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FTAA Treaty Threatens Innovation
The Importance of writes "IP Justice has published a white paper on the intellectual property aspects of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) treaty, which is an attempt to create a single free trade agreement for the Western Hemisphere. Read the press release. The analysis is pretty devastating. The proposed language of the agreement has a number of serious flaws, including (but certainly not limited to) enhanced criminal penalties, a super-DMCA provision, reduced scope for fair use, and database protection elements.
The proposed treaty is supposed to be complete by January 2005 and go into effect December 2005. Now is not too early to let your representatives and others know what a bad idea the intellectual property elements of the treaty are."
It's sad to see massive amounts of garbage like this getting stuffed into what is supposed to be a Free Trade treaty. In typical fashion, special interests are attaching their wish lists to an initiative that seems to have a good chance of becoming law. Hopefully this nonsense will get stricken out and the real work of expanding trade within the Americas can proceed...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I think this has a snowball's chance in hell of actually being ratified. This isn't the terrorist-frigtened congress of 2001, you aren't going to be able to slip this under people's noses this time like with the DMCA. I can guarantee that only one of those 33 countries will be pushing this. Guess which one.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Why bother? Honestly, what is the outcome here? I have written to my congresspeople probably on the order of 10-15 times each about an item specifically regarding the myth of intellectual property and its associated devestation. I have recived neat and grammatically precise responses each time, full of absolutely nothing of value or substance regarding the issues. Not even my representative's opinion on the matter. You don't get congress to go against measures like this (i.e., measures that assure corporate "donations") unless there is a *really* massive demonstration. The kind that the American public has not shown any sort of willingness or poise to do in oh-so-many years.
I will write my congressperson again this time, only with a heavy hand, and a large dose of bitterness in knowing that I don't have the pocketbook required to make a real impact.
Corporate politics is ruining what's left of the U.S., and is pulling a lot of other nations down with it.
--rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
"... significant willful infringements of copyrights ... that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain shall be considered willful infringement on a commercial scale. ..."
Let me get this straight....there is no direct or indirect financial motivation, yet this is somehow equated with commercial infringement?
I'm all for throwing the real IP pirates in jail -- the ones who copy CDs and DVDs, press 1000's of counterfeits, then sell them for a huge profit. Making money like this really is piracy (in a newer, less-traditional use of the word anyway). But to equate that kind of crime to that of the college student sharing a few tunes on their computer for free....mind boggling!
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
My favorite quote:
As of October 2003, an estimated 60 million Americans use P2P file-sharing software in the US alone and the number of overseas users is even higher. This level of civil disobedience sends the crystal clear message that intellectual property laws are in stark contrast with the will of the people and should be changed to clearly legalize P2P file-sharing. Without the consent of the governed, FTAA's policies have no legitimate place in an international treaty between democracies.
That's the most succinct way I've yet heard to describe the people's demand that Hollywood drag themselves into the current century!
If these so called Free Trade agreements were really about free trade, they would be a lot less complicated. They would just be about reducing tarrifs. What these "Trade Agreements" are really about is granting special rights and privilages to corporations, sometimes even making them above the law, at the expense of our national sovereignty.
For example, with NAFTA Canada sued the United States saying that banning asbestos is an infringement of Free Trade.
A few years ago before the WTO became a household word (err Acronym) they were trying to pass the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which would have given coporations an explicit Right to Profit above and beyond a citizens rights and privilages.
And just look at the current example. In the name of Free Trade they are trying to make fair use of our own legally purchased IP illegal, such as bypassing DVD Region codes.
It is not a matter of U.S. vs. Mexico or whatever. NAFTA has been bad for the general population of all three countries, and now they want to extend it to the entire western hemisphere.
It is all about the special interests.
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you
Why bother? Honestly, what is the outcome here? ... You don't get congress to go against measures like this (i.e., measures that assure corporate "donations") unless there is a *really* massive demonstration. The kind that the American public has not shown any sort of willingness or poise to do in oh-so-many years.
... provided we have the will and the sense to try.
Moveon.org was able to get together a very large public outcry against the FCC's recent attempt to further diminish diversity in the American media. Although the fight is not over, this 11th hour effort has managed to get congress to vote overwhelmingly to revoke Baby Powell's attempt to use the FCC as little more than a frontman for the media cartels. It appears likely some (though not all) of Baby Powell's appalling sellout to the media cartels is going to be reversed, in a manner that is extremely rare in Washington.
This was done as a belated reaction to an already done "insider" deal among Washingto Republican Burocrats (the FCC vote was divided precisely along party lines).
We have over a year to get our act together. Doing so would allow us to speek with at least as loud a voice, quite possibly as effectively, but only if people actually GET OFF THEIR ASSES and actually do it. If, on the other hand, everyone follows your advice, nothing will get done and the tyranny of evil, corrupt men will continue to erode our freedom of expression, our freedom of thought, our freedom to innovate, and ultimately our freedom to live, until there is nothing left.
This is what was meant when the founding fathers said "Freedom requires eternal vigilance," and quite frankly, this is the acid test our generation is failing miserably.
The question is really this: will we continue to fail miserably, until there is no freedom left in our lives, or will we stand up and be counted? Given the degree of forwarning we have on this particular issue, any failure to stand up and be counted will be our own, not "the system's" or "those corrupt people over there." No, it will be our apathetic selves who are at fault, and the freedom we would in that event be so unfit for and undeserving of is almost certain to diminish as a result.
If dispirited and demoralized liberals could finally grow a backbone and stand up when the chips were down with the radical right's recent media power grab at the FCC and get congress moving in record time to stop it, surely we technophiles, who transcend such traditional left-right, liberal-conservative, democrat-republican lines should be able to do at least as well
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Sure, IP restrictions are evil and so forth, and there will be many rants here about how terribly the nerds, visionaries and innovators will be oppressed, but that's a whole lot of narrow, selfish thinking by said nerds, visionaries and innovators (there goes my karma). This discussion misses the larger picture and focuses only on what the enlightened, educated, US-based majority of the readers care about and/or can be affected by: bigger, stronger RIAA's and MPAA's, and draconian corporations hoarding more and more knowledge.
What's left out is that the spirit of the whole treaty is basically to make the Central and South American nations subjects to the rule of the US economy and the corporations that feed off it, much like what NAFTA has done to Mexico and Canada. It will create one huge Export Processing Zone all the way from Mexico to the Southern tip of Chile, where such peachy corporations like Nike, Adidas, Ralph Lauren, Walmart and so on will practically enslave thousands of displaced farmers while other corporations rape their land for natural resources. It's already happening in countries all over the world, with more localized treaties and deregulations, where the governments don't care, are blinded by the money or have their arms twisted by the might of their patrons. Free Trade in this context is a euphimism for economic conquest by transnational corporations.
Canada has a unique position in all this, because unlike the other (soon to be) subjugated countries, we have a high standard of living and an educated, skilled workforce. Hence, we don't have sweatshops - instead, our manufacturing left for the sweatshop factories of Mexico and the Export Processing Zones in the Phillipines and China along with that of the United States. Still, we're very much slaves of our big brother, constantly battered over fishing, softwood lumber, grain and so on. No political action that contravenes the US ideology goes without the consideration of what it will do to our economy. Legalize weed? Sure, sounds good, but can't you see Dubya over there shaking his head? Don't want to go to war with Iraq? Just you wait 'til the next time we set lumber tariffs.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!