A liaison council for 11 cultural groups related to creation of movies, poems and other artworks issued a statement on Monday, September 9, opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks. The groups fear that strengthening regulations concerning copyright laws under the intellectual property area of the TPP agreement would make derivative works such as parody songs unlawful, even without accusation from copyright holders, hindering creation of such works.
Kimihiko Otsuru, a council member and standing director of an association for poets, states that if the American-style strict rules are introduced in the field of intellectual property, there would be a danger of citizens’ creative activities being restricted.
Otsuru admits that copyrights should be protected, adding that artworks are already protected under the current law and most of the creators of parodies and homages need to get authorization of authors. Stricter rules would narrow the extent of freedom in people’s cultural activities and intimidate creators of comic works, most of which are made up of parodies, and new musical genres developed by sampling parts of existing music, Otsuru says.
The council is made up of cultural groups such as the association for poets, a national association of chorus groups, art circles and federation of haiku poets, each with more than 1,000 citizens as members.
The council officials expressed concern over the TPP negotiations, after learning from drafts of the agreement leaked to U.S. nonprofit organizations and materials announced by the Cabinet Office that the draft agreement includes provisions which treat infringement on intellectual property rights an offense subject to prosecution even without complaint from the victim.
(Sept. 10, 2013)