Slashdot Mirror
TPP Change Means Drastically Higher Penalties For Copyright "Infringement" (eff.org)
Mephistophocles writes: A sneaky and underhanded change to the TPP, spotted by the EFF and summarized here by Jeremy Malcolm, means much stiffer penalties for copyright "infringement:"
Under the TPP's original terms, a country could limit the exposure of the owner of such a website to prison time, or to the seizure and possible destruction of their server, on the grounds that by definition their infringement didn't cause any lost sales to the copyright owner. (Note that they would be liable for civil damages to the copyright owner in any case.)
Although a country still has the option to limit criminal penalties to "commercial scale" infringements (which is so broadly defined that it could catch even a non-profit subtitles website), the new language compels TPP signatories to make these penalties available even where those infringements cause absolutely no impact on the copyright holder's ability to profit from the work. This is a massive extension of the provision's already expansive scope.
Perhaps most concerning, however, is the fact that this means those stiff penalties apply even when there is no harm or threat of harm to the copyright owner caused by the infringement.
Think about it. What sense is there in sending someone to jail for an infringement that causes no harm to the copyright holder, whether they complain about it or not? And why should it matter that the copyright holder complains about something that didn't affect them anyway? Surely, if the copyright holder suffers no harm, then a country ought to be able to suspend the whole gamut of criminal procedures and penalties, not only the availability of ex officio action.
This is no error -- or if it is, then the parties were only in error in agreeing to a proposal that was complete nonsense to begin with.
Under the TPP's original terms, a country could limit the exposure of the owner of such a website to prison time, or to the seizure and possible destruction of their server, on the grounds that by definition their infringement didn't cause any lost sales to the copyright owner. (Note that they would be liable for civil damages to the copyright owner in any case.)
Although a country still has the option to limit criminal penalties to "commercial scale" infringements (which is so broadly defined that it could catch even a non-profit subtitles website), the new language compels TPP signatories to make these penalties available even where those infringements cause absolutely no impact on the copyright holder's ability to profit from the work. This is a massive extension of the provision's already expansive scope.
Perhaps most concerning, however, is the fact that this means those stiff penalties apply even when there is no harm or threat of harm to the copyright owner caused by the infringement.
Think about it. What sense is there in sending someone to jail for an infringement that causes no harm to the copyright holder, whether they complain about it or not? And why should it matter that the copyright holder complains about something that didn't affect them anyway? Surely, if the copyright holder suffers no harm, then a country ought to be able to suspend the whole gamut of criminal procedures and penalties, not only the availability of ex officio action.
This is no error -- or if it is, then the parties were only in error in agreeing to a proposal that was complete nonsense to begin with.
Good luck finding a jury that will send someone to jail when no harm has been done. Now everyone, please bone up on jury nullification.
The jury doesn't send people to jail: they vote guilty or not guilty and the judge decides the sentence, expect possibly in death penalty cases. And, in the U.S. at least, the jury isn't allowed to be told what the possible sentence is.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Tell that to Kevin Mitnick. He was held in prison for four and a half years without trial. He was in maximum security and solitary for some of that time. source
You get what this is all really about. Totally shutting down the internet except for a very few publishers under the threat of criminal penalties for any copyright infringement be it a single photo, a paragraph of text, a site layout. Basically the intent is to shut down the internet under threat of criminal prosecution for copyright infringement, only the big players left standing and everyone else wiped out. Never forget copyright infringement counts for a single photo or a single page of text or a ring tone or etc. etc. etc. The intent is to hand the internet back to main stream media, a straight up act of blatant corruption.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
>I'm pretty sure the entire point of the TPP is to put more power in the hands of corporations and circumvent sovereign nations legal systems.
It's a trade agreement, that's literally the definition of trade agreements. Perhaps there was a time when it wasn't, I doubt that because "lost golden ages" invariably turn out to be unsubstantiated nostalgia but it definitely has been the definition of a trade agreement for at least the full 36 years I've been on this planet. A trade agreement is essentially governments agreeing to modify their laws to make it easier for corporations to profit in the other country - which is a nice way of saying "get rid of any pesky legal protections that may reduce the foreign company's ability to exploit the citizens of another country the way they do at home".
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *