Participating Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Countries to Suspend Changing Copyright Protection Period to 70 Years

The participating Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) countries, which no longer includes the United States, recently held a meeting. At the meeting the participating countries decided to suspend changing the copyright protection period to 70 years to which the United States had insisted.

Until now, as part of the TPP negotiations, the United States had strongly insisted on having all participating countries change their copyright protection period to “70 years from the author’s death” primarily because they had wanted to protect Disney’s products.

However, with the withdrawal of the United States from the TPP, the Japanese government as well as the other participating TPP countries decided not to extend the copyright protection period to 70 years because this change would limit the use of copyrighted works in many areas.

As of now, the TPP effective date has yet to be determined.