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The FTAA - similar deal, but relating to the Americas, scheduled to be signed on early 2005, has a prevision for DMCA like anti-circunvention law requirements by all parties.

It, however, states that "Computer Programs" are not subject to patenteability.

It is on chapter XX of the third draft for the FTAA. Subsection B.2.c (Copyright and related rights), articles 21, 22, 23 contain the DMCAish stuff. Patents are described further bellow.

Don't let the Aussies get all of the credit!

Title 18, Section 2319 of the US Code:

"Any person who commits an offense under section 506(a)(1) of title 17 -

(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $2,500;"

You can search the US code here.

The same language is going into The FTAA Treaty, meaning all of North and South America would face prison for the same crime:

"[4.1. Each Party shall provide criminal procedures and penalties to be
applied at least in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting or infringement
of copyrights or neighboring rights on a commercial scale. Each Party shall
provide that significant willful infringements of copyrights or neighboring
rights that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain shall be
considered willful infringement on a commercial scale.

In criminal procedures, remedies available shall include imprisonment and/or
monetary fines sufficiently high to deter future acts of infringement and
with a policy to remove the monetary incentive to the infringer. Each Party
shall further ensure that such fines are imposed by judicial authorities at
levels that actually deter future infringements.]"

Specifically, quoting the Chapter on Intellectual Property Rights, Section 3, Article 8:

[8.1. The author, or his successors in title where applicable, shall have the exclusive right to carry out, authorize or prohibit the communication of the work to the public by any means serving to convey the words, signs, sounds or images thereof. Communication to the public shall be understood to mean any act by which two or more persons, whether or not gathered together in the same place, may have access to the work without the prior distribution of copies to each one of them, and especially the following:
...
k) The making available to the public of their works, in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.]

Chopping out the tiresome definitions in the middle, this reads that the author or representative has the exclusive right to permit or prohibit communication of the work to the public when said members of the public have the ability to space or time shift the performance.

You want your TiVo to record the latest episode of The Simpsons for you to watch at a later date? Better ask Fox for permission once the FTAA goes into effect... Of course, this flies directly in the face of The US Supreme Court case SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984) in which time shifting was found to fall squarely under fair use and not a violation of copyrights. Reading the full text of this chapter is sure to give me nightmares for quite some time.

http://www.ftaa-alca.org/alca_e.asp

dark grey text on a dark blue background, yeah that really shows their commitment to communication

It appears that there is a Free Trade of the Americas website. They also have links to who to call if you feel the need to sound off. I trust we all know what to do with this information. :)

It appears that there is a Free Trade of the Americas website. They also have links to who to call if you feel the need to sound off. I trust we all know what to do with this information. :)

The FTAA has been in development since 1998, and its not even supposed to be completed until 2005, there's still a lot of room for changes in it. Luckilly, Brazil has led the push for more reasonable IP rights including compulsory liscensing for drugs, allowing governments to produce pharmacuticals at lower prices. Also, the Brazilian govt. is pushing to leave out of the FTAA the more contentions parts of IP laws as well as restricitons on providing services and allowint the WTO to deal with that. Finally, the breakdown of the WTO talks in Cancun will hopefully lend credibility to the push for more fair and moderate regulations. So maybe the sky isnt quite falling yet, as the IP Justice people think. For a different take, check out the official website here

From the article:

"Project to ship a container of 230 refurbished computers to Ecuador to extend the technical capacity of civil society and the anti-globalization movement leading up to the anti-FTAA protests in early November. If successful this will be the first stage in an ongoing project to send large numbers of computers to social movements in the global south through indymedia."

Now, for those of you that want to make up your own minds, here's the FTAA Official website and here's Global Exchange's take on the situation. A Google search for FTAA turns up many links, but pro and con, and should provide enough information for the interested.

I'm sorry but I read part of the draft (yeah I know it's .doc) and these things appear halfway sensible, decide for yourself:

[5. The following are not subject to copyright:


a) ideas, regulatory procedures, methods, systems, mathematical designs or concepts per se;

b) outlines, plans or rules for conducting mental processes, games or business,

c) blank forms to be completed with any type of information, scientific or otherwise, and instructions thereon;

d) texts of treaties or conventions, laws, decrees, regulations, judicial decisions, and other official records;

e) information for everyday use such as calendars, diaries, official land registers, or diaries, and keys;

f) individual names and title;

g) industrial or commercial exploitation of the ideas in the work]

Also note that in the chapter on copyright there is no mention of the DMCA, there is no mention of circumvention of encrypted data other than laws against making and selling devices for decrypting sattelite tv signals. Can someone point me to the offensive passages in the draft so I can see for myself what all the hype is about ?

As time passes, it becomes more and more difficult to retain focus in addressing the Freedom of Speech and Privacy rights infringement of the DMCA, the WIPO treaties (which are an expansion of the Berne Convention Treaty) and now the potential for indevidual national legislation in each of the countries of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This newest development makes a consolidated stand against such over reaching legislation, substancially more difficult, and all but garentees the passage if DMCA-like legislation in countries other than the United States.

It looks like a strategy of divide and conquer will work for content providers in their quest to get this sort of legislation passed in countries throughout the world. The already fragmented opposition to this legislation stands to be further fragmented by the requirement that their efforts be divided accross (in the case of the FTAA) the countries of the Americas in order that there be no discrepency between countries' approaches to Intellectual Property.

I made this same argument with respect to the Open Source Community response to Craig Mundie and Microsoft with respect to the legitimacy of the GPL. There must be a focused response. The EFF has provided good leadership thus far, but in order to be an effective leader you must have followers. This is antithetical to the OSS mentality of independant developers (who seem to be the only ones focusing in this issue in any depth at the moment). This tendency, as evidenced by the response by some members of the community to the EFF request to discontinue protests in the Skylarov case durring negotiations with Adobe - where some members of the community basically told the EFF to stuff it and "You Can't Control Me". As a community, we need to realize that we need to follow leaders - not any leader, but those who have proven themselves - for our mutual benefit.

Additionally, I think it's worth spending a moment considering why the issues around the DMCA and similar legislation have recieved so little coverage in the popular media. I know it sounds paranoid, but since the deregulation of the communications industry, (we all know) conglomorates have been allowed to emerge which represent both the news media and content owners. I would not presume to make accusations that the popular news media has interests other than informing the public, but it's disappointing that we havnen't seen these issues addressed in the popular media. Their lack of coverage, leaves us with the responsibility of making others aware of Intellectual Property issues. IP is a complex subject, even explaining limited aspects of it in a comprehensive way is difficult, but we must begin focusing our efforts in this area as well.

--CTH