2015-10-09theguardian.com

One chapter appears to give the signatory countries (referred to as "parties") greater power to stop embarrassing information going public. The treaty would give signatories the ability to curtail legal proceedings if the theft of information is "detrimental to a party's economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security" -- in other words, presumably, if a trial would cause the information to spread.

...

Among the provisions in the chapter (which may or may not be the most recent version) are rules that say that each country in the agreement has the authority to compel anyone accused of violating intellectual property law to provide "relevant information [...] that the infringer or alleged infringer possesses or controls" as provided for in that country's own laws.

This is worse than just "freedom of expression" fears -- it's the extension of global police power to "enforce IP" against anyone, anywhere. Considering that IP laws aren't the same in different countries, and there are different legal standards for process and enforcement, this seems to set the bar lower for legal authority and raise the risk to individuals anywhere who run afoul of any country party to the TPP. Indeed, perhaps they want to "formalize" what they did to MegaUpload's Kim DotCom in 2012-2014, when the US managed to bully New Zealand into seizing all of DotCom's assets before trial, on a very questionable copyright case (DotCom was being pursued for contributory infringement, i.e., running a file transfer service that the big copyright owners didn't appreciate).



Comments: Be the first to add a comment

add a comment | go to forum thread