The negotiations behind closed doors of major treaties like ACTA and TPP, and the refusal of participants to release official drafts or to engage in any kind of substantive dialog, has meant that activists and observers have been obliged to seize upon even the smallest signs and hints emerging from those talks in an attempt to guess what is going on. In a way, we are witnessing the birth of a new form of Kremlinology, which Wikipedia explains as follows:

During the Cold War, lack of reliable information about the country forced Western analysts to "read between the lines" and to use the tiniest tidbits, such as the removal of portraits, the rearranging of chairs, positions at the reviewing stand for parades in Red Square, the choice of capital or small initial letters in phrases such as "First Secretary", the arrangement of articles on the pages of the party newspaper "Pravda" and other indirect signs to try to understand what was happening in internal Soviet politics.

Via Guillaume Champeau, we learn that PCInpact (original in French) has spotted a treasure trove of such subtle hints about what's happening within the EU on the copyright enforcement front. It's a document entitled "Report on the online distribution of audiovisual works in the European Union", drafted by the Committee on Culture and Education, and submitted to the European Commission.

It's couched in an apparently interminable sequence of deadly dull clauses beginning "having regard to..." and "whereas...", before launching into a long list of mostly reasonable ideas for making more cross-border digital content available in the EU. But hidden away amongst these are some breathtaking suggestions.

Here, for instance, is Section 39:

Calls on the Commission to afford internet users legal certainty when they are using streamed services and to consider, in particular, ways to prevent the use of payment systems and the funding of such services through advertising on pay platforms offering unauthorised downloading and streaming services;

That may sound familiar, since it's identical to one of the core ideas of SOPA: cutting off all funding to sites accused of permitting unauthorized downloads.

Here's Section 42:

Recognises that, where legal alternatives do exist, online copyright infringement remains an issue and therefore the legal online availability of copyrighted cultural material needs to be supplemented with smarter online enforcement of copyright while fully respecting fundamental rights, notably freedom of information and of speech, protection of personal data and the right to privacy, along with the 'mere conduit' principle;

This, by contrast, is straight out of ACTA, where Section 27 says:

Each Party shall endeavour to promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address trademark and copyright or related rights infringement while preserving legitimate competition and, consistent with that Party’s law, preserving fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy.

Note the same empty promise to respect various rights that is completely undermined by the other part requiring copyright enforcement that ignores them. The only real change is that "effective" has been upgraded to "smarter".

This trick of mixing contradictory demands is repeated in Section 59 of the EU report:

Calls on the Commission to consider ways to encourage network operators to standardise their technical tools and reverse the current trend of removing responsibility from these operators regarding consumer protection, implementation of intellectual property rights and ensuring Internet privacy;

So, on the one hand, network operators are supposed to protect consumers and maintain their privacy, while on the other, they will be forced to become responsible for enforcing intellectual monopolies -- losing that "mere conduit" status that was invoked in Section 42 above -- and turn in accused customers to the authorities.

All-in-all, this is an extraordinary document, in part because of its repeated call for contradictory actions, but mostly for the way it asks the European Commission to bring back some of the worst ideas in SOPA and ACTA. New Kremlinologists will obviously need to keep a close eye on missing portraits or the re-arrangement chairs in order to glean further information about the secretive plans that are being discussed deep within the bowels of the EU machine.

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We heard some rumblings out of Japan over the weekend that the ruling party was seeking to ram ACTA through the ratification process there. This wasn't a huge surprise. Japan was actually a key player in the formation of ACTA at the very beginning, and it was where the first official "signings" all took place. Japan has been pushing for exceptionally strict copyright laws and ACTA was supposed to help spread such laws further around the globe. Already, we've seen the country criminalize unauthorized downloads and making DVD backups... leading to a publishing exec facing jail time for offering a book that tells people how to back up their DVDs.

About a month ago, the upper house of the Japanese legislature passed ACTA, as the first step in ratifying it. Some had thought that ACTA might stall out as a minor issue while other political turmoil went on, but it appears that Japan's ruling party has decided to push forward with the ratification. Last week, the Foreign Affairs Committee within the legislature tried to push through ACTA without allowing any discussion from opposing politicians -- which caused a ruckus, leading to a slight delay. However, after a few days, the committee passed it anyway. The ruling party then sought to do something similar, rushing it through a full vote, which appears to have just happened, resulting in ACTA's approval with effectively no real debate. In fact, it was mostly a non-story in Japan. It wasn't covered by the press and most politicians were basically silent about it.

