EFF: the Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared (eff.org) 399
An anonymous reader writes: Wikileaks has released the finalized Intellectual Property text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which international negotiators agreed upon a few days ago. Unfortunately, it contains many of the consumer-hostile provisions that so many organizations spoke out against beforehand. This includes the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years, and a ban on the circumvention of DRM. The EFF says, "If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good platitude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever." The EFF walks us through all the other awful provisions as well — it's quite a lengthy analysis.
Kill it with fire! (Score:4, Insightful)
Before it lays eggs!
Re:Kill it with fire! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kill it with fire! (Score:5, Informative)
When it comes to treaties, the house of senate has to approve it, whereas the house of represenatives has no say in it.
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Interestingly enough, this suggests to me that getting rid of this "treaty" is as simple as a law passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the P
Trump hates this and this will kill jobs and worke (Score:3)
Trump hates this and this will kill jobs and workers rights.
The new min wage can now be say chinas minimum wage
Re:Kill it with fire! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let us see what EU will do with TTIP - protests are not that relevant for politicians doing what they can do best i.e. selling themselves to highest the bidder but there will be no heavy protests in EU. Peope here are quite busy with watching how silly Germans really are so TTIP may get approved without much fuss. Let us have cheese out of crude oil - it is good for you! Milo Minderbinder was right - people are stupid and tasteless idiots and they will eat soap if they are told it is tasty, maybe even asking for more.
Re:Ha (Score:5, Interesting)
Man-Man sex and Abortion (and meaningful gun control) are all settled issues barring a constitutional amendment, so I urge anyone not to vote on the basis of these issues, because they aren't changing anytime soon.
I'm a pretty typical American liberal in the sense that I am pro-choice, pro marriage equality, and fuck if I wouldn't like to round up all the guns and throw them in the sewer. But it's not going to happen, so I would happily vote for someone who opposed all of these things if they were in favor of single payer healthcare or fucking over this Treaty, or something else achievable that I'd like to see fixed.
Re:Ha (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a pretty typical American liberal in the sense that I am pro-choice, pro marriage equality,
Same here, but I'm also a gun owner (and have been for almost 40 years).
I'd bet I'm way more liberal than most people here (including you, probably) but I'm not a single-issue voter like a lot of people.
I vote for whomever I think will do the best job for the country even if it goes against my personal self interests. This time it'll probably be Bernie Sanders regardless of what the media says or how much they smear him.
Do I agree with everything he says? Of course not, but IMHO he's far better than any of the Republicans and far better than Hillary or Biden or whoever the Democrats dig up next.
I've never found an apt description for my political flavor, I suppose it'd be something like a "slightly-conservative-liberal" or "almost-social-democrat" or something like that. I sure as shit don't fit into any of the neat little categories they try to make us all fall into.
Re:Ha (Score:5, Interesting)
The Corporatists in Congress with their < 15% approval rating will have to actually negotiate with a non-Corporatist for once.
I'm excited at that possibility.
Re:Ha (Score:5, Informative)
I'm voting Sanders. He's had 30 years of consistent messaging. Finally a third party in the white house.
Same here, and his record of consistency is one of the reasons. He voted against the war AND against the PATRIOT act.
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I'm excited at that possibility.
Me too...can't wait for it to happen.
Re:Ha (Score:4, Insightful)
but I'm not a single-issue voter like a lot of people.
But the country's problems ARE single issue, namely that the government at high levels place the desires of corporations above the rights of the people. In fact the government places pretty much everything above the rights of the people. The problem is that this is not a partisan issue, it's not even an isolated American issue.
Re:Ha (Score:4, Insightful)
And your solution to that is to vote for someone who wants to give the government even more power to screw over the people?
Except that all the other candidates ON BOTH SIDES want this exact same thing.
Anyone who thinks they don't simply hasn't been paying attention.
Re:Ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally, "vote for Sanders, he is no worse than the other guys" is hardly a good proposition.
That's not what I said, and not what I meant.
