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EFF: the Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared (eff.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Wikileaks has released the finalized Intellectual Property text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which international negotiators agreed upon a few days ago. Unfortunately, it contains many of the consumer-hostile provisions that so many organizations spoke out against beforehand. This includes the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years, and a ban on the circumvention of DRM. The EFF says, "If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good platitude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever." The EFF walks us through all the other awful provisions as well — it's quite a lengthy analysis.
Before it lays eggs!
The most ignorant thing about pushing all this in the current global climate with the contortionists US twisting with regard to Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist/Rebels, everyone will blame America and Americans, everything bad in the TPP and it's ugly sibling TTIP will be blamed on American corporations and sales will suffer accordingly. Want your citizens and country to maintain any semblance of freedom boycott Large US Corporations (small ones run by real Americans apparently are fine, so oddly enough help America rebuild Main Street and protect you own country by working together globally to gut Wall Street).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I consider it well inside my rights to ignore your laws.
In less martial words, issuing laws that contravene the consensus of the population is dangerous. Laws are upheld mostly because people consider them good, not because they are being enforce. Look around you and ponder which laws are upheld (in general) and which one are flauntingly broken. Do you see people go on murdering sprees, bank robberies or even do some minor shit like pushing grannies out of the way? No. Why? Not because they're forbidden, but because they go against the "general moral consensus", for a lack of a better term. People in general consider this "wrong". Yes, they are also illegal, but that doesn't matter too much.
On the other hand, people of all times have broken laws without remorse if those laws were considered unjust. From speeding to copyright to drugs, all covered by laws with fines and punishment that are in no remotely sensibly proportion to the crime involved, laws being ignored and broken routinely by people you would otherwise consider upstanding, moral and law abiding.
The actual danger here is in the view people get on laws in general.
If you need an example for this, look no further than the former Communist Bloc. People in there quickly noticed that the laws are not there to protect them from "bad people", but to protect the state against them. Which in turn led to a corruption without parallel, because the average citizen's attitude was "why bother giving a shit about the state if it doesn't give one about me?".
And we can have that too. If we insist in installing more and more laws that work against our population. People already don't ask what "they can do for their country" anymore. Oppression and trying to enforce even more ridiculously anti-population laws will only increase resistance to them, to the point where people will actually resent and oppose the state as much as people in the former East Bloc did resent and oppose their state.
Ok, we cannot flee to a west. There is none.
But there's always necks to be severed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This treaty is an outright declaration of class warfare, with lots of surveillance goodies thrown in to get the enforcement part of government on board.
The thing to do now in the US is simply vote it down. If it is fast tracked so that Congress can only vote yes or no, then "no" it is. Just in case there's a chance of passage, we should make a lot of noise, make sure our representatives know our will and that it won't be safe to ignore us.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Robert Reich is certainly right on about the demise of capitalism. Corporations stack the deck so much in their favor that capitalism as we used to have it, as it used to benefit average people, and lift them out of poverty, is pretty much dead. Any attempts to reform the system cause them to scream "socialist wealth redistribution."
I used to think those that picketed at G7 meetings against globalization were luddites. Now I completely understand. Globalization is more and more just bullying on a national scale.
Hopefully in Canada we can get the Conservatives out, though I'm not hopeful. Harper wants Canada to be just like the US in all the bad ways. However a conservative minority government is probably the worst case scenario up here--Harper would be absolutely dictatorial in such a government knowing that the electorate are going to punish anyone who brings the government down and brings on another round of elections. Both opposition parties say they won't even bother reading the TPP in the house (which is honestly a lie, but at least they say they oppose it). I dunno. Plus Trudeau is being an idiot refusing to even talk about a coalition with the NDP. But I digress.
I don't know about you, but 90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies. Unless you can afford really expensive boutique goods how the hell do you boycott? And if you can afford that TPP is good for you...
Better yet, tell me how to get the churches and their blue collar workers back on track with socialism? How do I remove abortion as a wedge issue? I'm singling that one out since the left dropped guns and the right seems to be losing homosexuality and racism (and the welfare queens) as their wedge issues. It's the last major one I know of that divides our working class. Tell me how the hell to fix our politics...
