Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

[virtual_master]

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
What do you think about the consequences for decentralized TLDs ?
http://wikileaks.org/tpp/
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333191

[virtual_master]

What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement. The main problems are two-fold:

(1) IP chapter: Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate.

(2) Lack of transparency: The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy.

from https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

Jailbreaking and unlocking phones or tablets may become illegal in some cases:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... -by-obama/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012 ... t-tablets/
Probably new laws will come out then Namecoin and Bitcoin may have new difficulties and challenges running applications on some devices. A new era of content controlling may began with it. This could also bring eventually more attention and interest for Namecoin also.
Pirate bay cofounder Peter Sunde is very pessimistic:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... ter-sunde/

[drllau]

@virtual_master wrote

What do you think about the consequences for decentralized TLDs ?

Firstly, it is a draft so a lot of the language/text is contentious within the negotiators ... but the biggest risk to namecoin is the criminalisation of activities which may not even be commercially motivated (eg trying to extend future DNS into trademarks aka namesquatting). The digital locks is another concern, for example, if code is licensed under GPL and you want to audit a DRM'd software for compliance, it may not be possible for the average person to inspect the contents. The IPmaximalists are inviting backlash though as they are doing a whitewash, trying to deploy laws through multilateral treaties which failed to pass in domestic legislature(s).

What is long-term concern to me professionally is the overextension of jurisdictional reach ... previously most laws were territorial based, even international waters by default applied the laws of the registration of vessel. But starting from the premise that a country is allowed to regulate citizens, to exporting rules via transactional constraints (what DRM is), I see danger in the slippery slope "might makes right". Another example, if it is unlawful to say insult the sovereign of your nation, which may be punishable by sanctions including imprisonment, then to what extent can they push the laws outwards? Due process is already becoming a joke so when private individuals (or even corporations) take the laws into their own hands, whether self-help or unauthorised enforcement based on the supposed jurisdictional reach of their host, the threats start multiplying (not to mention a drone quasi-randomly acting as lightning bolt of Thor). There are other issues such as Little Brother, big data harvesting, deprecating moral rights and maybe even human rights but whilst ignorance can be fixed, stupidity is forever.

[virtual_master]

A positive backing from the UNO: 'Right to Privacy in the Digital Age' approved.
https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//201 ... 94.doc.htm

[jdbtracker]

This shows fear, they see the potential of a billions of connected minds. I wonder what will happen next, maybe they will try to make
people need licences to create software? just to make sure we don't blind side them with something truly revolutionary.

[virtual_master]

Something related.
Crypto laws over the world:
http://www.cryptolaw.org
The maps are visualizing very well the actual situation:
http://www.cryptolaw.org/cls-sum.htm
In UK, India, Thailand and Australia you have to disclose your encryption key if demanded by law enforcing.
Wallet encryption could fall under this category.

[drllau]

@jdbtracker wrote " maybe they will try to make people need licences to create software?"

Nothing that insidious. If you look at the main proponents of a stronger copyright system, they tend to be existing firms with back catalogs, vested infrastructure (eg windows franchise) or have historical sector control (Hollywood). What they are fighting against is the trend towards empowering the individual, whether prosumer, user-generated content or just some sub-culture that doesn't conform to their business model (eg remix or dub-snubbing). So in essence it is a dynamic tension between the past and the future. By tying creative content as long as possible, they want to maximise IRR on their initial sunk costs rather than reinvest in the unpredictable. Already there are quite radical shifts, like transmedia or maker-space which are outside the traditional corporate control model. One analogy is that Anne Statute of copyright originally gave publishers who owned the capital intensive printing press legal rights over authors (who presumeably sold these rights) and thus benefited those who had the financial capital. Now it is whoever has the creative capital, the reputation or thought leader and thus much much harder to control (these "assets" walk out the door every evening). If you look at the US, what has happened with the rising stock market was that economic returns came at the cost of suppressed labor wages. But if your productivity depends on creative inputs to refresh, those creative class can just go out and start their own business (assuming they've got the nounce to survive startup) which means that MBAs are left trying to maximise what prior assets they've already managed to squeeze out (often hollow shells). Doing the legislative life support is another logical tactic and if it can be done via backdoor foreign treaties without domestic scrutiny, even better from their point of view.

However, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects which are more subtle and difficult to mobilise support for.

[virtual_master]

Another resource about internet censorship proposals:
https://globalchokepoints.org/