Frankly I like Sanders' policies (not all of them) and see him as a hell of a lot better than the other candidates on both sides.
There are over a million people who've donated to Bernie Sanders, and he isn't taking money from any SuperPACs. Like it or not, you have to respect that so many people like what he's saying enough to send him money.
Hillary Clinton is a fascist and a war monger. She voted for the war AND for the PATRIOT act. Sanders voted against both of them. That counts for something with me.
Clinton is a serial liar and a crook, and if she didn't brand herself a "Democrat", you'd swear she was a Republican.
As for the Republicans, the entire Republican field is nothing but an disorganized array of theocratic, right-wing whackos who are begging to suck the dick of every corporate entity from Boston to Barstow, and they aren't even shy about it.
They all want to impose their version of Christian sharia on the country, and many of them talk endlessly about how god "guides their decisions", etc etc etc. Santorum would turn this country back 1,000 years. Huckabee would put every non-believer to the sword of he could, and the rest aren't that much better. Is that what you want?
Don't like Sanders? Then don't vote for him. Spend your vote on whoever you like. I'll be voting for Bernie if I get the chance.
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Those so-called "policies" sound good to you because you fail to understand that they are empty promises, and that they inevitably lead to economic disaster and worse. I'm afraid Sanders is the fascist, and like all fascists, he rises to power on a program of right wing populism.
Why yes, those policies. Most notably, government intervention in the market. At this point, I think it's empirically proven that free markets are a complete disaster in practice and lead to economic disaster and worse. I think Enron is a great poster child for deregulation, and if you don't like that example wait five minutes. As for Sanders being right wing populism, I wonder if you're suffering from wing dyslexia?
People have a tendency to go, NOOOO you can't intervene in the sacred free market, it's so m
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And maybe your family
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Okay then, let's look just at welfare data:
States with the highest percentage of food stamps recipients:
1. Mississippi (22%)
2. New Mexico (21%)
3. West Virginia (20%)
Yup, nothing to do with welfare. /sarcasm And before you blame black people and illegal immigrants, in all of these states the majority of welfare benefits go to white people.
You still sleep. (Score:5, Interesting)
You encourage others to become aware of how they are played by their corrupt leaders. I encourage you to study your history, and see the big picture.
Our situation was not caused by a recent bad crop of politicians. Our situation is part of a cycle that has been repeating since the dawn of recorded history. I see no reason to expect that it should change now.
In fact, the only thing that has changed is technology level. Likely, that is the only thing that will change in the foreseeable future. If there is any hope of breaking the familiar human cycle of governance, the game-changer will be in our technology. But enough speculation...
Wealth and power corrupt, by their nature. And they are sought most vigorously by the already-corrupt. The net effect is that all world leaders seek primarily to serve themselves, and secondarily to serve their contemporaries (other aristocrats). They only serve the masses inasmuch as they must in order to further their own agendas. Throw them all out, and whoever you replace them with will be just the same. If they are not just the same, they will either become so, or will be politically outmaneuvered by someone who is just the same, with an obvious net effect.
You can't change this by shouting "wake up" at ordinary people. Nor can you change this by political action. You can't change this, period. The only thing you can do is apply political force, to ensure that your own agenda is in their best interest. This is done by funding lobbies, and organizing grassroots movements to encourage the poor to vote as a group on the issue. Apart from becoming an aristocrat yourself (no easy task, since they are not at all keen on sharing power), these are the only means available to you.
Beyond that, all you can do is recognize your place in the cycle, and adapt to it. Failing to do so will just create friction for yourself and others.
Re:Ha (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're mad at Obama, you must try to open your eyes. I'm 100% opposed to Republican views (1) and yet I don't think Obama acts too far from what a Republican would do.
That's because both parties are full of power-crazed psychopaths. The only difference is which lies they tell.
Re:Kill it with fire! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, it's never too late.
Voltaire was right about assassinations. Seems like we need a system to keep the politicians in line.
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Where were you when Reagan was president? Then it might have made a difference. Today? It's too late, baby.
