TPP: The Biggest Threat to the Internet You've Probably Never Heard Of

[a2j]

[IPD]

my thoughts:

1. nothing new here. ever heard of SOPA? yeah. same kind of stuff. just because it's now a conglomerate across the pacific doesn't mean any of the ideas are new. still very, very bad juju.

2. DRM has been a problem for quite some time. remember when sony forced users to install malware on their pc's if they wanted to play sony CD's? i do. but even funnier than that, there isn't a DRM in existence that hasn't been cracked--nor will one be developed which won't be cracked in short order. so what it boils down to is forcing consumers to pony up extra $$$ for a feature that is of dubious benefit to the company that devised it.

3. fortunately, democrats gave us net-neutrality. i kinda shudder to think about what might have happened with the GOP's dark-ages internet policy--as stated in their official platform.

4. there is no law on the books which protects consumers from certain types of vertically integrated companies. while this might not be a problem with, say, a car manufacturer, it does become a problem when we're talking about a combination content-owner & ISP. almost by its very nature, this combination is rife with a conflict of interest. it's compounded by the fact that our government has given de-facto monopolies to certain ISP's in certain areas. this is not unlike the president of the office of military acquisition programs having a large amount of stock in a certain defense contractor.

5. putting this on ISP's is passing the buck. it also allows content-owners to initiate a crackdown on anything they disagree with--regardless of how appropriate the crackdown is--just by calling in the firing squad. this is not unlike the apple "i sue you" approach to every competitor. in apple's case, an eventual loss is irrelevant, if you have dealt enough mortal damage to your enemy to insure that it will never recover.

6. DRM is the #1 reason i encourage people to NEVER buy anything apple. once you start, you're essentially locked in to apple's compatibility system. i don't like strings attached. same reason i don't want to play games that require you to be online for "verification".