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This guy, who has been waging the battle for a very long time, thinks this is a good appointment.
http://keionline.org/node/1853

Hi, I'm the author of the article. Thanks for reading it. Originally I thought I might extract the "oppose/propose" and attach it to country names, but I didn't for a number of reasons.

First, as you note, "oppose/propose" by itself tells us very little without knowing the content of what is being opposed/proposed. But even if we do know the content, without the context it may still convey little. E.g., we might find "[US propose: a]" or "[CA oppose: the]". I thought about using Perl's extract_bracketed (and actually did at first), but decided against it.

Second, anyone familiar with these issues already knows where the countries line up. The US is pushing extreme IP laws. Australia doesn't necessarily agree, but follows along in many cases. Canada often tries to do its own thing (e.g., they were one of the only countries to take advantage of a TRIPS provision allowing them to manufacture an on-patent drug and export it to a developing country without manufacturing capacity). So showing people this information wouldn't necessarily add much value.

Wikileaks has leaked the secret text TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership). It reveals the TPP creates patents on surgery, limits access to medine, makes patents broader and tougher, extends copyright even longer, restricts fair use, makes damages even larger makes circumventing DRM illegal (but with exemptions for government spying) and creates a parallel judicial system for prosecuting IP infringement.

There are a lot of big name companies opposing this treaty, including ones you wouldn't expect. The "Intellectual property owners association", which is headed up by representatives from Exxon Mobil, GE, and Johnson & Johnson wrote a letter opposing the treaty. Their concern is that they think it sets a bad precedent... get this.. for PATENT law:

By isolating L/Es (limitations and exceptions) from the IP holders’ rights, the VIP (visually impaired persons) treaty negotiations could also set a dangerous precedent for other areas of IP law, particularly patent law.

Source.

Let's ignore the massive expansion of copyright without any mention of fair use through free trade agreements, and complain that the one real attempt to clarify limitations and exceptions is "imbalanced." Also from the letter:

"A balanced approach to copyright protection cannot exist when rights and exceptions are treated separately."

That's true, but not for the reasons they think.

Basically, they are saying they would rather blind people have fewer things to read than to even HINT that copyright protection is currently too strong, since that might possibly induce people to question other areas of IP law, like patents. They ought to be ashamed.

Just thought I would mention KEI operates on a shoe-string budget. Anyone with some spare change available could find few better causes. Just follow the link on keionline.org.

Backup copy. (And because the document was created by a Congressional employee, it's not copyrightable. So there.)

Here's the proposal:

• A. Free 12-year copyright term for all new works - subject to registration, and all existing works are renewed as of the passage of the reform legislation. If passed today this would mean that new works have a copyright until 2024.
• B. Elective-12 year renewal (cost 1% of all United States revenue from first 12 years -- which equals all sales).
• C. Elective-6 year renewal (cost 3% of revenue from the previous 12 years).
• D. Elective-6 year renewal (cost 5% of revenue in previous 6 years).
• E. Elective-10 year renewal (10% of ALL overall revenue - fees paid so far).

This is a good proposal. Start circulating it around. For only a very small number of copyrighted items is there revenue beyond 12 years, and that's covered.

There are many organisations already working on behalf of ordinary people in cases such as this...the summary already has highlighted one such in the most excellent EFF but there are a number of others who are charitable donation funded and the like so negating your belief that huge wealth is needed to have voices on our side in this, and other, conflicts with the corporations who seek to enrich themselves by removal of our freedoms and liberties. I'll offer a small selection of such organisations below: https://www.eff.org/ http://ffii.org/ http://www.publicknowledge.org/ http://keionline.org/ http://infojustice.org/category/trade-agreements/ http://www.article19.org/ http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ http://www.edri.org/ http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ The last link is to Professor Michael Geist a prominent a noteworthy intellectual and activist in the field. All the above worked diligently to stop ACTA.

DoD insists that they be allowed to override intellectual property laws when they want to use a technology without paying for patent rights first.