Re:Kill it with fire! (Score:4, Funny)
US to be Blamed (Score:5, Insightful)
The most ignorant thing about pushing all this in the current global climate with the contortionists US twisting with regard to Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist/Rebels, everyone will blame America and Americans, everything bad in the TPP and it's ugly sibling TTIP will be blamed on American corporations and sales will suffer accordingly. Want your citizens and country to maintain any semblance of freedom boycott Large US Corporations (small ones run by real Americans apparently are fine, so oddly enough help America rebuild Main Street and protect you own country by working together globally to gut Wall Street).
Re:US to be Blamed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:US to be Blamed (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of shit always has big bipartisan support. The whores from both parties will put away the facade and do the bidding of their masters.
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Re:US to be Blamed (Score:4, Informative)
There is plenty of power to create laws to more specifically deny/manage such campaign contributions, but they want to just go for the throat and change the constitution.
You' haven't been paying attention. Since the Citizens United ruling, such laws as you describe would violate the First Amendment. That's why getting money out of politics requires a new amendment.
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The real problem is it's all a scam. They take issues like affirmative action, abortion, gay rights and other things that the population is divided on and use these things to conquer us. We have two sides that are really just one side but they show two faces. The only time they come together is for things like the TPP. It's not like they care about abortion or gay rights one way or another, it's just smoke and mirrors to keep the populace distracted from the way they're enslaving us. President Obama go
Yes, but you must face a brutal fact (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama and his people in the Commerce and State departments (which he, as President, appointed and controls) are the ones who have (A) Negotiated this deal, (B) classified it to prevent the public from reading it, and (C) demanded the TPA bill earlier this year to put it on a fast-track to fly through congress without proper Constitutional scrutiny.
Sadly, "establishment" Republicans in congress (bribed by the same firms that funded Obama's rise to power) ignored their base voters and let him have TPA, and
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Maybe this "shit" has bipartisan support. But Obama ran on a platform, and was elected, to end this "shit", and as a liberal, progressive, biracial constitutional law professor and community organizer, he had about the best possible credentials for the job.
The lesson to be learned is not that America needs an even better leader than Obama or that Obama was insufficiently liberal/progressive/socialist. The lesson to be learned is that you can't fix crony ca
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I'm all for that but we're the minority. My political leanings are mostly conservative but all the supposed conservatives elected in the last few decades want to grow government. They're fake. Under conservatives and liberals alike the damn monster just gets bigger and hungrier. Bush Junior grew the damn government like never before. He was a disaster and the one that followed him has continued driving the car over the cliff with the pedal to the metal. And they wonder why Trump is leading.
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An excellent summary. It's funny how all the establishment both Democrat and Republican are hating on Trump. I don't like him but it makes me want to vote for him because as much as I dislike Trump I despise them.
How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet, tell me how to get the churches and their blue collar workers back on track with socialism? How do I remove abortion as a wedge issue? I'm singling that one out since the left dropped guns and the right seems to be losing homosexuality and racism (and the welfare queens) as their wedge issues. It's the last major one I know of that divides our working class. Tell me how the hell to fix our politics...
To me, the U.S. government seems corrupt. (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that the U.S. government now only helps rich people become richer. There is no democracy.
Companies That Control the World's Food [247wallst.com] (That is the 2nd page of the article.)
Food Processing's top 100 [foodprocessing.com]
I'm not so sure (Score:3)
I agree. Both are happening. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
> I don't know about you, but 90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies
Maybe you can't stop buying from all 13, but try one or two. Seriously. I've done it. It's not that hard.
Re:How? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but 90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies. Unless you can afford really expensive boutique goods how the hell do you boycott? And if you can afford that TPP is good for you...
For food, you can go to local markets and buy it directly from farmers. At least here in Europe you can.
There are also local products in many categories, but they are often more expensive and sometimes only available in select shops (look for eco shops and sustainable products, that's a first pointer). But again, in this area there is so much scamming from big companies that you have to do research to be sure.