This is fairly incredible, given the widespread protests we saw towards ACTA in Europe and a rapidly growing protest movement in Japan. Still, the protestors admit that ACTA just hasn't caught on as an issue in Japan like it has elsewhere. That's unfortunate for a variety of reasons, but they're hoping to change that with a protest on September 9th.

Of course, there's a question of how useful is it to ratify ACTA when many of the other negotiating parties (mainly the EU countries) don't seem likely to follow through and ratify the document in its current form. One report I heard out of Japan suggested that the ruling party there recognizes that ratifying ACTA is mostly symbolic at this point, but that it needed to be done to "save face" for the negotiators. Of course, if they really wanted to "save face," perhaps they shouldn't have negotiated for absolutely awful limits on how copyright can be reformed, while pushing for greater enforcement without necessary safety valves against abuse. Either way, the whole thing definitely has all of the appearances of ACTA being rammed through by political interests who don't want any debate on such a topic.

The European Union has been secretly negotiating a free trade agreement with India since 2007 that is worryingly similar to ACTA. Intellectual property rights enforcement would include border detention and seizure measures of goods being imported by India, exported by India or in transit via India's ports or airports. This could affect the generic drugs that India produces for its people, as we noted last month. The European Union is eager to wrap the agreement up by the end of the year, according to Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister Didier Reynders. He wants to gain access to public procurement, chemicals and pharmaceutical products, health care, technologies, life sciences, renewable energy, and urbanization. This sounds peachy till the matter of India's arbitration notices is considered. As public interest NGO Madhyam states,

All Indian IIAs (International Investment Agreements) contain a broad asset-based definition of investment stating that investment means every kind of asset. This broad definition is then followed by an inclusive or non-exhaustive list of assets, which includes direct investment, portfolio investment, intellectual property rights, rights to money or to any performance under contract having a financial value, business concessions conferred under law or contract. Such a broad definition of investment expands the jurisdiction of IIAs to virtually cover almost all areas of investment.

Fair and equitable treatment (FET) has emerged as one of the most litigated issues in investment treaty arbitration. At the heart of this controversy is the meaning of FET. Almost all Indian IIAs contain the FET principle without providing much guidance regarding its meaning. Thus, determining the content of FET is left to the discretion of investment treaty arbitration tribunals.

This is the problem: foreign corporations go in with promises of investment opportunities and exploit the people till the government pushes back, then the foreign investor takes them to an international trade court.

The stumbling block at the moment is that India wants the EU to ensure free mobility of professionals without restrictions such as experience whereas the EU wants greater commitment by India to allow foreign investment in services such as retail, legal and postal. Allegations of the existence of a 'Kashmir center' run by anti-India elements in Brussels aren't helping. Meanwhile, opposition to the treaty is mounting from unions, international NGOs, and David Martin MEP, rapporteur for the European Union's International Trade Committee, whose recommendations helped to pull ACTA down in July.

When will they learn to stop negotiating treaties that only benefit big business in secret? Opposition to this treaty will continue to grow as more details emerge.

Though the specific process differs from country to country, international agreements are generally negotiated and signed at the highest levels of government, with input from everyone else filtering up (in theory) through the hierarchy—at least until you get something like ACTA, where the public rises up en masse and essentially overrides the whole system. One thing that you don't often see is municipal governments standing up to take a direct role in international negotiations—but that's exactly what's happening now in Canada, where cities are seeking to avoid an ACTA-like situation by asking to opt out of the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) at the municipal level.

The effort is being led by The Council of Canadians, a social justice group which is working to persuade cities, towns, and municipal authorities all over Canada to request exemption from CETA. Their core concern is about the agreement's procurement chapter, which sets down rules about how governments and other public bodies can spend money on goods and services, and which they fear will unduly restrict municipalities:

For example, new rules in CETA on how public bodies spend money would:

• Prohibit municipalities from putting buy local or buy Canadian preferences on contracts, or requiring that bidders use some portion of local or Canadian goods, services or labour. This would end the ability of municipalities to use procurement as a local economic or social development tool.
• Prohibit municipalities from using public spending to create or support a market for innovative goods and services, including green technologies, if the effect would favour Canadian producers or attract investment to Canada.
• Prohibit municipalities from spending public money in ways that support sustainability, for example through buy local food policies like the one Toronto passed to reduce emissions from food miles.