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This is why Jury Nullification is so important. Of course that's why many of these laws will be enforced without a trial.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Since this weakens the public domain and strengthens rights for rightsholders, does it comparably strengthen the case for copyleft? How/would this change FOSS promotion and/or adoption strategies?
Obama and his people in the Commerce and State departments (which he, as President, appointed and controls) are the ones who have (A) Negotiated this deal, (B) classified it to prevent the public from reading it, and (C) demanded the TPA bill earlier this year to put it on a fast-track to fly through congress without proper Constitutional scrutiny.
Sadly, "establishment" Republicans in congress (bribed by the same firms that funded Obama's rise to power) ignored their base voters and let him have TPA, and will do everything they can to pass TPP...... but There would BE no TPA or TPP without team Obama writing them and demanding them!
This is broadly about multinational corporations (and their billionaire owners and investors) freeing themselves of national boundaries and rules - but at the core of it are the multinational entertainment companies and their lobbying groups like the MPAA which are every bit as much of the core of the modern Democrat party as trial lawyers, government employee unions, and gay marriage advocates - separating this from Obama would be like separating George W Bush from the NRA, social conservatives, or defense contractors, etc.
I can and will circumvent any technological or legal obstacles they can dream of, and they can all go fuck themselves. At some point they're going to run out of dimwits who don't know how to use encryption, VPN, tor, i2p, freenet, bittorrent, etc., and their entire consumer base will have collapsed with a mighty "ARRR!!!" How's that for an end game, you short-sighted, unimaginative, greedy bitches?
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
I strongly suggest that, in countries that will see their public domains turned back 20 years, electronic distributors of public domain works create a special "TPP Pack" -- a collection of works that are currently in the public domain, but will revert back to copyrighted status. This will give everyone enough time to download these packs before the TPP is ratified.
And I'm not getting any financial compensation for the fact that works I purchased, with the understanding that they would become public domain within the next two decades, will now not become so, and I'm sure that are those who are seniors and perhaps will never see those works enter the public domain during their remaining lifetime. Speaking of which, once those Generation Typewriter are removed from the voting constituents, perhaps Digital Issues will become more important and we will finally see copyright term reductions. Of course, retroactively, and without compensation as well.
PS why wasn't this included in the Canadian Government's "TPP summary"?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
"90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies."
It seems that the U.S. government now only helps rich people become richer. There is no democracy.
Companies That Control the World's Food (That is the 2nd page of the article.)
Food Processing's top 100
The Economist is a very pro-business magazine. Here's what they said about patents and the TPP:
"The cost of the innovation that never takes place because of the flawed patent system is incalculable. Patent protection is spreading, through deals such as the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership, which promises to cover one-third of world trade. The aim should be to fix the system, not make it more pervasive."
-- The Economist, "Time to fix patents", 8 August 2015
Man-Man sex and Abortion (and meaningful gun control) are all settled issues barring a constitutional amendment, so I urge anyone not to vote on the basis of these issues, because they aren't changing anytime soon.
I'm a pretty typical American liberal in the sense that I am pro-choice, pro marriage equality, and fuck if I wouldn't like to round up all the guns and throw them in the sewer. But it's not going to happen, so I would happily vote for someone who opposed all of these things if they were in favor of single payer healthcare or fucking over this Treaty, or something else achievable that I'd like to see fixed.
If you're mad at Obama, you must try to open your eyes. I'm 100% opposed to Republican views (1) and yet I don't think Obama acts too far from what a Republican would do.
That's because both parties are full of power-crazed psychopaths. The only difference is which lies they tell.
You encourage others to become aware of how they are played by their corrupt leaders. I encourage you to study your history, and see the big picture.
Our situation was not caused by a recent bad crop of politicians. Our situation is part of a cycle that has been repeating since the dawn of recorded history. I see no reason to expect that it should change now.
In fact, the only thing that has changed is technology level. Likely, that is the only thing that will change in the foreseeable future. If there is any hope of breaking the familiar human cycle of governance, the game-changer will be in our technology. But enough speculation...
