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The TPP had many other issues though. Examples include criminal penalties for breaking DRM or disclosing trade secrets, and establishing an international tribu
by cyphar 8y ago
The TPP had many other issues though.
Examples include criminal penalties for breaking DRM or disclosing trade secrets, and establishing an international tribunal that allows corporations to sue for monetary damages from a government that passes a law which they feel is discriminatory. (I know the US has trade agreements like this already, but it's a new thing for Australia -- and unfortunately we are now part of the new US-exempt TPP.)
- dragontamer 8y agoThe point of that was to stop Malaysia and Singapore from pirating movies and software. I think there's something to be said about the correct distrust of MPAA. But at the same time, Malaysia and Singapore were clear pirate hubs that were harmful to any IP based economy.
- fungi 8y ago> ... Singapore were clear pirate hubs that were harmful to any IP based economy. That's an absurd and factually incorrect statement.
- crowdpleaser 8y agoYou're aware of the history of singapore, right? Joke alert - it used to be a piracy hub.
- fungi 8y agoarr. strait over my head.
- Asooka 8y agoWell, from my point of view, copyright maximalism is much bigger theft than file sharing in Malaysia.
- avar 8y agoWhat's your proposed alternative to this sort of international tribunal? To me it feels like obviously the correct solution, and e.g. the EU/EEA has this with the EFTA courts and the WTO has it with its courts. Point in favor: 1. It makes sense for a corporation in say Malaysia to be able to sue Australia over state subsidies, otherwise they need to convince their own governments to bring it up at the inter-state level, and Malaysia may consider it too small of an issue to piss off Australia 2. There needs to be one centralized enforcing mechanism. A Malaysian company can't sue the Australian government in its own courts (or Australia's), both would have an obvious bias towards their own country. Even if we assume the courts are fair you'll create N^2 amount of enforcement relationships for the N countries in the deal. That's just redundant, and everyone has an interest in centrally set legal precedent. 3. There need to be damages so countries can't circumvent the trade deal with what amounts to state-sponsored favoritism with impunity.
- afiori 8y agoThe presence of a central court that can regulate goverment that act rashly is one thing, to allow individual companies to sue governments is another.
- avar 8y agoYes it's a different thing. I'm asking you to make the case that it's a bad thing, which you're not doing. You're also assuming that all trade disputes are going to involve country X having an issue with country Y, whereas e.g. in the EU/EEA companies sometimes sue their own government for being in breach of the trade rules, and prevail in front of the EFTA court. E.g. a meat importing company in Iceland sued the Icelandic state over the Icelandic government's ban on the import of fresh meat from the EU/EEA[1]. They prevailed, and now Iceland's having to allow that, over the objections of its powerful farming lobby. It wouldn't have made sense for any foreign EU/EEA government to start a trade dispute with Iceland over this matter, but it got resolved because a local company was able to sue and have the EFTA court rule on the matter. Why shouldn't the aggrieved party be able to sue? 1. http://www.eftasurv.int/media/press-releases/Fact-sheet-Iceland_s-restrictions-on-the-import-of-fresh-meat,-egg-and-dairy-products-in-breach--ENG.pdf http://www.eftasurv.int/media/press-releases/Fact-sheet-Icel...