TPP Is a Monopoly Protection Scheme, the Exact Opposite of a "Free Trade" Deal

A little confusing, but follow the gray lines. The above figure illustrates how the duration of the copyright that the Walt Disney company claims in Steamboat Willie — marked by the solid gray line — has twice approached expiration — by the dashed gray line. In both instances, federal lawmakers amended the Copyright Act to extend the duration, both of copyrighted works generally and works, such as Steamboat Willie, that predated the amendments (source; click to enlarge). In 2023, expect copyright protection in general to be extended again. This law is colloquially called "The Mouse Protection Act."

by Gaius Publius

Normally when we think of "free trade," us lay people, we think of removing barriers to the exchange of goods and services. Removing barriers is the "free" part of "free trade." Of course, there really is no such thing as a "no barriers" market, since even the simplest of markets always has rules, and those who write the rules are "picking winners and losers" by definition.

Consider, for example, a flea market held in the parking lot of a local fairground on a Saturday. To participate, you have to register for a space with the organizers (the parking lot isn't infinitely long or wide), set up an approved tent or table, and usually, if your goods are sold by weight or volume, have your weights and measuring devices certified by the organizers as honest.

All of the restrictions above place limits on the "market" — put it under control of the organizers — but consider for a minute just the last one, certified weights and measures. How is that not "picking winners and losers"? Winners — Vendors with honest scales. Losers — Vendors who cheat their customers.

Or consider a flea market without that requirement. Winners — Vendors who cheat their customers. Losers — Vendors with honest scales.

A lot has been written, in fact, about the non-existence, by definition, of anything resembling a "free market," including much by the writer Masaccio (main site here).

Monopolies and "Free Trade"

But that point aside, let's consider TPP from another standpoint. Monopolies are the enemies of so-called "free trade" since, by definition, they destroy competition and invert the usual assumptions about pricing power. In a well-supplied market, a market with much available product, pricing power is with the buyers, the customers, since it is they who, in the aggregate, set the limits of "what the market will bear."

But in a market in which the supply of something essential for life — water, food, life-saving medical supplies and care, even apartment housing in an old-style "company town" — is not "well-supplied," but is instead controlled and constrained by a single supplier or a small cartel of non-competing suppliers, that's just the opposite of a "free market." It's in fact the least free a market can get.

Thus it is with TPP. Very little actual trade will be freed up if TPP is passed, since barriers to "trade" among the many of the potential signing nations are nearly non-existent.

On the other hand, one of the most important outcomes of  theTPP will be the destruction of a competitive market, the one for life-saving drugs and other "intellecual property." For these products, the TPP raises barriers as surely as tariffs would do.

Economist Dean Baker calls the TPP a "protectionist" agreement. Baker (my emphasis):

The TPP And Free Trade: Time To Retake The English Language

The proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are planning to do a full court press in the lame duck session of Congress following the election. We will be bombarded with speeches and columns from President Obama and other illustrious figures telling us how it is important to approve the TPP for a variety of reasons.

We can be certain that one of the reasons will be the inherent virtues of free trade. They will not be telling the truth.

The TPP is not about free trade. It does little to reduce tariffs and quotas for the simple reason that these barriers are already very low. In fact, the United States already has trade deals with six of the other eleven countries in the TPP. This is why the non-partisan United States International Trade Commission (ITC) estimated that when the full gains from the TPP are realized in 2032, they will come to just 0.23 percent of GDP. This is a bit more than a normal month’s growth.

Again, the full gains from the TPP will come to just 0.23% of GDP — one month's growth. So what is going on with the TPP? Why do people like Barack Obama (and Pfizer, etc.) want it to pass so badly? Among the reasons is this one:

[T]he TPP goes far in the opposite direction, increasing protectionism in the form of stronger and longer patent and copyright protection. These forms of protection for prescription drugs, software, and other products, often raise the price by a factor of a hundred or more above the free market price. This makes them equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent.

