Both the copyright term expansion and the non-complaint provision (i.e., competent authorities may initiate legal action without the need for a formal complaint) previously failed to pass in Japan because they were so controversial. In early 2015, "a group of artists, archivists, academics, and activists ... in Japan their negotiators to oppose requirements in the TPP that would require their country, and five of the other 11 nations negotiating this secretive agreement, to expand their copyright terms to match the United States' already excessive length of copyright." The nonetheless sets a term of copyright equal to the one that obtains under U.S. law—life of the author plus 70 years.