And that's the problem. We don't want to do that. We don't give enough of a fuck about the stuff we eat or use to care where it actually comes from.
Tell me how the hell to fix our politics...
Give back your nerd card. Robert Heinlein wrote a little book in fucking 1946 about this very problem, and little has changed since then:
https://www.goodreads.com/book... [goodreads.com]
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"For food, you can go to local markets and buy it directly from farmers."
Depends on country. Simple economy of scale means small farms are in a slow process of decline - the farmer with a few traditional chicken enclosures cannot hope to compete with the farm that has ten massive industrial barns and chickens in the millions. Large farms have no interest in selling a tiny fraction of their output direct to consumers - they are not in the retail business.
Re:US to be Blamed (Score:5, Insightful)
What the fuck is a "real American"? Is it the Canadian-born son of a Cuban refugee who's running for President? Is it the naturalized Iraqi-American who owns a convenience store? How about an Australian who owns some of the most powerful media outlets in the US along with a Saudi prince?
Please enlighten us.
I'm all for gutting Wall Street, but when I hear that kind of populism paired up with phrases like "real American" I kind of get the willies.
Your laws ignore my rights (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider it well inside my rights to ignore your laws.
In less martial words, issuing laws that contravene the consensus of the population is dangerous. Laws are upheld mostly because people consider them good, not because they are being enforce. Look around you and ponder which laws are upheld (in general) and which one are flauntingly broken. Do you see people go on murdering sprees, bank robberies or even do some minor shit like pushing grannies out of the way? No. Why? Not because they're forbidden, but because they go against the "general moral consensus", for a lack of a better term. People in general consider this "wrong". Yes, they are also illegal, but that doesn't matter too much.
On the other hand, people of all times have broken laws without remorse if those laws were considered unjust. From speeding to copyright to drugs, all covered by laws with fines and punishment that are in no remotely sensibly proportion to the crime involved, laws being ignored and broken routinely by people you would otherwise consider upstanding, moral and law abiding.
The actual danger here is in the view people get on laws in general.
If you need an example for this, look no further than the former Communist Bloc. People in there quickly noticed that the laws are not there to protect them from "bad people", but to protect the state against them. Which in turn led to a corruption without parallel, because the average citizen's attitude was "why bother giving a shit about the state if it doesn't give one about me?".
And we can have that too. If we insist in installing more and more laws that work against our population. People already don't ask what "they can do for their country" anymore. Oppression and trying to enforce even more ridiculously anti-population laws will only increase resistance to them, to the point where people will actually resent and oppose the state as much as people in the former East Bloc did resent and oppose their state.
Ok, we cannot flee to a west. There is none.
But there's always necks to be severed.
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, we theoretically have the option to complain to our elected representatives or vote them out of office, something not possible in the former Soviet Bloc. The snag is that most people don't bother doing this, and most probably never even heard of this issue. Those that do care about the issue may be saying "meh, I'll just pirate things like I always do" which is no help at all.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
How cute. You actually think you have political power.
I'm sure the megacorps and .1 percenters are quaking in their boots at your impotent threat.
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:4, Interesting)
I've watched 3 different people in different settings go off about this to others. They have half the facts and half the fallacy along with all the hyperbole.
The problem is a communications problem. It gets so technical that most people gloss over and ignore it until something strike their ears but then they only catch half. Most people are like the GP and when they attempt to communicate about it, they end up looking like a loon freshly dipped in dingbat shit and people ignore them again.
What is needed is a cartoonish but reasonably well articulated summery of the situation and most people would grab their pitchforks and join the mob. I don't see that happening. Probably because they have been invested so long that it in and of itself seems engagingly ridiculous.
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:5, Informative)
Economix explains the Trans-Pacific Partnership
http://economixcomix.com/home/... [economixcomix.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't see it happening because very few people know about it. Do you think that the lack of media coverage is accidental? Oh I know, Ben Carson the Republican candidate said something loony about having to attack a gunman on a spree just to kill, so that has to take all 7 "News" stations days to investigate and discuss. TPPIP? Not a word could be heard on any of those stations about that one. Amazingly, the candidates are not discussing it or being quoted on that one either.