These forms of protection do serve a purpose in promoting innovation and creative work, but we have other more efficient mechanisms to accomplish this goal. Furthermore, the fact that they serve a purpose doesn’t mean they are not protectionist. 

Tilting the playing field toward Money, a scheme that protects the holders of intellectual property ... forever, if they can get away with it. For example, consider this:

Copyright Length And The Life Of Mickey Mouse

Last week, we reported on Rep. Zoe Lofgren's statement that copyright law has become equal to the life of Mickey Mouse. Tom Bell has a couple of recent posts exploring issues related to Mickey Mouse and copyright, that seem worth exploring, given Rep. Lofgren's recognition of this fact. While he notes (as we have) that there's ample evidence to suggest that the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons really are in the public domain, he first explores how the length of copyright has followed the age of Mickey Mouse:

Bottom line: Until the current, neo-liberal capital-protecting political regime falls or is taken over, Mickey Mouse will never be in the public domain.

What About a "Free Market" for Doctors Too?

Baker finds something else significant about our so-called "free trade" agreements — they're very selective about which markets are "freed." Consider, for example, the market for relatively powerless manufacturing labor and the market for much more powerful (and wealthy) doctors.

Baker:

The other point to be made about free trade and protectionism is that our push for free trade has always been very selective. NAFTA and other trade deals were explicitly designed to make it as easy as possible for U.S. corporations to manufacture goods in the developing world and ship them back to the United States. ...

But [while] manufacturing workers in the developing world are willing to work for much lower pay than manufacturing workers in the United States, so are doctors in the developing world.

Unlike manufacturing workers, doctors are powerful enough to get protection. It is not generally possible for a doctor trained in another country to practice medicine in the United States unless they pass a U.S. residency program — for which there is a strict quota on foreign trained students. As a result of this restriction, doctors in the United States earn on average twice as much as doctors in Canada, Germany, and other wealthy countries. This protectionism costs the United States roughly $100 billion a year (around $700 per family) in higher health care costs.

If our trade negotiators actually were interested in “free trade,” they would have constructed a system whereby foreign trained doctors could be certified as meeting U.S. standards. They would then have the same freedom to practice as any doctor born and trained in the United States.

Again, a straight-up wealth protection scheme. Baker goes on to note that the "market for doctors" really is a trade issue, not an immigration one, since many German, Canadian, French and Indian doctors could most like get into the U.S. and get jobs — as waiters, for example — they just couldn't work as doctors.

Baker's conclusion is exactly right, that calling a deal like the TPP a "free trade agreement" is just propaganda: "When reporters call the TPP a 'free trade' deal, they are acting as advocates, not reporters. The TPP is a protectionist pact for those at the top who are worried that free trade will undermine their income — like it did for those at the middle and bottom."

There's No "Free Market" for Political Parties Either

I think if Democrats think that the Trumpist revolt against "free trade" deals is just an expression of anti-immigrant racism — and that they can pass TPP in the lame duck session without consequences — there may be a surprise in store for them. After all, there's no "free market" for U.S. political parties either — we have a carefully protected two-party monopoly — and there are only two ways to disrupt and revolt against it that I can think of. Neither is pretty, neither is orderly, and neither will be good for Democrats.

Forewarned? Let's hope so. The lame duck session is just weeks away.

GP
 

Aerosmith Tells Trump To Stop Using Their Music Without Paying

When Aerosmith attorney Dina LaPolt explained why Steven Tyler had asked her firm to send Trump's campaign a "cease-and-desist" letter in regard to one of the band's biggest hits, "Dream On," she said it had nothing to do with politics and that Tyler has no "personal issues with Mr. Trump." Tyler just doesn't want his song-- he wrote it and Trump has been playing the original performances of it without paying-- used in violation of copyright law. Copyright law entitles Tyler to compensation if the song is used publicly.