Are you sure? It sounds more like they just want to preserve the Bayh-Dole Act, meaning if the government helps fund the R&D for a product, they get non-exclusive royalty-free rights to any IP generated from it. I know the DoD has some overreaching powers over IP when it comes to national secrecy or times of war, but I haven't heard of them being able to just use someone's independently-developed patent outright without paying for it (aside from the regular government indemnification from being sued).

It's amazing, really. Not only did they insist that the NZ government keep ACTA a secret from its people (all attendee's people, actually)

But they stepped in to assist in re-drafting the bill to make it more palatable & passable, for NZ legislators

and instructed the government to implement a new security force to enforce it, even offering to assist in its initial funding. All that's missing is an offer to have American troops enforce the law for them.

But don't take my word for, listen to the several dozen civic organizations that filed a protest, listen to Senator Whyden, whose excellent letter to USTR went unanswered. Listen to Canadian law professor Michael Geist. Listen to Knowledge Ecology, whose FOIA request the Obama Administration denied on "national security" grounds.

Knowledge Ecology ACTA News: http://keionline.org/taxonomy/term/95

Knowledge Ecology ACTA timeline: http://keionline.org/node/991

Michael Geist: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_tags&task=view&tag=acta&Itemid=408

But don't take my word for, listen to the several dozen civic organizations that filed a protest, listen to Senator Whyden, whose excellent letter to USTR went unanswered. Listen to Canadian law professor Michael Geist. Listen to Knowledge Ecology, whose FOIA request the Obama Administration denied on "national security" grounds.

Knowledge Ecology ACTA News: http://keionline.org/taxonomy/term/95

Knowledge Ecology ACTA timeline: http://keionline.org/node/991

Michael Geist: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_tags&task=view&tag=acta&Itemid=408

The Brazilian government has released a statement about the ACTA giving four reasons of concern to the country.

1. - The agreement would shift the balance between right holders and consumers.
2. - Brazil prefer these negotiations to happen in either the WTO or WIPO. Both seem a lot more open and transparent.
3. - The agreement proposes only one remedy to the situation, repression.
4. - The agreement encompasses more than just an understanding between a few nations and creates a whole structure that extends to other countries.

Source: Brazilian intervention at TRIPS Council: ACTA

Can you effectively fork it? Stallman doesn't think so.

I thought James Love's comments about who has access to the administration were interesting. See the KEI post about their request for the Non Disclosure Agreements signed by people who did see advance text of ACTA documents.

Speaking of corporate interest. Just take a look at the list of people who signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to see the U.S. proposed Internet text for ACTA on this page.

The letter from Stallman and the others discussed two ways in which forking MySQL would be hard. One was because it is under GPLv2 without the "or later" option, so cannot mix with GPLv3 code. That a pretty irrelevant point, though, because the problem lies entirely with GPLv3's lack of compatibility wity other free licenses, such as GPLv2.

The other problem the letter mentions, though, has nothing to do with GPLv3 vs GPLv2. Here is how they describe the problem. I'll include the GPLv3 argument for completeness:

Defenders of the Oracle acquisition of its competitor naively say Oracle cannot harm MySQL, because a free version of the software is available to anyone under GNU GPL version 2.0, and if Oracle is not a good host for the GPL version of the code, future development will be taken up by other businesses and individual programmers, who could freely and easily "fork" the GPL'd code into a new platform. This defense fails for the reasons that follow.

MySQL uses the parallel licensing approach to generate revenue to continue the FLOSS development of the software. If Oracle acquired MySQL, it would then be the only entity able to release the code other than under the GPL. Oracle would not be obligated to diligently sell or reasonably price the MySQL commercial licenses. More importantly, Oracle is under no obligation to use the revenues from these licenses to advance MySQL. In making decisions in these matters, Oracle is facing an obvious conflict of interest – the continued development of a powerful, feature rich free alternative to its core product.

As only the original rights holder can sell commercial licenses, no new forked version of the code will have the ability to practice the parallel licensing approach, and will not easily generate the resources to support continued development of the MySQL platform.

The acquisition of MySQL by Oracle will be a major setback to the development of a FLOSS database platform, potentially alienating and dispersing MySQL's core community of developers. It could take several years before another database platform could rival the progress and opportunities now available to MySQL, because it will take time before any of them attract and cultivate a large enough team of developers and achieve a similar customer base.

