I appeared yesterday on Bloomberg Television to discuss the impact of the TPP on Canadian intellectual property law. The discussion focused on the need for consultation and to take a closer look at the provisions in the agreement.

07290126 by SumofUs (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/vKwD5e
The TPP, IP and Canada: My Bloomberg TV Interview
February 5, 2016
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byMichael Geist

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Interesting to see and feel Bloomberg TV’s presentation and hostility towards your highly-detailed and well-tempered/collected concerns from the IP side. I understand the pro side got some time at the front. I’d be surprised if she injected the downsides as belligerently during that time. You must be a real pain in the butt for those who want it. Great stuff!
Next time you’re asked about digital locks, just say “It’d make it a crime to do many things that are currently copyright exempt, like ripping a dvd to watch on your tablet, or making backups.” Instead you went to the border extensions, then to the half-century old copyright extension, and then to Can-con, and finally didn’t get to the answer. Make it shorter.
Also when Sookman says the TPP makes only incrementally marginally larger changes to the laws that we’ve already had, that’d be a good time to bring up the “radical” changes, like that it gives up sovereignty over our domain name space, reverses the hands-off approach to the net that we have maintained for this long, introduces takedowns, domain seizures, and criminalizes speech, probably some linking too, and any act of “fair dealing” that the corporations decide they want to lock us out of, as mentioned above. These are the changes that we care about.
But, for the sake of all of our digital rights, please, please keep up the good work!
“…probably some linking too…”
If it was ever decided that links could actually infringe, that would be when we can finally say the inmates are running the asylum. The internet would certainly become pretty dysfunctional in such a case.
RE: Linking
Glyn Moody’s report on Feb 4th for ARS Technica details the GSMedia case where the legality of hyperlinking will be decided. Here’s a link: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/europes-top-court-mulls-legality-of-hyperlinks-shockwaves-could-be-huge-for-web-users/
(I hope it’s legal…)
We don’t even understand the powers that the TPP is giving away.