back to article Global protest calls for canning SOPA-by-stealth treaty's IP bits

Fears about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have surfaced again, with a pair of open letters calling on negotiators to remove provisions applying to intellectual property. The TPP is a treaty being negotiated among Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the …

  1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

    They're Baaaack!

    I guess we all knew they wouldn't give up on this. If this gets defeated (I really hope it does) expect round 3 to be even more devious and hidden.

  2. Gray
    Trollface

    Turning blue in the face ...

    ... holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

    "Thankfully, US President Obama recently suggested that the TPP's text will be released to the public in November."

  3. nematoad

    Bah!

    "Thankfully, US President Obama recently suggested that the TPP's text will be released to the public in November."

    Ah! a pointer to when the various negotiators think that the treaty will be signed. Before November.

    Keep everything under wraps until it's too late to do anything about it, then release the treaty to the victims and claim that the negotiations were in good faith and that they are living up to the much vaunted "openness and transparency"

    More like smoke and mirrors to me.

    Greedy, unethical bastards, but then that's politicians and big business for you.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Bah!

      Or that they think that by then they will be so far along that it doesn't matter and the text so befuddling that the average Joe won't have a clue what they are on about and ignore it and signing off will be unopposed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Bah!

        The average Joe certainly wouldn't understand it, but we don't have to read and understand it. Someone else will, and they'll tell us what it means, and we'll be all up in arms against it based on their interpretation.

        The failure of TPTB in this is trying to keep it secret, and therefore being unable to try to spin its terms differently. If they did that, they could claim the interpretations of others are inaccurate and many sheep would believe them. But if the first thing they hear about it is some sort of worst case doomsday interpretation, they'll rise up against it and kill it like they did with SOPA.

        I think it is becoming harder and harder to push through these kinds of backdoor deals by treaty, because someone somewhere in the negotiations will leak them, and social media makes it very easy for average people to rise up against something they'd otherwise never hear about. Just tell them it means losing Facebook, Netflix or eBay, and they'll raise hell!

  4. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    "been told the treaty is in their best interests"

    And "it's for your own good" as the Vet said to the tom cat...

  5. big_D Silver badge

    Hmm, will it make much difference? YouTube already take down about 90% of videos with music in them over here, claiming that it might contain music for which they haven't bothered checking to see if GEMA will give them a licence for...

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Whether it makes a difference or not is largely irrelevant.

      The simple fact that such profound policy-making is being negotiated in secret, save for industry pressure organisations, is an affront to democracy world-wide and for that reason alone it deserves to die.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Sorry, that was supposed to be sarcastic, based on how Google react now in some countries...

  6. John Lilburne

    SOPA was never defeated

    Since 2012 the payment processors have steadily withdrawn from servicing pirate sites, the advertisers have steadily pulled out, Google has been forced to service 6 million DMCA requests a week up from 200K. Every provision of SOPA has been implemented just not via oversights by court orders.

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