Tyler-- and the rest of the band-- were Trump's guests at the first Republican debate in Cleveland. Joe Perry admits he's a Republican but Tyler had always played it cagey about his politics, although he was identified as a "registered Republican" in the press reports about the cease-and-desist letter.

Tyler wrote the song in 1973 and it was the big single from their debut album-- and the first of Aerosmith's mainstream hit when it was re-released in 1976. (They released the song on 11 different albums and box-sets.) Tyler has made a fortune from the song, including when it was sampled by Eminem for "Sing For the Moment," covered by other artists like Kelly Sweet, Blessthefall, Alex Skolnick Trio and ex-Weather Girl Martha Wash, and played in video games, and movies and on TV shows. Adobe used the song for a TV spot for the 25th anniversary of Photoshop. Letting Donald Trump or anyone else use the song without paying could potentially jeopardize the substantial income stream Tyler makes from the song.

You'd Never Vote For A Republican? What If Justin Bieber Ran As One Against Amy Klobuchar?

OK, this is all fantasy. Justin won't even be 18 until next March and he's not only not an American citizen, he's not interested in becoming one... and at least in part because he loves Canada's socialized medicine. He is anti-Choice though, and ambivalent about gays, so we can stretch the fantasy a little and imagine him as a Republican. (He's unsure himself which party he'd back if he was old enough to vote and if he was an American citizen.)

"I really don't believe in abortion, Bieber says. "It's like killing a baby." How about in cases of rape? "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don't know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that."

But suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine Bieber has been a secret U.S. citizen for the past 9 years, is willing to live in Minnesota and is secretly 30-- passing the 3 constitutional requirements to take a Senate seat [although the Senate did allow 3 guys to enter who were barely out of their teens-- Henry Clay of Kentucky (29) in 1806, Armistead Mason of Virginia (28) in 1816 and John Eaton of Tennessee (28) in 1818].

Obviously, no matter how you look at it, a 6 year stint in the Senate would be a tremendous step down in the world for Bieber. But, as you can hear from the radio interview above he is pissed off at Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. Before retiring for a life as a blogger, I was the president of Reprise Records. Many people in the music industry made the same basically Luddite mistake Klobuchar is making and they are responsible for the demise of the record industry as we knew it back then. Monday Julianne Shepherd explained the whole problem at Alternet, a problem that could put blogs like DWT out of business, or at least under the thumb of the government.

In June, Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced SB 978, specifically “to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes.”

In lay terms, it’s the “illegal streaming bill,” and it would essentially make the streaming of any copyrighted material on the Internet a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. On paper, it sounds innocuous-- copyrighted material and the Internet have a contentious history, and efforts to curb piracy have conflicted with the concept of the Internet as a free exchange for information. But SB 978 is a sweeping curtailing of Internet rights under the guise of hindering piracy, and just one more bullet in a broader government effort to end the web as we know it, and snip away at the First Amendment.

Worse is the potential of SB 978 to prosecute those individuals uploading YouTube videos. This will not simply target those people uploading full movies there or to other video streaming sites. It could also be used to curb individual musicians who upload their cover versions of copyrighted songs, a tradition that practically made YouTube what it is today. The nonprofit Fight for the Future is particularly concerned with this aspect, and has launched a campaign called “Free Bieber,” using the example of Justin Bieber’s rise to fame as a way to get out the message. (Ironically, Bieber’s camp has issued a cease-and-desist over using his name in the campaign.)

The implications are far broader than a Bieber, though. When Rufus Wainwright and Sean Lennon covered Madonna’s “Material Girl” at Occupy Wall Street, if someone had uploaded a video of the performance to YouTube, Madonna (or whomever owns her music) could sue the uploader if it’s deemed a “public performance.” Reports the Internet advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):

In general, a “public performance” of a work under the Copyright Act occurs when a work is performed before a substantial gathering of people (for example, a concert) or when the work is transmitted in a way that it can be accessed by members of the public, even if individuals receive the performance in different places or at different times (for example, a TV broadcast).
As an initial matter, it’s hard to narrow the kinds of activities such a bill could potentially encompass. Practically speaking we wouldn’t expect to see most of these pursued or prevailing; however, uncertainty and the fear of prosecution and defense expenses could well discourage innovation in online services and lawful speech.