As long as municipal governments are part of the CETA deal, these prohibitions will apply to local purchases. We need to make sure cities, towns, school boards and hospitals are not bound by these unnecessary rules.

So far, over 30 local governments representing over 5.5 million people have joined the exemption campaign and another 30 to 40 municipal councils, school boards or associations have asked for more information and more input in the negotiations. Unfortunately, as is common with these situations, such concerns have been largely brushed off in a weak damage control effort by the federal government. Assurances from the Candian Foreign Affairs and International Trade Ministry on the Myths and Realities page are reminiscent of the EU's ACTA Facts, and the Council of Canadians have a page that debunks them. International trade strategist Peter Clark laughs off the fears Canadians have of corporate control of their water services.

CETA is not about diverting Canada’s lakes and rivers – which would not do Europeans much good in any event because we have no common borders... There is no requirement to privatize services which do not compete with private entities and do not operate on a commercial basis.

There are good reasons for the municipalities' concern about the investors' clauses, but Clark just tells them not to worry their pretty little heads about it and run along. Stonewalling and secrecy are not the way to build confidence in the benefits of CETA.

As we noted recently, Mexico's executive branch surprised a lot of people recently by having its ambassador to Japan sign ACTA (just as people were claiming that ACTA was dead in the country). Of course, this came after the Congress had very specifically called for the Mexican President to reject ACTA (long before other countries and the EU Parliament began realizing ACTA was a problem). As we noted, Mexico's IP Office has been telling people that it's sure that it can convince the Mexican Congress to come around to supporting ACTA.

That may be a tougher battle than they originally expected, however. Both houses of the legislature have now passed resolutions condemning the decision to sign ACTA, sometimes with rather pointed language. From the InfoJustice writeup linked here:

The Senate resolution, sponsored by Sens. Francisco Javier Castellon Fonseca, Carlos Sotelo Garcia, Maria Beatriz Zavala Peniche, and Dip. Rodrigo Perez-Alonso Gonzale rejects the signing because it didn’t respect Mexican law on the approval of international economic treaties; it ignored the official Senate recommendation of September 6, 2011; and it violated domestic law and human rights.  This resolution asks the President to take the steps necessary to revoke Mexico's signature from the agreement, and it asks the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prepare a report on the reasoning behind the signing of the agreement.

The Chamber of Deputies resolution, sponsored by Dep. Jaime Aguilar Alvarez rejects ACTA and calls the executive's disregard of the legislature on this matter an “authoritarian and unilateral stance.”

It does not look like the Congress is going to be convinced to support the ratification of ACTA any time soon.

In the wake of the recent defeat of ACTA in the European Parliament, the key questions are not just what the European Commission will now do, but what lessons the EU and US will learn from it, especially in the wake of the equally dramatic derailing of SOPA earlier this year. At the annual meeting of the Transatlantic Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Working Group in Brussels last week, both the EU and US agencies and rights holders let slip a few hints about what they are really thinking.

Here, for example, is how the EU views the post-ACTA situation, as reported by Intellectual Property Watch:

Where IP rights once was a field for experts, now it drives the masses to the streets, the European Commission said referring to recent protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Without a much stronger commitment from rights holders, the rejection of ACTA would just be the beginning, Commission representatives said according to observers.

This is extraordinary: rather than taking on board the concerns expressed by tens of thousands of European citizens about how ACTA was negotiated, and the way it sought to preserve outdated business models by weakening online privacy and freedom, the European Commission instead wants rights holders to fight back against this wave of protests. No sense, then, that maybe the Commission and copyright industries should possibly change their position to reflect the clearly-expressed wishes of European citizens, only a worry that without some kind of concerted action, things might swing slightly in the public's favor for once -- perish the thought.

The European Commission wasn't even prepared to consider splitting ACTA into two separate treaties -- one dealing with counterfeits, the other with online copyright issues:

Jean-Luc Demarty, the director general of the Trade Directorate of the European Commission, said at the meeting with regard to question of a potential split of counterfeiting and copyright piracy, IPR could not just be for bags and t-shirts.

