maximalists – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Senator Tillis Holds Secret Meeting With IP Maximalists To Discuss A Single US 'IP' Agency

from the that-would-be-a-problem dept

Senator Thom Tillis is chock full of bad ideas about copyrights and patents — mostly focused on making things worse for the public by expanding the monopoly powers granted to patent and copyright holders. So I guess it comes as little surprise that he held a secret meeting that appears to have only been attended by copyright maximalists to talk about trying to merge the Copyright Office into the US Patent & Trademark Office.

In a previously unreported meeting Friday, staffers from the office of Sen. Thom Tillis, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, met with representatives from across the content industries to discuss consolidating America?s three main IP regulators into one sprawling, catch-all agency.

?I think we could look at the organizational structure and ask questions about what?s the most effective way of doing it,? Tillis told National Journal on Tuesday. ?At the end of the day, I want a fair, predictable, and lean IP apparatus?whether it?s patents, trademarks, copyrights.?

Tillis spokesperson Adam Webb said in a statement that the senator ?hosted initial meetings on creating a unified, independent intellectual-property agency and on how to resolve online copyright piracy.? Webb said 35 participants attended the two Friday meetings, which he stressed were preliminary in nature and not guaranteed to result in new legislation.

It seems weird that, if you were exploring such a thing that you wouldn’t bring in folks outside of the copyright maximalist industries, but apparently that’s of less interest to Tillis?

The idea of “consolidating” the Copyright Office into the PTO has long been a dream for many copyright maximalists — mainly because they’re extraordinarily upset that the Copyright Office is a part of the Library of Congress, and they hate the fact that the Librarian of Congress sometimes wants to actually live up to the mission of making sure that copyright is there to “promote the progress” of learning. They’d much rather it be connected with the USPTO, which is under the Commerce Department and clearly designed to be in the interests of the big companies that control it.

It’s already kind of a travesty that the PTO is one agency for both patents and trademarks, since those two things serve extraordinarily different purposes. Trademarks, again, are supposed to be a form of consumer protection — making sure that when you’re buying something from a certain company, you’re aware of who really made it, and aren’t being tricked into buying a copycat. Patents, on the other hand, are supposed to be (though rarely are) about incentivizing innovation. Copyright is supposed to be for the encouragement of learning. It’s just that over the centuries, certain industries have bastardized all three to pretend that they’re about helping a few giant businesses collect as much monopoly rent as possible. Tillis shouldn’t be helping that.

About the only reassuring quote in the piece comes from Mitch Glazier, who now runs the RIAA, but got his initial job at the RIAA just months after he snuck four words into an unrelated piece of legislation that effectively took away the ability of musicians to get control over their works (enabling the RIAA to have much greater control). In the article, Glazier worries that a consolidated agency would focus too much on patents at the expense of copyrights:

Glazier said his office is ?agnostic? about the notion of a unified IP agency, but noted it could kick off a turf war between the three agencies. He also said a single agency could end up focusing largely on patents?far and away the greatest moneymaker?to the detriment of key copyright issues.

Still, there’s literally no need for this move to happen at all, and I don’t understand why Tillis is exploring the idea, nor why he is holding secret meetings with the copyright industry to try to get their buy in.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright office, hollywood, library of congress, maximalists, thom tillis, uspto
Companies: mpa, riaa

Revolving Door: MPAA Hires Chief USTR Negotiator Behind ACTA And TPP's IP Chapter

from the a-big-pat-on-the-back dept

For the past five years or so, the USTR’s chief intellectual property negotiator has been Stan McCoy. McCoy has long positioned himself as an intellectual property maximalist, repeating talking points from lobbyists regularly, while condescending to anyone who questions the legitimacy of those claims. McCoy famously was the chief negotiator behind the US’s disastrous (and mostly failed) attempt to push ACTA through, as well as the lead on the TPP’s intellectual property chapter — a chapter so bad it may help sink the TPP agreement. In fact, previous reports have noted that McCoy’s bullying and aggression in trying to push through the TPP were angering others in the negotiations. McCoy also has a long history of mocking public interest advocates, while praising maximalists for similar tactics. From a report a few years ago concerning a hearing that McCoy chaired:

The burden of proof was very obviously on the public interest, civil society groups. Stan McCoy of the USTR, who was presiding over the hearing, joked about the two-phonebook-sized submission by the International Intellectual Property Alliance. (Lol?) Sadly, there is no independent verification of these industry reports and there were no tough questions for industry regarding their testimony. Several times, McCoy interrupted civil society groups’ testimony to chide them on speaking too generally about IP policy, but refrained when industry witnesses did the same.

Given all that, it should be no surprise at all that McCoy, the failed strategist behind ACTA and the TPP’s IP provisions… has received his reward and pat on the back from the industry: a shiny new job at the MPAA. As Tim Lee notes in that link, this is just the latest in the never-ending revolving door between maximalist lobbying groups and the USTR:

Last year I wrote that at least a dozen former senior USTR officials have moved to industry groups that favor stronger protections. McCoy’s hire makes it a baker’s dozen. Previous hires include including Greg Frazier, who (according to his LinkedIn page) spent 8 years as the executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America after a stint at USTR. Other former USTR officials took jobs at drug and medical device companies.