Oh but Donal Trump this and that, and of course everyone is just mean to Hillary because in all the time she served as Secretary of State she never ever sent or received even 1 classified email.
The game is rigged pretty heavily today. People would probably shit themselves if they really know how much they are being manipulated. But hell, Facebook does not show anything too important in their feeds, and Facebook taking over control of that was accidental too.
That rant is not really directed at you. It is directed at those who are now wearing that same tin-foil hat they accused others of wearing. I hope it fits them well.
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:4, Insightful)
First, Carson's comment is about as loony as calling the police and expecting them to save you. What he said was if you are about to die, try to save others. It's no different than after 9/11 when public discussion went from advising people to stay calm and follow orders/cooperate when an airplane is hijacked to assume you will be dead so take risks and save others. If you cannot understand that, you might have a serious problem.
Next, there is no or little media coverage because until recently there was nothing to cover outside of speculation. It's all been drafts leaked to the public via questionable sources and as we found out, a lot is different. I suspect we will end up continuing with little coverage because the IP provisions benefit the news corporations greatly.
That is an outright lie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09... [nytimes.com]
http://www.washingtontimes.com... [washingtontimes.com]
Yup and you demonstrated my point with your political half assery too. Whenever someone talks about this subject, they have half the facts and half the fallacy along with all the hyperbole.
This happens more often than most of us are willing to realize. Early warnings of lost jobs came about with NAFTA, Crazies like Glenn Beck was warning of ISIS and the Caliphate long before it was mainstream. Hell, even the horrors of Nazi Germany were foretold before the world was shocked at what we found at the end of WWII. Escaped Jews were trying to get the US involved long before Pearl Harbor pushed us over the edge. I guess for some, they just have to reach out and touch the hot stove in order to understand what your warning about the stove being hot really means.
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First, Carson's comment is about as loony as calling the police and expecting them to save you.
No need to defend Carson to me, I fully understand context and how it's being ignored for the "story". Read those comments again as snark.
Next, there is no or little media coverage because until recently there was nothing to cover outside of speculation. It's all been drafts leaked to the public via questionable sources and as we found out, a lot is different. I suspect we will end up continuing with little coverage because the IP provisions benefit the news corporations greatly.
You may be arguing with me (hard to tell), but are demonstrating the point I made. I have seen more information and investigation by Wikileaks, RT, and the Guardian than any of the 7 top "news" stations in the US. Just the rumors should have been enough to put real journalists in action. And no, it's not about ratings because imagine the ratings one station would be
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:5, Informative)
No offense, but maybe if you get pounded on the head enough you will understand that cynicism and sarcasm is very, very hard to pull off effectively in person with tonal and visual cues, and all but impossible on the printed page. My most friendly advice is to avoid trying it. It doesn't work.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think I was clear that I wasn't up for the job.
Perhaps you could add something constructive to the conversation instead of repeating the obvious in some attempt to make yourself feel better about yourself or something?
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> or vote them out of office
Indeed - I think it will be an interesting time when we see a) how many of our elected representatives vote in favor of this junk, and b) how many of them are still in office after the next election.
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I can assure you that the vast majority of congresspeople will retain their seats in the next election. I think the statistics are in the 90% range. Years of gerrymandering have ensured this.
http://www.politifact.com/trut... [politifact.com]
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I have complained to my representative. If you haven't, please do so now.
OTOH, don't expect it to make any difference. I expect my representative to vote in the way I would approve of, but I expect that would have happened even without my comment. I don't expect either of my senators to be as virtuous. Only one of them to I give any chance. The other would be willing to lie about the position taken to get my support (I've caught that happening before), but wouldn't actually change position.
So what gove
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:5, Interesting)
or vote them out of office
Uh, no.
You can't 'vote them out of office'. You can only vote to replace them with another asshole who's just as corrupt.
