The Grand Finale of the TPP

Over the weekend Wikileaks revealed what is believed to be the final version of the Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). For many commentators, the final version while positive for rights-holders is quite disappointing for users and the public domain.

Within the Chapter, all the provisions that recognise the rights and benefits of rights-holders are binding, while those provisions recognising the rights of users are non-binding. In the previous draft Chapter that had been leaked there were a variety of obligations related to preserving and promoting access to public domain material. Despite the fact that the Chapter briefly mentions that the parties aim to achieve a balance in its copyright system, there are no hard obligations imposed upon them to do so.

One of the biggest blows for users is the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years. Such an extension will only keep the wealth in the hands of large rights-holding corporations and will inevitably make business more difficult for libraries, writers and ordinary users who want and need to use works of deceased artists that have made their way into the public domain. Some commentators have suggested the drafting of this provision could have been much worse considering that previous drafts of the chapter were pushing for a 120 year copyright term for corporate works.

Also within the Chapter are provisions relating to ISP liability that suggest that most countries adopt a version of the U.S notice-and-takedown system. Despite no explicit requirement for such a system or a graduated response scheme, ISP’s are still referred to as copyright enforcers within the Chapter who will be given legal and economic incentives to cooperate with rights-holders.

After many years of negotiation a final agreement has been reached regarding the Intellectual Property Chapter of the TPP, but there is still much scepticism surrounding its ability to balance the rights of users and copyright owners. Stay tuned for more updates in this area!

For a deeper analysis of the IP Chapter head to:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/final-leaked-tpp-text-all-we-feared