This betrays a woeful -- or perhaps willful -- lack of understanding about why physical counterfeits and digital copies are fundamentally different, and need to be addressed with different means.

The US side was not much better:

George York, deputy assistant to the US Trade Representative for IP and Innovation, and Susan Wilson, director of the Office of Intellectual Property Rights in the US Department of Commerce, confirmed during the meeting that despite ACTA’s failure in the EU, the ratification process would go on in the US, despite concerns by some experts about potential inconsistencies with US laws.

Again, no hint that maybe ACTA was the wrong solution, or that it lacked legitimacy without the support of citizens in signatory nations. Just the insistence that the US would plough ahead, regardless of any inconsistencies with those tiresome laws.

As if that weren't enough, the meeting's participants went on to express that they are "highly skeptical" about open access to scientific knowledge -- despite the huge and growing support for it among scientists themselves. The old FUD that open access somehow undermines peer review was rolled out -- even though no one who understands open access even minimally could possibly make that absurd accusation.

The US and EU administrations also both said that India's compulsory licensing of Bayer's anti-cancer drug rang "alarm bells"; tellingly, the EU side added that the EU-India Free Trade Agreement currently being negotiatied "still needs work" -- presumably so as to limit India's freedom to issue more such compulsory licenses.

The nearest thing to a tacit admission that the defeat of SOPA and ACTA indicated something was seriously wrong with the whole system came from William E. Kennard, the US Ambassador to the EU, who boldly suggested that legislators still have not got the balance in this area "quite right". Such a laughable characterization of the chasm that separates what the law tries to impose and what the public now believes is reasonable shows just how little US and EU officials and rights holders have really grasped what this year's extraordinary events mean for copyright -- and for them.

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Right after the EU Parliament somewhat emphatically rejected ACTA, there was a report saying that ACTA was pretty much dead in Mexico as well -- especially since the Congress there had been against ACTA since before it was "cool" to be against ACTA. However, the very next day, the Mexican government surprised an awful lot of people by signing ACTA anyway.

Of course, the agreement still needs ratification, and that seems like an uphill battle. However, the Mexican IP Office -- major backer of ACTA -- is now claiming that it believes that the Mexican legislature can be convinced to sign on. Of course, it would help if the Mexican IP Office was even the slightest bit intellectually honest. For example, in explaining its reasons for signing on, it points out that the EU signed on -- which is kind of funny coming so soon after the EU Parliament's wholesale rejection of ACTA. Seems like that would be a point worth mentioning, rather than implying that ACTA was going to be implemented in the EU. This move still has the US's fingerprints all over it. The US needed some sort of "win" for ACTA these days, and coming so soon after the US allowed Mexico to enter TPP negotiations, it's hard not to think that there was some horse trading going on here.

So we recently had a bit of a debunking of writer Ewan Morrison's nearly 100% factually incorrect discussion of what the failure of ACTA in Europe means. Morrison made a few responses on his Twitter feed -- bizarrely claiming (for example) that I'm wrong about the DMCA and that it wasn't celebrated by the entertainment industry and decried by the tech industry. There's no way to respond to that other than to laugh. It's not hard to find historical accounts that show techies were protesting against the DMCA and trying to fight it in court. Morrison is flat out wrong on this one.

But what's more, is that he goes on to raise a very common trope we've heard from copyright maximalists: claiming that this is all about people not wanting to support artists they like, and that this is because they're jealous of artists. As Ewan stated in a series of tweets:

What amazes me is the vehemence towards the idea that there might be people who make a living out of their art.

A lot has to be said for the theory that this is based on jealousy and resentment. Do consumers actually despise artists?

While, perhaps, there are some people who are jealous of artists, it's hard to see any truth to those claims on a widespread basis. In fact, as we've detailed over the years, fans seem to be absolutely ecstatic when they find out that artists they really love are successful. Let's take two recent examples. First up, Louis CK and his direct to fan offering that involved him being really cool to his fans and connecting with them -- and then asking them, politely, to pay for his video special (which was inexpensive and had no DRM). And it worked. Less than two weeks later and he'd made $1 million... and his fans loved it. They weren't jealous. They didn't have any resentment towards him making a living (and a super comfortable one at that). They were thrilled.

