TPP will effectively create what amounts to a secretive and criminalising “Internet Trap” that will challenge digital freedom as we know it in 4 particularly distressing ways. First, the TPP will dramatically regulate the sharing of digital content on social and search platforms by prohibiting the use of temporary copies -- files automatically copied by computers into their random access memory (RAM). According to experts at InternetNZ, these temporary copies are critical for the routine operation of social media platforms because they allow videos to be smoothly buffered in memory, browser cache files to be stored on servers to speed up the loading of websites, and copies of visited pages to be stored in a temporary Internet files folder on your hard drive. Second, the TPP will eradicate privacy safeguards by requiring all Internet service providers (ISPs) to systematically filter, collect, and surrender customer information to government monitors and corporate regulators upon request -- eradicating any remaining vestiges of the online anonymity that once protected digital interactions. Third, the TPP will allow media conglomerates to circumvent national legal systems by unilaterally fining users, removing undesirable content, deleting entire websites, and terminating Internet access under the guise of vague and inauspicious “three-strikes” mechanisms which would heavily favour media firms over individual users. Fourth, the TPP will force all signatories to harmonise their domestic policies and laws with the restrictive US-directed provisions of the agreement. This means all parties would have to abandon any efforts to learn from the mistakes of notoriously stifling US copyright laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and instead adopt even the most controversial aspects of US legislation in their entirety. In Canada alone, the forceful adaptation of coercive US-based TPP regulations would mean a ban on unlocking private digital devices such as mobile phones, 20-year increases to posthumous patents for written and recorded works, the criminalising of all petty copyright infringement for non-profit, non-commercial and educational purposes, the disclosure of personal information without privacy safeguards, and harsher criminal penalties for instances of non-compliance on takedown orders. desmog.ca/2013/06/01/how-trans-pacific-partnership-will-kill-internet-freedom-canada
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 20:16:04 +0000
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