McCoy’s old job, assistant USTR for intellectual property and innovation, made him the Obama administration’s highest-ranking trade negotiator on patent and copyright issues. Jamie Love, director of the public interest organization Knowledge Ecology International, notes that this isn’t the first time USTR’s top intellectual property official has gone on to take a lobbying job. McCoy’s predecessor, Victoria Espinel, is now the head of the software industry group BSA.

Espinel’s predecessor at BSA was Robert Holleyman, the man Obama just nominated to a senior post at USTR. While at BSA, Holleyman supported the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have created an official internet blacklist to aid in anti-piracy efforts. (He backtracked a few weeks later after an uproar in the technology community.

Another of McCoy’s predecessors as USTR’s top IP official is Joe Papovich, who later spent seven years as a lobbyist for the recording industry.

As Lee notes, the revolving door between maximalist lobbying organizations and the USTR goes round and round, with USTR officials joining the lobbyist organizations and then going back to the USTR. It’s a clear case of regulatory capture by the industry. None of those folks go on to public interest or civil society groups, nor does the USTR ever seem interested in hiring those people. It’s entirely a one-sided effort to help out the biggest lobbying interests. Work for a few years pushing through policies that favor those companies, and then get “rewarded” with a nice, high-paying job for those very same lobbyists, and no one ever seems to point out the obvious corruption in the entire process.

As Lee notes, as easy as it is to ascribe comic-book levels of ill-intent here, that’s unlikely. McCoy and others genuinely believe what they’re doing is the right thing. But the end results are clear:

I doubt public servants like McCoy consciously pursue dubious policies in an effort to curry favor with future employers. McCoy’s press representative hasn’t responded to my interview request, but I assume McCoy sincerely believes the Hollywood-friendly policies he advocated at USTR were in the interests of the nation.

But the revolving door between USTR and industry groups creates a strong but subtle pressure on USTR’s culture. Like many government agencies, USTR regularly turns to outside experts to help it sort through complex trade issues. Naturally, they turn to people they trust: their former colleagues — or even former bosses — who now work at trade organizations with plenty of resources to devote to understanding the minutia of trade policy.

And it’s even worse than that, frankly. Because, when you combine that revolving door, with the proposals seen in ACTA, TPP and elsewhere, it undermines the public trust in all of this. People see it and naturally assume corruption, even if the intent is pure. In other words, even if we give McCoy and others the benefit of the doubt, the very fact that he spent 5 years pushing entirely for the MPAA’s policies, while brushing off any and all claims from the MPAA’s critics, and then took a job at the MPAA, confirms in the minds of many people that the USTR has no interest in representing the public good. And that perception (regardless if the underlying intent is real or not) corrodes public trust in the federal government, and the USTR in particular.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, maximalists, patents, revolving door, stan mccoy, tpp, ustr
Companies: mpaa

from the the-public-needs-to-have-a-say dept

Two years ago, then US Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Reuters, effectively, that he would not release the negotiating texts of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, because if the public knew what was in TPP, it would not allow the agreement to be approved. His reference was to a previous attempt at a trade agreement, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which failed after negotiators released some draft texts. Kirk and the entire USTR seem to have taken exactly the wrong lesson from this. Rather than recognizing that the way to pass comprehensive trade agreements is to actually be more open and involve the public from the very beginning, so that there’s more widespread agreement and support for what the USTR is doing, they’ve gone in the other direction. Believing that keeping the negotiating position of the US a total and complete secret is the way forward. As Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to the current USTR, Michael Froman, last summer:

I have heard the argument that transparency would undermine the Administration’s policy to complete the trade agreement because public opposition would be significant. If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States. I believe in transparency and democracy and I think the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) should too.

The EFF and a bunch of other organizations have designated this week as Copyright Week — a chance for the public to weigh in and discuss copyright law and where it needs to go. They’ve put together a series of principles, that are worth reading. Each day will discuss different topics related to copyright law, specifically focusing on the aspects that are important to the public — and which seem to be ignored (or pushed to the side) by copyright maximalists.

Today’s principle is “transparency” — something that has been sorely lacking in copyright law for quite some time. As you know, the history of copyright law is that it’s supposed to be about using limited monopolies to encourage the dissemination of knowledge for the purpose of scientific advancement and learning. Yet, from the very beginning, it’s been used for other purposes: initially for censorship and control, usually by gatekeepers, who are attempting to limit and control content production and dissemination for the sake of keeping the costs artificially high, allowing them to take the majority of the profits, often leaving the actual creators with little — and the public with extreme limits on how they can communicate.

In recent decades, this has gotten much more extreme, as those gatekeepers have hijacked the legislative process multiple times with a very clever, but ultimately bogus “story,” in which they pretend that they are representing content creators, even as they work hard to screw over those artists. Maximalist lobbyists have taken an incredible approach to ratcheting up copyright laws around the globe, hitting on dozens of different ways to continually push through changes without public input or opinion.

