent a significant expansion of the scope of such agreements. As a result, it could pave the way for more extensive use of sole executive agreements in the future. That, in turn, could have implications for the nature of democratic control over international legal agreements concluded by the United States, as well as the legitimacy of these agreements both at home and abroad.

Furthermore, the report notes that it does not seem Constitutional for the President to sign such a document as an executive agreement. The only things that can be signed as an executive agreement are things that are solely under the President's mandate. But intellectual property laws are clearly afforded to Congress and not the President under the Constitution -- meaning that he has no authority to sign this document without it first being approved by the Senate. The report notes that President Bush also tried to expand executive agreements, and ACTA would be a massive expansion in what could be covered under such agreements, taking away tremendous authority and oversight from Congress.

Setting a precedent for more expansive use of sole executive agreements has consequences not only for intellectual property law, but for any area in which an international agreement may be concluded—which is to say, nearly any area of law. International law now reaches into almost every aspect of our day-to-day lives. The possibility that such legal commitments could be made by the President without the input, much less approval, of Congress or the public raises serious questions about the potential of these agreements to undermine democratic lawmaking writ large

This is pretty troubling for a variety of different reasons, and it seems like Congress itself should be pretty concerned about this attempt to take away its oversight on international agreements.

There were rumors about this last week, but now it's been confirmed that RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol has left to head up the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. I'm sort of curious what his job qualifications were?

Mitch: "Rather than help a legacy industry adapt to changing times, I focused on a self-destructive legal campaign against fans, got Congress to pass bad laws that made things worse, made the companies I represent more hated than before (and we already started super low!) and, on top of all that, failed to do anything to help the record labels improve their bottom lines."

Detroit: "Wow, you sound like our kind of guy... Sign here!"

Honestly, Bainwol's biggest accomplishment may have been making his predecessor, Hilary Rosen, look insightful and progressive in her views on the recording industry.

So, with Bainwol out, did the RIAA find someone who actually is willing to help the RIAA and the record labels adapt to these changing times a decade and a half too late? Did it hire someone who won't fall for the same old traps again, but who might actually embrace the modern world in a way that helps the record labels earn more money?

Nope. It just promoted President Cary Sherman, who has probably been a lot more public and vocal than Bainwol anyway. Oh, and they also promoted Mitch Glazier to take on more responsibilities as well. If you want any more evidence as to just how anti-artist the RIAA is, all you have to do is look at Glazier's most famous moment, allegedly sneaking in a few words into an unrelated bill to take away the ability of musicians to take back their copyrights from record labels, when he was a nobody Congressional staffer. A few months later, he was pulling down a half million dollar salary from the RIAA. Convenient. This created such a scandal among musicians that it's one of the few major policy issues in which Congress eventually rolled back his changes. I don't see how the RIAA presents itself as "pro-artist," when this is the guy they have as second in charge.

As for Sherman, not only is he one of the highest paid lobbyists out there (making even more than Bainwol), but among his greatest hits are his desire to roll back the DMCA's safe harbors (the one good part of the DMCA), his explanation for why suing college kids is good for business and his lovely attempts to get federal financial aid pulled from universities that don't act as copyright cops.

This is not how you drag the recording industry into this century. It's how you drag it down.

We've noted how there's suddenly been a lot of mainstream interest in the massive problems of the patent system, thanks in part to mainstream media operations like This American Life doing stories that expose just how damaging the patent system is today. And yet, despite all of this, we've been pointing out for a while that the patent reform bill making its way through Congress is useless. It does nothing to address the problems of the system and has a few things that will make matters worse. And it bizarrely includes clear favors to Wall St., protecting them from a few bad patents, while leaving everyone else -- including Silicon Valley -- to fend for themselves.

So why isn't Congress actually fixing the patent system?

Zach Carter over at the Huffington Post has an absolutely fantastic detailed look at the politics and corruption behind the patent reform bill. It's long, but worth reading. However, the tl;dr version is: patent reform is entirely about lobbyists and special interests. No one -- and I do mean no one -- appears to have any concern whatsoever for the actual impact of the patent system or patent reform on actual innovation. The story is about as depressing as you would imagine, but is a great primer on the nature of regulatory capture and how certain industries influence regulations, while the actual public and the people most impacted by the legislation is left out. Here's just a snippet:

DataTreasury's lawsuits are handled by Texas trial-law kingpins Nix, Patterson & Roach. In the 2010 elections, the firm was the third-largest contributor to the Democratic National Committee, pouring in $179,000, behind only Google and the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. When Republican lawmakers bemoan "Democrats and trial lawyers," they're talking about Nix Patterson and a handful of other big law firms.

Nix Patterson brought in an even bigger fundraising champion to lobby Democrats for DataTreasury: Ben Barnes. He and his wife Melanie have dumped $379,000 of their own money into politics over the years, according to Center for Responsive Politics data, with every penny going to Democrats. Barnes is also one of the most influential fundraising bundlers in politics. In the first half of 2009 alone, he pulled together $630,450 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- more than anyone else, according to the Sunlight Foundation.

Barnes is not a man congressional Democrats keep waiting. And he's previously worked directly with Pelosi, who attended a fundraiser at Barnes' Austin home in 2009. Pelosi's office did not respond to inquiries on her meetings with the fundraising giant, but when asked by HuffPost whether he had won over Pelosi on Section 18, Barnes said that he had.

"Oh, yeah," Barnes told HuffPost. "For some time I've worked with DataTreasury that has the patent all the banks are worked up about."