If we could 'vote them out of office', this problem would have gone away long ago, as most political offices would be empty.
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:4, Informative)
Not in the US, where corruption is so widespread in its political system that good politicians who care for the people never get a chance in hell to gather enough money to buy themselves a seat or a presidency.
Re:Your laws ignore my rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. You have the choice of the Corporate Slave R or Corporate Slave D.
Sometimes you have an I on the ballot too, but politics is an expensive game - once you get past the local level a good campaign costs millions of dollars, so success is impossible without some rich sponsors in industry.
Role for Jury Nullification (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why Jury Nullification is so important. Of course that's why many of these laws will be enforced without a trial.
Re:Role for Jury Nullification (Score:4, Insightful)
Jury nullification allows for the views of a community to override the letter of the law. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on the community.
Re:Role for Jury Nullification (Score:5, Insightful)
It is only a good thing. It cannot be a bad thing. You cannot convict anyone by jury nullification; only free someone. Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man hang.
Re:Role for Jury Nullification (Score:4, Interesting)
A good part of jury nullification's bad reputation comes from the south during and for a time after the segregation era, which it was used on numerous occasions to let a white murderer go free after killing a black person. With jury nullification, community standards win - even if the community happens to be packed with racists who believe the black victim deserved it for having ideas above his station.
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That's a great theory, until your home is raided by FBI and IRS agents, whose guns are harder to ignore.
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When you are already in a prison, being locked up only means free meals.
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and in the usa free doctors
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What's that got to do with it?
But yes, immigrants will consider laws against immigration unjust and hence break them. Whether I consider them good or not does not matter simply because they don't really apply to me. It's like abortion laws, how I perceive them should be irrelevant considering that they do not apply to me.
Re: Your laws ignore my rights (Score:2)
I wonder what our forefathers would say about the current state of "democracy" which has the 0.1% in charge, but also having the plebes believe they have a voice. It would probably smell like tyranny to them, but would shiny things distract them like it does the rest of us?
Re: Your laws ignore my rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that they were the 0.1% of their day, they'll probably be all right with it. If you look at the history, you'll notice that their main beef was with taxes. And taxes are usually only something people who have lots will be riled up over enough to start a revolution. Poor people start revolutions over things like food.
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Don't look forwards to it. It *MAY* be better afterwards...eventually...but expect to be a part of the bloodbath while it's happening.
It would be better to avoid that event, but the government's behavior is making that look increasingly unlikely.
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There's one point of resistance: For all the provisions of TTP, the impact on illegal downloading isn't going to be great. Protest by getting those illegal files and sharing them even more, and by teaching others to do the same. Fill USB sticks and leave them in public places. Paste magnet links to good torrents on public boards.
vote it down (Score:5, Interesting)
This treaty is an outright declaration of class warfare, with lots of surveillance goodies thrown in to get the enforcement part of government on board.
The thing to do now in the US is simply vote it down. If it is fast tracked so that Congress can only vote yes or no, then "no" it is. Just in case there's a chance of passage, we should make a lot of noise, make sure our representatives know our will and that it won't be safe to ignore us.
This means War ! (Score:2)
choose your methods of fighting !
The Committee For Public Safety will now come to order !
resistance will not be futile, but mandatory.
Did you expect anything logical? (Score:2, Insightful)
Double-edged sword? (Score:4, Interesting)
Since this weakens the public domain and strengthens rights for rightsholders, does it comparably strengthen the case for copyleft? How/would this change FOSS promotion and/or adoption strategies?
Well, the good news is (Score:4, Interesting)
TPP Packs (Score:5, Interesting)
I strongly suggest that, in countries that will see their public domains turned back 20 years, electronic distributors of public domain works create a special "TPP Pack" -- a collection of works that are currently in the public domain, but will revert back to copyrighted status. This will give everyone enough time to download these packs before the TPP is ratified.