Next up. Amanda Palmer and her Kickstarter campaign. She sought to raise $100,000 for her latest album release... and ended up with $1.2 million. And once again, her fans were thrilled about how much money she made. There wasn't jealousy or resentment. Instead, they celebrated both online and off (there was a big party in Brooklyn, and it appears that party is continuing over into her current tour).

Those are just two datapoints, obviously, but we're actually seeing it more and more. Jonathan Coulton making a ton of money. Trent Reznor making a ton of money. Mathew Ebel making a living. Corey Smith making millions. Jill Sobule doing an early version of fan funding. Kevin Smith bucking the traditional way of doing things and making lots of money elsewhere. Erin McKeown crowdfunding her new album. Joe Konrath making lots of money by shifting to self-publishing. Paulo Coehlo watching his sales jump massively every time he "pirated" his own works.

Over and over and over again we see the same pattern. Fans don't resent artists they love making money. In fact, they quite often are so invested in the success of those artists, that they get vicarious joy from the success of those artists. I've seen no evidence that true fans are jealous of artists or that fans get upset at the idea of artists making a living. Quite the opposite. They seem to celebrate such success stories, because it's really awesome.

So where's the disconnect? If you start going through folks like the ones listed above, and how they relate to their fans, you find a pretty common pattern. These are artists that really truly connect with their fans. As Amanda Palmer told us, you have to build an army of supporters, day by day, connecting one by one. This is hard work. But go through the list above and look at some of the things they do to reach out to fans and connect with them. Look at the levels they go to in order to be truly open, human and awesome for their fans.

And you begin to see the pattern.

The artists who truly connect... their fans support them as far as they possibly can. There's no jealousy about their success. There's no one who wants to somehow deny them a living. It's the exact opposite.

The problem, then, is that for some artists who fail at this, it's difficult for them to understand why. They think their content is good. They think they're nice to their fans. And maybe they're right. But, for whatever reason (and sometimes it's just something that's in the air), that connection didn't stick. People don't support them. It's not because they are jealous. It's not because they want to deny them a living. In many ways, it's worse and much harder for those artists to come to grips with: it's because people just don't care that much about the artist. Not because of "piracy." Not because of some moral failings. The artist just failed to "build an army." Sometimes it's because the artist just isn't that good. Sometimes it's because the artist doesn't treat fans right (and "blaming" fans or calling them "criminals" or calling them "unethical" and wrapping stuff up with DRM is a pretty good way to not treat fans right). Yes, in some cases, the failure can be self-induced, but it seems in those cases we see the most vocal lashing out by the artists who simply refuse to do any sort of self-reflection.

So, can we finally dispense with this myth that the great masses out there don't want to support artists? Or that they're jealous of their success? If that was the case, we wouldn't see the examples we see above. We wouldn't see people exclaiming all over Twitter how much they love people like Louis CK and Amanda Palmer, and how freaking thrilled they are when they see the stories of the massive success of their fan-friendly approaches. But we do see that with those artists and many more, because they learned the secret: connect at a really deep level with fans, and those fans won't be jealous. They'll support you wherever you want to go. Happily. And they will shout it from the mountains for others to hear. Treat your fans right, and they give it right back to you.

Music collection societies often figure in Techdirt thanks to their attempts to wring licensing payments from people on absurd grounds, like trying to make them pay for playing music to horses, or for singing old folk songs. But in Europe, there's another issue. Because each country has its own music collection society, digital music startups wishing to operate across Europe must negotiate not one, but dozens of separate licenses – a major obstacle to overcome.

Even the European Commission has noticed that this is a problem, and has proposed bringing in a new directive to tackle it:

New digital technologies are opening up great opportunities for creators, consumers and businesses alike. Increased demand for online access to cultural content (e.g. music, films, books) does not recognise borders or national restrictions. Neither do the online services used to access them. This is where collecting societies come into play, in particular in the music sector, where they collectively manage the licensing of copyright-protected music tracks for online use on behalf of composers and lyricists and collect and redistribute to them corresponding royalties.