Wealth and power corrupt, by their nature. And they are sought most vigorously by the already-corrupt. The net effect is that all world leaders seek primarily to serve themselves, and secondarily to serve their contemporaries (other aristocrats). They only serve the masses inasmuch as they must in order to further their own agendas. Throw them all out, and whoever you replace them with will be just the same. If they are not just the same, they will either become so, or will be politically outmaneuvered by someone who is just the same, with an obvious net effect.
You can't change this by shouting "wake up" at ordinary people. Nor can you change this by political action. You can't change this, period. The only thing you can do is apply political force, to ensure that your own agenda is in their best interest. This is done by funding lobbies, and organizing grassroots movements to encourage the poor to vote as a group on the issue. Apart from becoming an aristocrat yourself (no easy task, since they are not at all keen on sharing power), these are the only means available to you.
Beyond that, all you can do is recognize your place in the cycle, and adapt to it. Failing to do so will just create friction for yourself and others.
I'm a pretty typical American liberal in the sense that I am pro-choice, pro marriage equality,
Same here, but I'm also a gun owner (and have been for almost 40 years).
I'd bet I'm way more liberal than most people here (including you, probably) but I'm not a single-issue voter like a lot of people.
I vote for whomever I think will do the best job for the country even if it goes against my personal self interests. This time it'll probably be Bernie Sanders regardless of what the media says or how much they smear him.
Do I agree with everything he says? Of course not, but IMHO he's far better than any of the Republicans and far better than Hillary or Biden or whoever the Democrats dig up next.
I've never found an apt description for my political flavor, I suppose it'd be something like a "slightly-conservative-liberal" or "almost-social-democrat" or something like that. I sure as shit don't fit into any of the neat little categories they try to make us all fall into.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Copyleft uses the power of copyright to subvert its common intent.
By giving copyright holders more powers, maybe we can now do more savage things to corporate violators, like send them jail.
Perhaps we need an anti-TPP software licence to take advange of this new power.
The harder they squeeze....
capitalism as we used to have it, as it used to benefit average people, and lift them out of poverty, is pretty much dead.
What makes you assume this was ever the purpose and not just a side-effect?
It is very, very visible here in Germany. In fact, it's so transparent that you would have to be completely blind to not notice it.
Germany had very strong social systems and a good distribution of wealth. There were poor and rich, but very few very poor and very few crazy rich. Normal people could afford a house and a car on one salary from a regular job. Unemployment money was high enough that you wouldn't lose your home and pensions were so that retiring didn't mean becoming poor. Universal health care? We've had that always and it was adequate. Doctors were so good we exported them to other countries. Basically, a lot of people could actually afford those Mercedes and BMW cars we make.
After the fall of communism that all changed. Politics intentionally created a new low-cost labour market. Unemployment benefits dropped, lots of social benefits were dismantled, and when you are of working age, you are being bombarded with advertisement telling you to buy into this or that investment scheme because your pension will not allow you a good life anymore. All of that happened in less than 20 years. It started almost exactly after the re-unification, which provided a nice excuse for some measures ("it's so expensive, we need to save money").
What you learn from that is that all of this has been a front. The reason capitalism in Germany allowed for a good life was not inherent to capitalism. It was added benefits that were included because West Germany was too close to communist East Germany and the western allies needed to make sure the west german people would not look to East Germany and see something better, but the other way around (which, btw., worked).
Once the threat of people actually desiring communism disappeared, the facade came down. Now we see what capitalism is really about, has always been about. It just stopped pretending.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Thank God Americans live in a Democratically elected Republic. We don't have to move elsewhere to return to the prosperity of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s before we reduced our top marginal tax rate from 90% to 35% and indebted our future generations and destroyed the ability of our middle class to educate itself and collectively bargain for a piece of the pie from their corporate en-slavers. And like we did in the 1930s and 1940s, we can use our right to vote to do it again.
And maybe your family can rise out of poverty too and get educated and contribute again.
It's amazing how much money the liberal states provide the to republican "pull yourself up by your boot straps" welfare states.
http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/united-states-federal-tax-dollars/
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Democratic liberal states make money.
