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."

Comments

total information lockdown

[joeldg]

It will require all countries to change their domestic laws on a wide range of topics, including intellectual property rights.

All your mind are belong to us..

just great.. now we will have mexican's filing patents for velcro.

Same old story

[TopShelf]

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...

Remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember: When you contact your representative, do NOT e-mail. Congressmen do not take e-mails seriously. E-mailing tells the congressman that you don't care enough about the issue to actually sit down and put effort into your contact.

There is only one way to actually get your congressman's attention: A good, old-fashioned letter, with $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills paper clipped to it. Please keep this in mind and act accordingly.

Re:Remember

[pmz]

I don't think $10,000 would cut it, anymore. A Congressman would wipe his ass with it and send it back to you for being so cheap.

Wow, harsh...

[DrEldarion]

1. Expanded Criminal Penalties Would Send Non-Commercial Infringers to Prison

a) Threatens to Mandate Prison for P2P File-Sharing


Wow. Now, I'm not in the camp of people that says "FREE STUFF FOR EVERYONE, SCREW IP!" and I actually support (reasonable) penalties for the people who get caught (after all, they ARE breaking copyright law, whether they atually cost the company anything or not). This, though, is just crazy. Why should Joe Schmoe, who is sharing a bunch of Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit MP3s, spend time in PRISON for doing so?

It would be understandable if he were making copies of the CDs and selling thousands of them, but it says non-commercial infringers.

Scary.

-- Dr. Eldarion --

Re:Free Trade

[peddrenth]

"Oh, no. Anything but free trade."

The Free Trade Area of the Americas is about protectionism? That's worse than "fighting for peace".

Sugar

[FuzzyDaddy]

If they really want free trade, how about not subsidizing american farmers at the expense of thrid world farmers, who are, in economic terms, vastly more efficient?

The "free trade" agreements seem to support incumbent businesses at the expense of innovation, which is the opposite of their intended use.

I'm no free trade nut - I think there's plenty wrong with unfettered free trade - but in the scope of problems it can address, let's use it to address them, and not further protect entrenched ways of doing things.

Fear will keep them in line...

[GreatTeacherMusashi]

b) Article 4.2 Permits Additional Criminal Procedures and Penalties Against Non-Commercial and Non-Willful Infringers c) Articles 4.3 and 4.4 Permit Seizure and Destruction of Property and Assets d) Article 4.6 Permits Criminal Charges Without the Need for a Private Complaint soooo, basically, if middle-class stockbroker Bob Schmoe doesn't know his son is downloading mp3s and warez, the feds can just hop in and seize his comp, and put him away without ever having to hear from some company? Whatever happened to "Stop, thief!".... bleh...

I hate to be so pessimistic/cynical but...

[rhadamanthus]

"Now is not too early to let your representatives and others know what a bad idea the intellectual property elements of the treaty are."

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

Representatives?

[Jeffrey Baker]

If you live in the USA, contacting your representative will be fruitless. The Senate ratifies treaties without consulting the House. Try contacting your Senator instead.

buh-bye Fair Use

[mabu]

Article 1 of the copyright section in the draft FTAA Treaty proposes the following new definition for "fair use":

"Use that does not interfere with the normal exploitation of the work or [unreasonably] [unjustifiably] prejudice the legitimate interests of the author [or right holder]".

FTAA's proposed definition is dramatically narrower than the current open-ended definition of fair use guaranteed by the US Constitution and codified in Section 107 of the US Copyright Act.[40] The US Supreme Court stated that fair use must be decided on a "case-by-case basis" and that there can be no "bright line rules" for deciding matters of fair use. Fair use is intended to permit unauthorized, but socially beneficial, copies of copyrighted works in cases such as personal use, research, and criticism.

In determining whether a particular use would be fair, traditional US copyright law focuses the question primarily on the use engaged it. In contrast, FTAA's definition for fair use focuses solely on the commercial interests of the copyright holder in determining whether a particular use would be ruled fair. No consideration is given to the social benefits of the use under the proposed FTAA Treaty.

FTAA's narrow definition of fair use also gives short shrift to Americans' freedom of expression rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. For example, copying something in order to criticize it can easily prejudice the rightsholders' interests (since it could discourage patronage); and traditional fair use, which accounts for free speech interests, would permit such copying. But under FTAA's definition, copying for critical purposes will count against the use being considered fair, chilling freedom of expression throughout the hemisphere.

If Fair Use is redefined in this manner, it seems like the FTAA could be interpreted to outlaw public libraries. If you check out a book as opposed to buying it, under the FTAA's new economic-based model of assessing Fair Use, a library would be liable for causing financial damage to the publisher.

Kudos to our corporate overlords for their foresight and wisdom.

NAFTA, MMT, UPS, & Canada Post

[temojen]

NAFTA threatens environmental protection will FTAA be any better? NAFTA threatens public services will FTAA be any better?

Lower barriers to trade is a good Idea, but the FTA, NAFTA, and FTAA has little to do with trade, and everything to do with making governments subservient to trans-national corporations.

"Free Trade" is not about free trade

[TPFH]

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.

We Are Only As Powerless As We Choose To Be

[FreeUser]

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.

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 ... provided we have the will and the sense to try.

not much thought outside of Slashdot...

[bigmaddog]

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.