However, some collecting societies struggle to adapt to the requirements of the management of rights for online use of musical works, in particular in a cross-border context. As a result of today’s proposal, those collecting societies willing to engage in the multi-territorial licensing of their repertoire would therefore have to comply with European standards. This would make it easier for service providers to obtain the necessary licences for music to be distributed online across the EU and to ensure that revenue is correctly collected and fairly distributed to composers and lyricists.

That reference to collecting societies that "struggle to adapt to the requirements of the management of rights for online use of musical works" is a pretty obvious dig at organizations like GEMA, which has been extremely inflexible when it comes to online licensing of music in Germany. So we can probably expect vociferous resistance to any change from many of the collecting societies that have enjoyed milking their legal monopolies to the full. Surprisingly, though, some artists don't seem too enthusiastic either:

A proposed EU law to give musicians more rights over their royalties has angered bands like Radiohead and Pink Floyd, who accused the European Commission of breaking promises to tackle the problem of musicians' missing pay.

The issue here seems to be that collection societies have a tendency to hold on to money that they should be distributing to artists, also referred to by the European Commission. The fact that musicians have already gone on the attack suggests that we are going to see some fierce lobbying coming from multiple directions. However, it may be that this directive is doomed to fail for quite another reason.

Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, and certainly one of the most rational/radical members there, has written an extremely interesting blog post about the new proposals. She begins:

Last week’s vote on ACTA -- although hardly a surprise for those who’ve been following – was a reminder about the big debate currently going on, about how to balance intellectual property rights with Internet freedoms

For me it’s about making it easier for artists to promote their work widely, and make a living from it: without constraining the immense innovation of the online world. And, for me, the current copyright system achieves all of those objectives poorly.

That’s why I’m convinced we need to reform copyright for the digital age. For me, merely making enforcement more and more heavy-handed is not the solution -- especially if it results in draconian measures like cutting off internet access.

But a good start – and I hope a principle on which everybody could agree – is that we should make it easier to legally access the content you love.

That's a very welcome statement, coming as it does from one of the most senior EU politicians. Significantly, she also has some words for the European Parliament regarding the proposed directive on music licensing:

our proposal needs to be agreed by the European Parliament and Council. Some previous attempts by us to modernise copyright rules -- like our relatively modest proposal on orphan works -- were significantly watered down by the legislator. This time I hope the Parliament and Council are more aware of the views citizens have expressed: that people love the openness of the Internet, and want easier access to more content.

That "modest proposal on orphan works" was gutted by the relevant European Parliament committee, as a previous Techdirt post explained. One key reason why the final form of the directive turned out so badly is that its rapporteur (the EU parliamentarian with overall responsibility for the legislation) was the copyright maximalist Marielle Gallo, who was not only one of the few to vote in favor of ACTA, but went so far as to brand ACTA dissent as a "soft form of terrorism".

Unfortunately, it seems that Gallo will also be the rapporteur on this new music licensing proposal. Assuming she gets her way, that pretty much guarantees that any directive that emerges from the long process of political wrangling won't do much to address the deep underlying problems with music licensing. It may even make them worse, judging by what happened with the hostage works directive under her guidance.

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Just yesterday we pointed out that reports coming out of Mexico suggested that ACTA was dead there and had no chance of being signed and ratified. And then, just hours later, the news comes out that Mexico's ambassador to Japan signed on to ACTA without anyone knowing about it. Bizarrely, that particular news report claims that in signing this agreement, Mexico joins with others, including the European Union. Yet, of course, as anyone who's been paying attention knows, the EU loudly rejected ACTA just last week.

Also, I'm a bit confused. One of the reasons that Mexico did not sign way back in October when many others signed, was that the legislature had also rejected ACTA, and reports had said that the executive branch had to get the Mexican Senate to ratify the agreement. So, to have a representative just suddenly up and sign ACTA seems... very, very strange. If they could just do that, why didn't they do it back in October with most other signatories?

To be honest, I'm now curious if this sudden surprise signature has anything to do with the US inviting Mexico to join in the TPP negotiations. It may be cynical, but Mexico has wanted in to TPP negotiations for a while and had been kept out. It seems entirely possible that a "deal" was struck, whereby Mexico would sign ACTA in exchange for getting in on TPP.

Of course, if you're the Mexican legislature, or a Mexican citizen who spoke out against ACTA (and there were many), it seems that your government just sold you out completely and signed what is otherwise a dead treaty. Bizarre.