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Australia to Vote on Extending IP Laws
femto writes "This coming week, the Australian parliament will be voting on whether to introduce software patents, a version of the DMCA and extensions to copyright. This is all part of chapter 17 of the US-AU Free Trade Agreement. The effects of the DMCA act will be worse than in the U.S., as Australia has narrower fair use provisions than the U.S. It is not too late to urgently write to your Member of Parliament or Senators to oppose the legislation."
This is version 0.65 of a troll HOWTO. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :) By version 0.7, sections on karma whoring,
conning the Slashdot users in to clicking your links, and how to beat the other trolls to the punch. If you would like to work on
the ./ Troll HOWTO, please by all means modify it as you see if, please post
the new version of your howto as Unofficial until I can come and pick it and
merge the the two together. Make sure to make your version a minor release,
as I will be in charge of posting all new major releases.
Section 1 - Trolling techniques
There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining
how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll
can break any or all of these and still be successful..
* Timing
Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favor of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customize them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar
stories.
Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)
* Exposure
Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large
thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds
to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get
your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated
up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.
* Accounts
An alternative to the time-honored tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a troll account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anonymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)
The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma
roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in
terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold
of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent,
and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the
+1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.
* Layout
To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.
* Size
Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a coupl
Things aren't looking good for those opposed to software patents, although I for one am not familiar with that many computer companies based Down Under. And the article reports this as "free trade legislation"? I suppose if the developed world would stop allowing software patents, software development wouldn't be migrating towards Asia.
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Ok, that was a very disjointed post. But you know what I mean.
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
Could someone explain why Freetrade has to have extended copyright provisions for other countries? Other than pure poltical reasons to enforce US corporate values, I don't see the need for Australia to give in for American interests.
This reminds me when President Bush went to Canada to protest the use of medical marijuana. It would increase drug use! Pure propaganda.
I'm sure they are saying if they don't extend copyright issues, it will increase Piracy, also...
Amazing, I bet Australia passes every law written by American corporate interests. For Free Trades Sake (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)
I've got to say that as an Australian I do find this rather disturbing, however I'm not surprised... The government currently in office (including a certain slack-lipped little toadie sporting a unibrow) Have been playing to the US's tune for a long time, in alot of different political areas. Hasn't done us any favours with our immediate neighbours by any means.
The major point in their "no patent" article seems to be that the USPTO is mismanaged. While it is, this isn't an argument against implementing software patents with a shorter expiration and better examination. I don't get the references to music either; it's completely different from software. There isn't anything you can reverse-engineer in music and reuse in your own songs without sounding like a ripoff.
Why won't slashdot let me change my terrible username
It's things like this that make moving to the EU a very attractive option.
Telling people that they are breaking the law to make something that can make a copy of a cd is pointless, since no matter what laws are made, we can always get files off of p2p networks, and even if they are shut down, then what can the government ddo? Ban CD Duplicators, which people mostly use to make legitimite cds, just so we can stop those few people who use them to make w4r3z?
This is bringing Australia one step closer to banning all mathermatical research.
If it wasn't for all my friends being over here, and the language barrier, I would probably go back to Italy, the greatest place I have ever been.
Seeing that the EU has in part already granted similar things (IP enforcement directive, EUCD) and is now close to getting software patents (I so hope that this can be avoided), I would say stay the hell away from here.
;(
BTW, I want out.
We went to war for this bloody free trade agreement and all its attachments, so it had better be worth it!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
The Oz House of Reps (think Congress) passed enabling laws yesterday (not the agrement itself, which unlike the US will not face a vote in Oz). The Australian Senate will now vote on these enabling laws in mid-August, based on their final report which will come down around then.
Several recent reports from parliamentary reviews which in part cover the Chapter 17 issues about intellectual property:
See also this page for further references.