Unlike dollars allotted, tax dollars received show where the money was actually spent. New Jersey receives 61 cents for each tax dollar paid, Nevada 65 cents, Connecticut 69, New Hampshire 7 cents, and Minnesota 72 . Illinois receives 0.75 for each tax dollar they pays, followed by Delaware At 77 cents and California at 78 cents per dollar paid.
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Republican welfare states mooch and live off of it.
The states receiving the most are number five Alabama, which receives 1.66 per tax dollar paid, number four North Dakota with1.68, West Virginia at 1.76 , Louisiana,1.78, Alaska, 1.84 , Mississippi 2.02 and New Mexico at 2.03, over 100% of every taxdollar paid.
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The cognitive dissonance of these moochers is amazing. Against welfare, yet living off of it. But I don't mind, I'm a city dweller and and taxed adequately, but I also understand that getting ahead is not just an individual act, but a collective one as well. You people want individual freedom unless it is the decision to choose who you want to marry or what medical procedures you can have. Then freedom is a bad thing. The cognitive dissonance amazes me.
I enjoy the nice roads, clean environment, business friendly and responsive government. I will gladly pay more to ensure everyone gets a chance at the American dream through hard work and education.
I'm voting Sanders. He's had 30 years of consistent messaging. Finally a third party in the white house. Checks and balances could be restored between the two branches again.
The Corporatists in Congress with their < 15% approval rating will have to actually negotiate with a non-Corporatist for once.
I'm excited at that possibility.
but I'm not a single-issue voter like a lot of people.
But the country's problems ARE single issue, namely that the government at high levels place the desires of corporations above the rights of the people. In fact the government places pretty much everything above the rights of the people. The problem is that this is not a partisan issue, it's not even an isolated American issue.
socialist wealth redistribution
Often they just say 'wealth redistribution', which is the phrase that annoys me more than any other in political discussions. The people who say it are always implicitly in favour of wealth redistribution in one direction and often opposed to things that slow it, not just things that might reverse it. If I have $1m, and I invest it at a return 1% above the rate of inflation (not so hard when you have $1m), then I make $10K/year just from having money. If I have $10m and I make the same investments, then I'm making $100K/year, which is more than most people who work for a living, again just from starting with capital.
The average net worth of US senators in 2011 (I couldn't find newer figures) was $14m, for senators it was $7m (before anyone jumps in with partisan claims, the average for Republicans was higher in the Senate, but lower in the House). These people are earning more from their investments than most of their constituents. They're all - on both sides of the aisle - very much in favour of wealth redistribution, as long as that wealth keeps flowing to them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'm voting Sanders. He's had 30 years of consistent messaging. Finally a third party in the white house.
Same here, and his record of consistency is one of the reasons. He voted against the war AND against the PATRIOT act.
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I'm excited at that possibility.
Me too...can't wait for it to happen.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
And your solution to that is to vote for someone who wants to give the government even more power to screw over the people?
Except that all the other candidates ON BOTH SIDES want this exact same thing.
Anyone who thinks they don't simply hasn't been paying attention.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Finally, "vote for Sanders, he is no worse than the other guys" is hardly a good proposition.
That's not what I said, and not what I meant.
Frankly I like Sanders' policies (not all of them) and see him as a hell of a lot better than the other candidates on both sides.
There are over a million people who've donated to Bernie Sanders, and he isn't taking money from any SuperPACs. Like it or not, you have to respect that so many people like what he's saying enough to send him money.
Hillary Clinton is a fascist and a war monger. She voted for the war AND for the PATRIOT act. Sanders voted against both of them. That counts for something with me.
Clinton is a serial liar and a crook, and if she didn't brand herself a "Democrat", you'd swear she was a Republican.
As for the Republicans, the entire Republican field is nothing but an disorganized array of theocratic, right-wing whackos who are begging to suck the dick of every corporate entity from Boston to Barstow, and they aren't even shy about it.
They all want to impose their version of Christian sharia on the country, and many of them talk endlessly about how god "guides their decisions", etc etc etc. Santorum would turn this country back 1,000 years. Huckabee would put every non-believer to the sword of he could, and the rest aren't that much better. Is that what you want?
Don't like Sanders? Then don't vote for him. Spend your vote on whoever you like. I'll be voting for Bernie if I get the chance.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...