One-word Change to TPP Represents Massive Power Grab, Says Watchdog
Although there are many reasons to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as The New American has amply documented, a new cause for opposition has recently been unearthed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In what EFF calls “an underhanded attempt to renegotiate the [TPP] before its ink is even dry,” a one-word change to a footnote has the potential to impose significant criminal penalties on individuals and entities caught violating copyright laws even if those violations cause no harm to the copyright holders.The supposed final text of the TPP released in November, as found on the U.S. Trade Representative’s website, includes provisions mandating certain types of penalties for copyright infringement. EFF, a nonprofit defending civil rights in the digital realm, summarizes those provisions thus:• sentences of imprisonment as well as deterrent-level monetary fines;• higher penalties in more serious circumstances, such as threats to public health or safety;• seizure of suspected infringing items, the materials and implements used to produce them, and documentary evidence relating to them;• the release of those items, materials, implements and evidence for use in civil proceedings;• forfeiture or destruction of those items, materials and implements;• forfeiture of any assets (such as money) derived from the infringement; and• the ability for officials to take legal action against the alleged infringer on their own initiative, without requiring a complaint from the rights holder (this is called “ex officio action”).
Source: One-word Change to TPP Represents Massive Power Grab, Says Watchdog