Enactment of this law could affect the millions of unknown, non-professional musicians who film themselves singing, say, John Lennon or Rihanna songs from their bedrooms. It’s hard to imagine the music industry attacking average citizens-- right? But who can forget the RIAA’s lawsuits against individuals who downloaded music as a way to make an example of their piracy stance-- including, in 2003, a 12-year-old girl living in New York public housing?

But that’s not where it ends: one troubling aspect of SB 978 is that its vague language enables it to forge a path to criminalize even linking to copyrighted information “like corporate media news sources, and shut down the alternative media”-- like AlterNet:

Copyrighted works protected here include audio-only works (musical works and sound recordings), audiovisual works (motion pictures, television programs, etc.), and computer programs. So if the bill is enacted, anyone engaged in webcasting without a license would appear to be subject to criminal penalties. While we still believe the focus is firmly on the illegal streaming of audiovisual content (like movies, live sporting events, other television programs), it is clear that the law could be used against anyone who is webcasting without the required licenses. One more reason to come into compliance with the statutory license applicable to webcasting.

The bill has serious bipartisan support-- Klobuchar introduced SB 978 along with John Cornyn, R-Tex. and Christopher Coons, D-Del., all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They were acting on a desire of Obama’s “IP czar” to attach bigger punishments to Internet-related crimes, believing that law enforcement will be more willing to prosecute with higher stakes. But it’s also another step toward curtailing First Amendment rights, as Congress navigates the tricky line between freedom of speech and the web...usually coming out on the side of corporations.

Meanwhile, Fight for the Future has toned down its previously Bieber-heavy Web site, while making it clear that music isn’t its only concern. For instance, it uses the example of libraries as a comparable resource to the Internet archives that both companies and individuals have spent decades building, asking the pressing question, “After spending thousands of years building libraries of donated books, why do governments try to tear them down when they happen spontaneously online?”

As America’s cash-poor libraries, cornerstones of our democracy, struggle to stay afloat, the open-source aspect of the Internet allows those who have enough funds to purchase every bit of information they ingest to learn at the same rate as those who do-- and to be competitive in both school and in their jobs. So as “Internet regulation” looks more like wholesale capitalism-- and another way to fracture our country, already smarting from inequity-- it becomes more important to uphold the First Amendment in all aspects of our culture... whether on Wall Street or online.

Luckily for Klobuchar, the Republicans are probably too lame to exploit this. If they did it right, she'd have virtually no chance to be reelected next year-- no matter how many slick puff pieces Rachel Maddow does for her without even bringing up her attack on free speech, and even though she does have some clueless, snarky mean people supporting her position.

Justin Bieber's YouTube for "Baby," the song that helped make his name a worldwide household term, has had 649,813,596 views. Think of them as votes. When Amy Klobuchar won her seat in 2006 she got 1,279,515 votes. Two years later, Obama got 66,882,230. In fact, add in McCain's 58,343,671 and you still don't even come close to Bieber... and their combined marketing campaign cost a lot more than his.

Publicity Seeking Lunatic Fringe Republican Chuck DeVore vs Don Henley

On Friday Don Henley sued extreme right wing kook and U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, an Assemblyman from Irvine in Orange County. DeVore ignored a cease and desist request in regard to his use of Henley's song "The Boys of Summer" as part of his campaign to denigrate President Obama and unseat Senator Barbara Boxer. This is the lunatic fringe former GOP Whip who resigned to protest the Republican legislative leadership agreeing to a compromise that would keep California functioning as a viable state paying teachers and firemen and policemen their salaries. To say DeVore is an extremist is like saying water is wet. And like many selfish, intolerant and self-entitled Republicans, DeVore thinks laws are for other people, not for him. He keeps ignoring copyright laws and using Don Henley songs, "The Boys of Summer" and "All She Wants to Do Is Dance," to attack Senator Barbara Boxer.