One recent example: in 1995, President Clinton’s “commissioner of patents and trademarks,” Bruce Lehman, released a white paper that pushed for the draconian copyright provisions of the DMCA, including takedowns and anti-circumvention provisions. In the light of day — where at least some people were watching what Congress was doing — no such laws could be passed. However, Lehman was so tied to Hollywood’s interests, that he’s actually happy to admit that when Congress wouldn’t pass such a law he did “an end-run around Congress” by running to WIPO (where the public was not watching), and getting a “treaty” passed, which basically required the DMCA.

Treaty in hand, maximalists ran back to Congress, screaming about how we had to pass the DMCA or violate our “international obligations.” And, it worked. While large ISPs were (thankfully) able to make enough noise to include the one good part of the DMCA — the safe harbor provisions for service providers — the rest of the terrible DMCA came into law entirely because of this sneaky process used by Lehman and other maximalists to hide away from where the public was looking, and push through some agreement. This has been the ongoing plan for quite some time. Maximalists will push through bad legislation wherever possible, and then use international treaties and trade agreements to try to take the worst laws they were able to get in one place, and “harmonize” them, to make them required everywhere.

And it’s been quite effective. Using international agreements, negotiated in secret, to then tie the hands of legislatures has been used countless times to expand copyright law around the globe over the last couple decades.

But in the last couple years, something changed. It started with SOPA. A deal that was entirely negotiated in the backrooms by copyright maximalists and their friends in Congress failed completely when the public realized what was going on. Soon after that, ACTA, yet another “international agreement” that pushed for “harmonizing” maximalist rules, and which was negotiated entirely in secret, flopped in Europe after the public was exposed to it. And yet, the maximalist lobbyists and their friends at the USTR (who, surprise surprise, are often the same people), continue to believe that they can use this strategy going forward. Negotiate in secret, refuse to be open to the public, and then tie Congress’ hands.

That’s what’s happening now with the TPP and the TTIP/TAFTA agreements. The USTR has absolutely refused anything resembling transparency — while insultingly insisting that they’re being incredibly transparent, because they’ll “consult” with anyone. But, as we’ve explained countless times, listening is not transparency. Transparency is about providing information back, sharing what’s being negotiated in our name, and then not supporting Congress limiting itself from actually discussing what’s in the document.

The USTR and Hollywood have a playbook from the last couple of decades to continually ratchet up copyright law, and limit any attempt to roll back its excesses. And it starts with a complete lack of transparency. It has to. Because, as we saw with SOPA and ACTA, when you actually let the public see what’s being pushed for in our name, they fight back, and they say “we do not want this.” And, as Senator Warren pointed out, if the American people do not want it, then it should not be the policy of the United States.

A lack of transparency in copyright policy serves only the desires of the maximalist to control speech, to limit innovation and to harm creators and the public (who are often one and the same). It’s an undemocratic attempt to aid a group of greedy gatekeepers, whose interests are antithetical to the intent and purpose of copyright law. That the USTR has been willing to support this effort, and works hand in hand with Hollywood to make sure there is no transparency at all is the true travesty in all of this, and should raise significant questions about whom the USTR really works for. Is it the American public or is it Hollywood?

Filed Under: acta, bruce lehman, copyright, copyright week, dmca, international agreements, lobbyists, maximalists, sopa, tafta, tpp, transparency, ttip, ustr

US Wants WIPO To Host IP Maximalist Agenda Day; Public Interest Groups Not Invited [Updated]

from the isn't-this-for-the-public-interest dept

See the update at the end

We’ve already written about how WIPO caved to US pressure (along with a few other countries) in delaying a decision on whether or not the Pirate Parties International group can act as an observer at WIPO meetings. However, in the KEI report that revealed that decision, there was also a separate story worth highlighting as well: the news that the US is pushing for WIPO to hold an intellectual property maximalist day, but has no interest in hearing what public interest groups have to say.

In another development, the US said it is asked that WIPO set aside a regular day for corporate right holder groups. One member of the US delegate said they wanted a “Davos type” format, with CEOs of leading companies interacting with government delegates and WIPO officials. When asked, have you proposed similar event for consumer, public health and development groups, the answer was no. The US said its proposal at WIPO for the right-holders day had a lot of support. It also comes at the same time that the pharmaceutical and processed food industries are seeking more direct roles in the governance of the World Health Organization (WHO), under a “WIPO Reform” negotiation.

This is, of course, not particularly surprising, though it is troubling. Considering, again, that we’re told that the purpose of these laws is to benefit the public, even as these companies often pretend it’s really just about benefiting them, it would seem that any such event should have a very high level of participation by the public itself, including various public interest groups.

Update: Some good additional info from Nick Ashton-Hart who was in the room when this was proposed, and who says that it’s not as bad as the original report suggested. Instead, he points out that the request did not come from industry sources, and isn’t about big rightsholders, but about actually getting real innovators and inventors to come and tell WIPO officials what they do — which could actually be useful. I’m still concerned about how this would be set up in reality, but perhaps it’s not as bad as it sounded from the original report.

Filed Under: copyright, crony capitalism, maximalists, public interest, wipo