TPP Copyright Rules Pose 'Massive Threat' to Users, EFF Says
Language in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement “poses massive threats to users in a dizzying number of ways,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation Global Policy Analyst Maira Sutton in a blog post Thursday. All nations that sign the TPP will have…
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to “accept the United States’ excessive copyright terms,” she said, as the U.S. exports “bad rules to other nations.” The broad definition of what constitutes a criminal violation of copyright could result in people being convicted of a crime for even noncommercial activities, Sutton said. “Fans who distribute subtitles to foreign movies or anime, or archivists and librarians who preserve and upload old books, videos, games, or music, could go to jail or face huge fines for their work,” she said. “Someone who makes a remix film and puts it online could be under threat.” The TPP also contains digital rights management “anti-circumvention provisions that will make it a crime to tinker with, hack, re-sell, preserve, and otherwise control any number of digital files and devices that you own,” according to the latest leak of the TPP in May 2014, Sutton said. The TPP encourages “ISPs to monitor and police their users likely leading to more censorship measures such as the blockage and filtering of content online in the name of copyright enforcement,” Sutton said. “TPP negotiators have already agreed to more vague provisions that would oblige countries to enact prison sentences and monetary fines that are ‘sufficiently high’ to deter people from infringing again.” Another concern is that law enforcement would be encouraged to seize laptops, servers or domain names. “These excessive criminal copyright rules are what we get when Big Content has access to powerful, secretive rule-making institutions,” which is “yet another reason why we need to stop the TPP,” Sutton said.