That's like saying that weather forecasts aren't interestings because the weather is public. The point is that we want to have a public discussion on these agreements before they are signed.
"The US wants this separate cause of action to extend even to cases where there is no copyrighted works" [1]
Even the DMCA only protects copyrighted works. The provisions of QQ.G.10 for example would make it illegal in enough countries to distribute dvdcss that linux would not play my DVDs.
Once implemented, this will have a significant impact on linux users.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/11/house-pushing-back-on...
That Congress?
Also, we rewrite the Constitution because Amendments allow us to. It's just that we do it so fast and then change it back that you don't even notice.
I really do not know.
OTOH - the mainstream media is not reporting on this at all. Doing a search for 'trans pacific partnership' on CNN - the first result is a story about the G-20 Summit on Jul. 15th.
The more you look at, investigate and try and understand this story the crazier you may seem to other people.
This is a model that the Administration (Obama, and Bush before him) have been following for several recent trade agreements. They are being negotiated in a very selective and biased secrecy.
In the U.S.:
- Favored lobbyists have fairly unfettered access. From one account, I understand that they can sign on to a site from their own computer and view the whole shebang -- I don't have this specifically confirmed, but the thorough access has been repeatedly confirmed. They attend and undoubtedly influence the negotiations; in fact, there have been strong hints that they are directly writing major portions of these agreements.
- Your own Congressman -- Senator or Representative -- can only access the agreement by appointment to go to a specific, physical room in D.C. where they can view it. They can't bring their staff for consultation and research. They can't take the draft agreement or portions thereof away with them.
- The public -- as opposed to favored, moneyed private interests within said public -- has no access to the draft agreement nor any substantive part of the negotiations. In fact, at at least one point, public access was specifically qualified as a "national security risk". For a trade agreement that will, once passed, then be public and under which we must all live.
Regarding that last point: Substantial arguments have been made that these agreements are being used to essentially legislate while making an end run around the legislative process. They contain language stating that individual countries' laws must be "harmonized" to the terms of the agreement. In effect, you have this trade agreement dictating the country's law.
And in the U.S., our legislators have repeated agreed to "fast track" the approval. Essentially handing over to the Executive, in the form of the Administration and its appointed trade negotiators, the power to enact the trade agreement and thereby the "harmonizing" language (i.e. commitment to change law, i.e. "create" law). And this additionally ahead of the drafting, agreement to and codification of the specific terms and language that will be enacted.
In essence, the Legislative branch has (illegally, many argue) abrogated its duty and responsibility to draft, negotiate, and enact law, to the Executive.
Amazing, how... "compliant" they suddenly get, when there's real money involved for them. And how conveniently they sweep all this up, including the avoidance of the need to specifically, individually go "on the record" e.g. with a vote, under this abused rubric of a "trade agreement".
On a sidenote, wouldn't it be great if we could at least get unified copyright law? From the draft it seems like the US is pushing more towards that
Well that is a pretty tepid imperialism. If a country isn't willing to put their money where their mouth is then maybe they should be quiet.
What is a little interesting is the negotiations and diplomacy at work. You can see how each country is trying to further its own position and interest. Looking at this version of the document, it is impossible to see how a compromise will be reached since there are so many areas that are at complete opposite viewpoints - but you know that in a few weeks time an agreement will be announced as one side or another gives way (guess which!), and the public are nonethewiser.
Some are really good at watering things down, eg.
> The Parties shall endeavour to [US/SG propose: cooperate] [US oppose: establish a framework for cooperation] among their respective patent offices to facilitate
You can see already that they don't intend to cooperate. Establishing a framework? what the hell does that even mean ..
You can now see that Australia, Singapore and Mexico are on Team USA when it comes to copyright terms (Australia opposed it during the FTA negotiations), everybody else opposes, but they will eventually have to come around on this:
> [NZ/BN/MY/VN/CA/JP propose; US/AU/SG/MX oppose: The term of protection of a work, performance or phonogram shall be determined according to each Party's domestic law and the international agreements to which each Party is a party.]
[0] Here is USA - Australia: http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/a...
Here is NAFTA - https://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Default.aspx?tabid=97&langua...
[1] It might not be interesting because we have seen a lot of this in completed deals previously, but it is very important. The USA enforces its business interest laws such as patent and copyright terms onto recipients of "free trade" agreements, in exchange for getting access to the non-protected part of their domestic market. This is why US laws are so important to the rest of the world, because we end up having to adopt them (this is what modern imperialism looks like).