By revolting on the patent bill, Pelosi was throwing in her lot with Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Dan Boren (D-Okla.), Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who circulated a letter on June 15 urging their colleagues to oppose Section 18, saying the language "carves out a special niche" for Wall Street that would "stifle innovation."

This odd bipartisan coalition was going up against the entire New York delegation, led by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), chairman of the corporate-friendly New Democrat caucus, who declined to comment for this story. As the behind-the-scenes struggle intensified, DataTreasury promoted the idea that Section 18 was a covert bailout for the banks. If courts ruled that the new law amounted to an unconstitutional taking of property -- a very big 'if' -- then taxpayers would ultimately have to pay back the bank winnings resulting from the bill.

Nobody comes out of this story looking good. Everyone comes out of it looking corrupt. And all of us suffer. Though a few lawyers are making out like bandits.

The world's largest lobbying organization, the US Chamber of Commerce (which thrives off the fact that many people mistake it for a US government body), along with the biggest lobbyists representing the recording and movie industry, have ramped up their efforts to get PROTECT IP approved as quickly as possible. The groups held a conference on Capitol Hill and then began visiting Senators to talk about how much they needed this protectionism, because they're unable to adapt to a dynamic internet where they're no longer the gatekeepers. Who's doing this? Well, along with the Chamber of Commerce, we have NBC Universal, Sony Music and Pictures, Walt Disney Company, the MPAA, the RIAA, News Corp. (watch your voicemails, senators), the National Association of Theater Owners, Warner Music and the American Federation of Musicians.

Basically it's a who's who of those who want to change the internet from a communications platform into a simple broadcast medium that they can control.

And, of course, Steven Tepp, the main guy at the Chamber of Commerce (and a former government official with a history of mocking concerns of consumers when it comes to copyright issues) trotted out totally debunked stats:

"IP-intensive industries are responsible for the jobs of 19 million Americans, $7.7 trillion of our gross output, and 60 percent of U.S. exports."

Note the basic fallacy here. It assumes that "IP-intensive industries" only exist due to stricter IP laws. This is false. In fact, some of the most "IP intensive industries" around, such as the tech industry, are opposed to this law. That the Chamber of Commerce would stoop so low as to include those who are against this law in its argument for why this law should be passed really just highlights the kind of sleazy politicking the organization is famous for.

Either way, there's no doubt (there's never been any doubt) that PROTECT IP was introduced with tremendous support from certain lobbying groups who have tremendous sway in DC. They've actually come up against more roadblocks than they expected, but they're not going to let that stop them. This is the first stage of the endgame to get the law passed. To be honest, I'm surprised they've even had to go this far, because from the beginning it looked like they had the easy support. The fact that they felt the need to break out this little stunt shows that the opposition to PROTECT IP has actually drummed up enough noise that some politicians are concerned about the very real unintended consequences of the law.

And while politicians may be confused and send back the wrong form letters, don't let that stop you from at least making your voice heard. The folks at DemandProgress (with whom I have no direct connection, even if the MPAA will claim otherwise) have set up an easy form to use to make your voice heard. The EFF has set up a similar form. Both of these let you edit the form and say what you want, and making an impassioned and reasoned (and calm) argument in your own words is much more powerful than just submitting the form letter. Of course, the entertainment industry has set up its own form letter generator too -- but it's completely uneditable. In their world, creativity from the people is not allowed. Only the big industry gatekeepers are allowed to be creative.

We were mostly happy with the thoughtful Hargreaves Report on copyright in the UK, which made a bunch of modest, but intelligent suggestions on copyright law. Our only complaint was that it didn't go far enough, but in today's political climate on copyright issues, it went much further than most. It's been interesting to see the reaction. The industry hasn't reacted quite as negatively as I expected, in part because they're so cluelessly relieved that the report didn't suggest implementing "fair use" rules. And for those who recognize there are problems in the system, the report is seen as a vindication of their views. John Naughton has a nice piece for The Guardian, noting his surprise at the quality of the report, and putting this lovely summary on the state of today's copyright laws:

Hallelujah! At last we are getting somewhere. The notion that laws framed in an era when copying was difficult, imperfect and expensive could work in an era when copying was effortless, perfect and cheap was a proposition that only imbeciles and industry lobbyists could entertain. But up to now, our politicians subscribed to it.

Nice to see that sort of sentiment appearing in mainstream news publications, though I fear that Naughton's celebration may be premature. While the Hargreaves report pointed this out, it's unclear that any politicians will actually subscribe to it. After all, the predecessor report, the Gowers Report, also suggested some similar issues (much more mutedly), and was promptly trashed and ignored, as politicians went back to believing that more copyright is always good. I am hopeful that some politicians may take what's said in the Hargreaves Report to heart, but I'm not holding my breath.

Via Glyn Moody, we learn that the UK government has responded to a question about how the Digital Economy Act might increase the price of internet access. The government's response? Yes, the Digital Economy Act might price poor people out of the internet, and that's "regrettable," but somehow necessary. Huh? So it's more important to protect the profits of a few obsolete record labels, than to help get more people connected to the internet? Remember, this is the UK, where it's already been determined -- by the music industry's own numbers -- that the music industry has grown quite a bit over the past few years. So there's no need for the Digital Economy Act to help the music industry. The only parties it really helps are a few record labels who refuse to adapt to the changing market. So, the only clear meaning of this statement from the government is an admission that protecting some obsolete businesses is more important than getting poor people online.