TPP ‘consistent’ with Canadian copyright law, government says

Details about provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that could affect Canada’s media and telecom industries remained scant Monday as the government announced the conclusion of the agreement, though officials said the agreement would not put new constraints on the cultural sector and is “fully consistent” with current Canadian copyright law. A government official speaking to media on a background basis during a technical briefing said Canada “preserved the flexibility of all levels of government to adopt and maintain policies and programs that support the creation, production and development of Canadian cultural content through exceptions in a number of chapters.” In response to a question from The Wire Report about how the TPP will affect the telecom and media sectors, the official said: “We have managed to secure within this negotiation a number of exceptions and particular provisions that will allow Canada and Canadians to operate and protect and promote culture and cultural policies as they do today. So there are no constraints that have been placed on Canada and the provinces and the federal level in that regard.” The individual said the agreement would “put in place predictable and transparent” rules regarding intellectual property, which will reflect existing Canadian rules, such as the notice-and-notice regime. “What we were able to conclude in the TPP is fully consistent with Canadian law and policy, and included in that is Canada’s position or Canada’s regime pursuant to the recently-adopted Copyright Modernization Act,” the official added. The government official said that the agreement also provides “a number of other protections,” such as “protection and enforcement for copyright and related rights that build on the World International Property Organization Internet treaty, which Canada ratified in 2014.” Text of the agreement has not been released. Other countries involved in the pact are the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. A government spokesman did not respond to a question about when the full text will be available. A report in the New York Times Monday said the full text might not be released for another month. Meghan Sali, digital rights specialist with Internet advocacy group OpenMedia, said in a phone interview that most of what the public knows about the agreement was revealed only through leaked drafts, which include some “really concerning issues.” “The whole deal has been negotiated in extreme secrecy with no real genuine opportunity for citizen or stakeholder engagement,” she said. The most recent leak indicated that there would be a 20-year extension on copyright terms, she noted. Additionally, Sali said, leaks showed that “it looks like they will be creating entirely new provisions in Canadian law that will allow for ISPs to block websites due to copyright infringement and new potential criminal penalties or the circumvention of digital locks and rights management information.” In a blog post this summer, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist wrote that Canada stood alone during the negotiations in “opposing mandatory criminal penalties for rights management information violations (for example, making available copies of works knowing that rights management information has been removed).” He wrote that if “Canada caves on the issue, the digital lock and rights management information provisions in the Copyright Act would require by adding new criminal penalties.” Geist also said that the wording of a provision in the leaked draft indicated that it “it seems likely that the U.S. is pushing Canada to create a new website blocking requirement in return for acceptance of the notice-and-notice system.” In a press release Monday, the federal NDP said the TPP could threaten Internet freedoms. It said the agreement could impose “tougher criminal penalties for small-scale alleged copyright infringement, like uploading a home video with a popular song playing in it,” and force ISPs to “collect and hand over your private data without privacy safeguards.” The press release also said the agreement could “give media conglomerates more power to remove online content and even terminate your access to the Internet,” and make it possible for ISPs to “kick an entire family off the Internet without any evidence or due process.” The U.S. government released a summary of the agreement on Sunday, which includes some detail on the telecom and intellectual-property provisions of the agreement, among others. The agreements requires “major telecommunications services suppliers in their territory provide interconnection, leased circuit services, co-location and access to poles and other facilities under reasonable terms and conditions and in a timely manner,” it specified. TPP also recognizes “the importance of relying on market forces and commercial negotiations in the telecommunications sector.” Regarding mobile roaming, the agreement states that if one country regulates wholesale international roaming, operators from other TPP countries will be able to benefit from lower rates, the U.S. summary said. “In copyright, the IP chapter establishes commitments requiring protection for works, performances, and phonograms such as songs, movies, books, and software, and includes effective and balanced provisions on technological protection measures and rights management information,” the summary said. The agreement also requires the signatories to “to continuously seek to achieve balance in copyright systems through among other things, exceptions and limitations for legitimate purposes, including in the digital environment.” The agreement also requires signatories to “establish or maintain a framework of copyright safe harbors for Internet Service Providers (ISPs),” and specifies that those safe harbours cannot be contingent on requiring ISPs to monitor “their systems for infringing activity.” The summary added that the signatories “agree to provide strong enforcement systems, including, for example, civil procedures, provisional measures, border measures, and criminal procedures and penalties for commercial-scale trademark counterfeiting and copyright or related rights piracy.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

TPP ‘consistent’ with Canadian copyright law, government says

News | 10/05/2015 8:57 pm EDT

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