Right-wing Republicans like Devore hate China-- he even wrote a Chinaphobic book-- and castigate China's flouting of the copyright laws but when a songwriter challenges DeVore for the unauthorized use his work, the self-righteous assemblyman is on the warpath, counter-suing Henley and screaming about his Constitutional rights to free speech. He posted two attack ads on YouTube using Henley's music. He re-wrote the lyrics of "All She Wants To Do Is Dance" without asking permission, something very clearly covered in copyright law; it isn't allowed. After YouTube pulled down the offending ads, Devore posted the lyrics on a right-wing hate website.

All She Wants To Do Is Tax

They’re pickin’ up the taxpayers and puttin
‘em in a jam
And all she wants to do is tax, tax
Liberals been liberals since I don’t know when
And all she wants to do is tax
Cap and trade program-from D.C. Inc.
And all she wants to do is tax, tax
They pull and push us right over the brink
And all she wants to do is tax
Barbara Boxer talkin’ round
Control in her sight
And all she wants to do is tax, tax
Wild-eyed global warmers
Who ain’t afraid to lie
And all she wants to do is-
And all she wants to do is tax
And break our backs
She can’t feel the heat comin’ off the street
She wants to party
She wants to get down
And all she wants to do is-
And all she wants to do is tax
Well, the government rigged the market
in the carbon trading scam
And all she wants to do is tax, tax
To keep the boys a sellin’
All the credits they could ma’am
And all she wants to do is tax
But that don’t keep the boys
From makin’ a buck or two
And all she wants to do is tax, tax
They still can sell the public
On the good that they can do
And all she wants to do is-
And all she wants to do is tax
And break our backs
Well, we barely made twenty ten
The vote was in doubt
As we finished up the campaign
She could hear the people shout
They said, don’t come back here Boxer!
But if she ever does-
We’ll bring more money
cause all she wants to do is tax
And break our backs
Never mind the heat comin’ off the street
She wants to party
She wants to get down
All she wants to do is-
All she wants to do is tax
All she wants to do is tax
And break our backs
All she wants to do is tax

When Henley took steps to protect his copyright DeVore struck back by running to a popular right-wing website and writing a post blasting Henley and "Boys of Summer" co-writer Mike Campbell as "the laughless legions of the left" and trying to paint himself as a victim, long a right-wing tactic when they get caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. I wonder if there are many Eagles fans in California. I did notice, though, that the loud mouthed little fascist, after re-posting the song on his own site in another (non-YouTube) format, has now disabled that. What a wimp-- not just a blowhard, but a coward.

Why doesn't he just use right-wing songwriters for his ads? I'm sure that with all the excitement for the reunification of the Amboy Dukes a nice parody of "Journey to the Center of the Mind" would work just fine for DeVore. Or he could always forget the Dukes, like everyone else has, and go right for "Cat Scratch Fever." It would probably be a good idea for wingnuts to stay away from music by Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, Black-Eyed Peas, Madonna, Nanci Griffiths, Neil Young, the Eagles, Pearl Jam, John Mellancamp, Lou Reed, Dave Matthews, James Taylor, Green Day, Bonnie Raitt, Congressman John Hall, Rickie Lee Jones, Wilco, Stevie Wonder, Death Cab For Cutie, R.E.M. and other musicians committed to social justice. But that doesn't mean they can only use polka music or Ted Nugent. John Rich, half of Big and Rich is a vicious right wing homophobe always eager for kooks like DeVore to use his songs. Kid Rock too... or Toby Keith, Ricky Skaggs... Rachael Lampa? Meanwhile, you can enjoy Don Henley's original version of the "The Boys Of Summer" below, without any input from the GOP peanut gallery: