Top Five Ways Lobbyists Will Win and We Will Lose If a Major Corporate Trade Deal Goes Through

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/top-five-ways-lobbyists-will-win-and-we-will-lose-if-major-corporate-trade-deal-goes



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5. The TPP could criminalize small-scale copyright infringement

The next time you want to share a song or a recipe online, you’d have to ask yourself: Am I a criminal? Interested in writing some fan fiction based on your favourite detective series and sharing it online? Ask yourself that very same question. That’s how TPP provisions could characterize you based on what we know about its Intellectual Property chapter.

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4. The TPP could prohibit blind and deaf users from breaking digital locks to access their content

Under the TPP, attempts to circumvent digital locks in order to use your paid-for and legally-acquired media may become illegal. If you are blind, this means you could be criminalized for circumventing digital locks on your purchased e-books and other digital materials in order to convert text to braille, audio, or other accessible formats. If you are a librarian, it may become very difficult to share excerpts of content with students for education purposes, lend out material to the public, or even gain full access to purchased content; and as a consumer of digital media, attempts to make backup copies of that DVD you purchased or transfer your legally-purchased e-book on a different device would become unlawful.

3. The TPP could lead to excessive copyright terms

Copyright, which was originally intended to promote the creation of new works by giving authors certain exclusive rights for a limited time, may be threatened by excessive terms and a rigid system that could stifle creativity and innovation under the TPP.

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2. The TPP may regulate temporary copies at the cost of innovation and freedom

Temporary copies, or the small copies that your computer needs to make in order to move data around, are being targeted by TPP lobbyists who are attempting to redefine the very meaning of the word “copy”. The very notion of regulating temporary copies is ludicrous given how basic the creation of temporary copies of files and programs is to computer functioning and the Internet. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes:

This proposal may seem absurd to you. It should. Given how crucial the storage of “temporary copies” of digital files is to the functioning of our devices, the inclusion of unfettered provisions to regulate it is purely backward, especially given the supporters’ failure to justify a legitimate purpose for imposing a burden without a balance.