Macleans: Trans-Pacific Partnership could choke the free Internet

With Canada formally joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations last week, invasive copyright provisions could cost Canadians in having their personal data compromised, online access restricted and Internet actions criminalized. Join over 115,000 people worldwide in speaking out for Internet freedom at StopTheTrap.net. Article by Jesse Brown for Macleans Yesterday, Heritage Minister James Moore announced that Canada has formally joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a group that is discussing a major trade agreement among us and Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S., and Vietnam. The deal is at the negotiation stage now, but all countries at the table are expected to sign in late 2013.

Much of the chatter around TPP has focused on the impact it may have on Canada’s protected dairy and poultry industries. Beyond milk and chickens, TPP has other big implications. Among them are potentially disastrous new rules for the enforcement of intellectual property on the Internet.

In February of 2011, a draft of TPP’s chapter on intellectual property was leaked. The document quickly circulated among academics and lawyers working within I.P. and Internet regulation and then spread to digital rights lobby groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the United States and OpenMedia here in Canada. Read more »

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