If you follow Boing Boing, you’re probably passingly familiar with ACTA, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a treaty negotiated in secret, comprising a kind of wishlist from the entertainment industry, pared down rather a lot after a series of leaks. The sequel to ACTA is TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, yet another secret copyright treaty with many of the same participants.
A coalition of civil society groups got wind of an upcoming TPP meeting in a Hollywood hotel and decided to rent out a function space in the same building so they could hold a public information meeting on TPP during the session. According to Techdirt, the US Trade Representative had the hotel cancel the civil society groups’ reservation. The hotel claimed that the reservation was being canceled due to “a confidential group in house” and that “we will not be allowing any other groups in the meeting space that day.”
Except that this turns out to have been a lie. When the civil society group called up and asked to rent a function room for an unrelated event, the hotel was happy to rent to them.
And, needless to say, the MPAA was able to get access to the TPP negotiators, who were escorted on a “multi-hour tour of 20th Century Fox Studios last night.”
Hollywood Gets To Party With TPP Negotiators; Public Interest Groups Get Thrown Out Of Hotel