And I'm not getting any financial compensation for the fact that works I purchased, with the understanding that they would become public domain within the next two decades, will now not become so, and I'm sure that are those who are seniors and perhaps will never see those works enter the public domain during their remaining lifetime. Speaking of which, once those Generation Typewriter are removed from the voting constituents, perhaps Digital Issues will become more important and we will finally see copyright term reductions. Of course, retroactively, and without compensation as well.
PS why wasn't this included in the Canadian Government's "TPP summary"?
The Economist on TPP and patents (Score:5, Interesting)
The Economist is a very pro-business magazine. Here's what they said about patents and the TPP:
"The cost of the innovation that never takes place because of the flawed patent system is incalculable. Patent protection is spreading, through deals such as the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership, which promises to cover one-third of world trade. The aim should be to fix the system, not make it more pervasive."
-- The Economist, "Time to fix patents", 8 August 2015 [economist.com]
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The only people surprised by this are the useful idiots who actually believe--get this--that patents encourage innovation.
I mean, I know it's hard to believe anyone would fall for that crap, but some really do. We even get some posting around here now and again.
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Patents can actually serve their purpose. Most of the pharmaceutical industry is built around patents - companies spend vast amounts of money on research to get them. They are evil greedy mega-corps, of course, but that doesn't matter: Their drugs still keep people alive regardless of the motivation for their creation.
Part of the reason patents do more good than harm is their duration - it's long enough to be beneficial, but not so long that the costs outweigh the benefits. Copyright, on the other hand, has
Re:The Economist on TPP and patents (Score:4, Interesting)
http://dilbert.com/strip/2009-... [dilbert.com]
Burning all the big pharma to the ground would increase the health of the general public.
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But at what cost? To the unfortunate individual, and to society?
I won't buy that, forgive me, pablum. The capitalist system with patents does indeed get the development money spent - but then
Lotta lobbying went on too (Score:2)
Millions spent by 487 organizations to influence TPP outcome [opensecrets.org]
Kneel before the god of free trade.
I look forward to discovering the unexpected surprises in this thing.
Take advantage of it; copyleft (Score:4, Interesting)
Copyleft uses the power of copyright to subvert its common intent.
By giving copyright holders more powers, maybe we can now do more savage things to corporate violators, like send them jail.
Perhaps we need an anti-TPP software licence to take advange of this new power.
The harder they squeeze....
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Aren't they cute when they're naive?
Laws are to be used by the $BIGCORPS against ordinary people, not the other way around.
I found my own way to protest. (Score:3)
https://birds-are-nice.me/musi... [birds-are-nice.me]
I show how the concept of the public domain has been crushed by demonstrating just how little popular music exists in it.
I'd call this shameless self-promotion, but I make about £0.03 a month in advertising off that. Factor in that everyone uses ad-blocking here and I might make £0.06 this month if it gets slashdotted. No, I just want to flood the internet with public-domain music in open-standard format.
The whole TPP is terrible for any country not US (Score:3)
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The USTR that's pushing this is in a Democrat administration.
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I seem to recall a president back in the '80s that had some ties to Hollywood, too. A union organizer and former actor, if memory serves. Wife a former showgirl.
Re:Who are these people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Robert Reich is certainly right on about the demise of capitalism. Corporations stack the deck so much in their favor that capitalism as we used to have it, as it used to benefit average people, and lift them out of poverty, is pretty much dead. Any attempts to reform the system cause them to scream "socialist wealth redistribution."
I used to think those that picketed at G7 meetings against globalization were luddites. Now I completely understand. Globalization is more and more just bullying on a national scale.
Hopefully in Canada we can get the Conservatives out, though I'm not hopeful. Harper wants Canada to be just like the US in all the bad ways. However a conservative minority government is probably the worst case scenario up here--Harper would be absolutely dictatorial in such a government knowing that the electorate are going to punish anyone who brings the government down and brings on another round of elections. Both opposition parties say they won't even bother reading the TPP in the house (which is honestly a lie, but at least they say they oppose it). I dunno. Plus Trudeau is being an idiot refusing to even talk about a coalition with the NDP. But I digress.