Yet another way in which Oracle will have the ability to determine the forking of MySQL relates to the evolution of the GNU GPL license. GPL version 2.0 (GPLv2) and GPL version 3.0 (GPLv3) are different licenses and each requires that any modified program carry the same license as the original. There are fundamental and unavoidable legal obstacles to combining code from programs licensed under the different GPL versions. Today MySQL is only available to the public under GPLv2.

Many other FLOSS software projects are expected to move to GPLv3, often automatically due to the common use of the "any later version" clause. Because the current MySQL license lacks that clause, it will remain GPLv2 only and it will not be possible to combine its code with the code of many GPLv3- covered projects in the future. Given that forking of the MySQL code base will be particularly dependent on FLOSS community contributions - more so than on in-company development - the lack of a more flexible license for MySQL will present considerable barriers to a new forked development path for MySQL.

I'm assuming that hell has frozen over, because the first argument is that forking won't work because the GPL does not let the forker use the dual licensing model to make money, and that letter is signed by Stallman.

In the letter he co-authored:

1) They all but admit that the dual-licensing is critical to the survival of not just MySQL in its current form, but also any fork derived from it.

2) They completely fail to mention any sort of alternative business model for MySQL or any of its derivatives, i.e., no mention of the mythical "support" business model especially or anything else.

3) They neglect the potential that code can be forked and successfully managed by un-paid volunteers.

4) They ignore that possibility that its users will donate money or large companies will make substantial contributions to cover development.

5) They also acknowledge the fragility of the open source ecosystem due to conflicting licenses

@@@@@@

Although I believe their analysis is largely correct as far as MySQL's survival is concerned, it demonstrates very little faith in GPL-licensed projects to grow and be maintained in absence of proprietary rights and directly contradicts the overall message of RMS and company. If they merely posited that Oracle could delay the development of MySQL for, say, a year it would not necessarily be contradictory, but to propose this is an earth shaking event and do so in the manner which they did is simply inconsistent with RMS and his follower's message.

I wold imagine they want to keep the lid on the techniques they are looking at for anti-counterfeiting.

Hmmh, seems like they could simply obscure that part of it by saying, "We got hyper-secret, techniques we refuse to talk about." That is almost plausible. Some of the criticism sugest that it will allow police-state powers to be mobilized against ordinary people for having backups of their music and software. The IP cartel is steadfastly opposed to such things.

What are the enforcement provisions? We don't know, and aren't going to be allowed to know--until it's too late. This is a mockery of any and all democratic principle. They are spitting in our faces. Of course, the non-democratic, and anti-democratic nations will love this, as it will strengthen their grips on their respective societies.

Furthermore, there seem to be provision aimed at setting up an independent ACTA organization which will above and not accountable to any national supervision. Copyright Geheime Staatspolizei anyone? If they are so afraid of going public, that everything must be hidden behind an iron curtain of secrecy, anything is plausible.

Miscellaneous links: Wikipedia ACTA criticism, EFF, KEI Patry. Patry observed that "extensive changes" would be necessary to U.S. law to bring it into compliance. How many years in prison would accused music downloaders be facing under ACTA? None of us knows. It's secret!!

KEI is very impressed with the USTR decision to undertake a review of USTR transparency efforts. They are taking this much further than simply reviewing policies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or recent controversies over the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. The review offers the possibility of more transformative changes, including pro-active measures to enhance transparency, covering all aspects of USTR operations, including multilateral, plurilateral, regional, bilateral and unilateral trade policies and negotiations. We are also grateful that USTR is offering to have a continuing dialogue on this issues. KEI will offer additional suggestions on transparency to USTR, and we encourage others to do so also."

The wonderful thing about the internet is that no matter what the U.S. might consider "national security", there's always bound to be a more civilized and transparent nation out there. The EU is bending, and will probably start releasing documentation as soon as there's a solid draft.

In the meantime, it's important to realize that this treaty is still a work in progress, and nowhere near finished. It will be months yet before there's even a complete document to leak, I think.

That notwithstanding, certain general provisions and a few specific passages have already made their way onto the net; you can find out more here, here, and here.

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