Why should we not join TPP?As discussed above, the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement spearheaded by the United States is an extensive agreement dealing with many aspects of intellectual property law. This paper focused on the effects of the TPP to copyright laws and whether or not the Philippines should join such agreement. Based on copyright laws alone, it can be conluded that the Philippines would be on the losing end of this agreement. TPP tends to rewrite our domestic laws as well as extend previous copy right laws. There are two main reasons why the Philippines should not join the TPP. One, the policies would only benefit corporations by sacrificing the rights of the public. Two, TPP creates a cloud of doubt by lacking transparency.[footnoteRef:1] [1: https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp]

One, the policies that would benefit big corporations at the expense of the public is the first reason why the TPP should not be supported by the Philippines. Provisions such as the possession of temporary copies of copyright material may violate the law; and holders of copyright may now prohibit all forms of reproductions if passed. This is extremely detrimental to the public especially those who cannot afford the use of copyrighted materials. It would be possible that some works would be impossible to be under fair use because the copyright owner would ban all forms of reproductions of such work. Imagine that even works that would be used for personal and educational use would be barred from reproduction. Big corporations would also benefit because of the controversial provision of the TPP, which extends the period of copyright from lifetime plus 50 years into lifetime plus 70 years. This would effectively set the maximum duration of copyright holders' monopoly rights to an estimate of over 140 years[footnoteRef:2]. This extension would prevent small time inventors or groups to create their own work based on a copyrighted work. [2: https://www.eff.org/issues/tpps-copyright-trap]

Last, the TPP is lacks transparency and is restrictive towards different measures of penalties. There is a provision on TPP to adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without commercial motivation[footnoteRef:3]. Users could be put into prison or hit with fines over file sharing, and may have their property or domains seized or destroyed even without any formal complaint from the holder of the copyright. It may be possible for users of peer-to-peer and torrent sites to be jailed for infringement of copyright. Criminal liabilities will be imposed. [3: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/TPP-Final-Text-Intellectual-Property.pdf]

TPP creates a major concern about the peoples freedom of speech, due process, innovative spirit, and the future of the internet as well as the domestic laws already in force in sovereign nations. To sum it up, the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement challenges the fundamental intellectual property rights and would restrict acces to copyrighted works for the citizens of the world.