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> the electorate are going to punish anyone who brings the government down and brings on another round of elections
Considering that only 1/3rd of Canadians want Harper, I'm not sure there would be "punishment". Also, I suspect that our current Governor General will not be so feeble and kowtow to Harper's prorogue or dissolution requests if the NDP and Liberals go the coalition route.
And despite Harper having scared Canadians the last time a coalition was tried, I think the desperation of so many Canadian
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Well only 1/3 of Canadians want Trudeau or Mulcair as well. I know it makes a really nice fake talking point and all that but be honest when you're trying to spew political agendas.
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Heck, if we were really open to coalition governments, maybe we would still have the Reform party.
We do. They just re-branded and absorbed the remains of the PC Party.
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Unfortunately for future generations, I'm pretty sure the demise of the kind of capitalism we used to have was inevitable. You can go back to the '20s and '30s and find critics of capitalism describing this exact scenario in great detail.
Like Empire America, the see
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Like Empire America, the seeds of capitalism's own destruction were sown at it's very birth.
Uh, no. It's socialism, and the crony 'capitalism' it feeds, that we're seeing the end of, Socialism cannot survive in a post-industrial economy, which is why big governments around the world are trying to hard to retard progress.
Re:Who are these people? (Score:5, Insightful)
capitalism as we used to have it, as it used to benefit average people, and lift them out of poverty, is pretty much dead.
What makes you assume this was ever the purpose and not just a side-effect?
It is very, very visible here in Germany. In fact, it's so transparent that you would have to be completely blind to not notice it.
Germany had very strong social systems and a good distribution of wealth. There were poor and rich, but very few very poor and very few crazy rich. Normal people could afford a house and a car on one salary from a regular job. Unemployment money was high enough that you wouldn't lose your home and pensions were so that retiring didn't mean becoming poor. Universal health care? We've had that always and it was adequate. Doctors were so good we exported them to other countries. Basically, a lot of people could actually afford those Mercedes and BMW cars we make.
After the fall of communism that all changed. Politics intentionally created a new low-cost labour market. Unemployment benefits dropped, lots of social benefits were dismantled, and when you are of working age, you are being bombarded with advertisement telling you to buy into this or that investment scheme because your pension will not allow you a good life anymore. All of that happened in less than 20 years. It started almost exactly after the re-unification, which provided a nice excuse for some measures ("it's so expensive, we need to save money").
What you learn from that is that all of this has been a front. The reason capitalism in Germany allowed for a good life was not inherent to capitalism. It was added benefits that were included because West Germany was too close to communist East Germany and the western allies needed to make sure the west german people would not look to East Germany and see something better, but the other way around (which, btw., worked).
Once the threat of people actually desiring communism disappeared, the facade came down. Now we see what capitalism is really about, has always been about. It just stopped pretending.
Re:Who are these people? (Score:5, Insightful)
socialist wealth redistribution
Often they just say 'wealth redistribution', which is the phrase that annoys me more than any other in political discussions. The people who say it are always implicitly in favour of wealth redistribution in one direction and often opposed to things that slow it, not just things that might reverse it. If I have $1m, and I invest it at a return 1% above the rate of inflation (not so hard when you have $1m), then I make $10K/year just from having money. If I have $10m and I make the same investments, then I'm making $100K/year, which is more than most people who work for a living, again just from starting with capital.
The average net worth of US senators in 2011 (I couldn't find newer figures) was $14m, for senators it was $7m (before anyone jumps in with partisan claims, the average for Republicans was higher in the Senate, but lower in the House). These people are earning more from their investments than most of their constituents. They're all - on both sides of the aisle - very much in favour of wealth redistribution, as long as that wealth keeps flowing to them.
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In fact, they didn't learn a fucking thing. That was obvious when they elected him to a second term.
Yeah, right. You really think Romney would have been a better choice?
Democracy means nothing when you're only given the choice between arsenic and cyanide.
Re: Check the priorities... (Score:3)
Free as in without inconvenient restrictions like treating your workers like humans.