Copyright Treaty Threatens Creativity

Agreement makes smothering intellectual property restrictions an international problem

EFF has previously written about various troubling provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that is being negotiated under wraps. One other major concern is that TPP seeks to propagate the excessive copyright terms currently found in American copyright legislation, and will become yet another tool of the second enclosure movement: "the enclosure of the intangible commons of the mind".

These terms are detrimental to creativity and innovation and only serve to benefit the major record and movie production companies who lobbied for them in the U.S. Now starting with the Pacific region, these exorbitant counterproductive terms could be imposed on countries with more progressive copyright laws through the force of the TPP. Making these terms part of trade agreements is part of a general move towards "forum shifting" and "policy laundering" of the IP policy discussion away from places where there is at least some requirement for public input and transparency, such as Congress.