CAFTA Treaty Exports DMCA

PingXao writes "The BSA, RIAA and MPAA successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to include DMCA-like provisions in the recently approved CAFTA treaty, according to CNet. Among other provisions, Chapter 15 of the treaty requires treaty signatories to allow software patents, extend Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death, and make it illegal to produce 'circumvention devices' for protected works."

Comments

Great

[Eugene Webby]

So maybe now I can at last patent my hello world program and copyright it until 2170. (yes, I plan to live that long)

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

(yes, I plan to live that long)

Or die in the attempt!

herald

Do lawmakers really think

[m93]

that there will be one line of code written today that will require copyright protection in 70 years time? But then again, it's good to have a nice buffer...

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright isn't about the code, mate. It is about Disney losing its exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse, etc, etc.

They want to be able to milk those cows forever.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

that there will be one line of code written today that will require copyright protection in 70 years time?

Yes, if that line of code is written in COBOL

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do lawmakers really think"

That is a question we often ask, but the answer is clear from how often we need to ask it.

More seriously, lawmakers think about financing their reelections, and maintaining a positive public profile.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear a giant sucking sound, I tell 'ya. A giant sucking sound. Kill all the software authors, and in 75 years this will all be just a bad dream.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[ciroknight]

Uh lawmakers couldn't give a shit about code, this is about making songs, books, Mickey Mouse, their movie scripts, etc, last as long as possible. American corporations have gone so incredibly IP happy that absurd lengths of 75 years are almost required, as things that are close to going out of copyright (like Mickey Mouse for a good example) might lose the company a few bucks..

I call horseshit to the whole thing, as "intellectual property" was meant to eventually be turned over to the public domain anyways.. this is why the Copyright and Patent system were devised.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[bezuwork's friend]

The weird thing about this is that, what, Disney would lose copyright in a few ancient filmettes. Steamboat Willy and some others. It's not like they would lose the exclusive right to Mickey Mouse himself as I'm sure Mickey is trademarked. (Isn't he?, too lazy to check right now)

I'm wondering when the last time was they made money from Steamboat Willy?

Pox on Samuel Clemmens and his advocacy for extended copyrights. All for his two daughters who were apparently too ugly to get married.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[takeya]

True. All they care about is profit profit profit in the private sector! Good for the economy! Bad for the citizens. How is it good for me if my copyrighted material remains copyrighted once I'm dead? And for 70 years at that? That gives it a second lifetime to live on. Insanity.

Amerika probably won't even be around in 75 years (I hope for my childrens sake), so it scarcely matters. Beside that, CAFTA plainly violates the constitution at Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3. Check my journal for a post about that.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[ikkonoishi]

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 clearly grants congress the power to pass CAFTA.

How the hell else do you think they would regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, pinky swears?

How is it good for me if my copyrighted material remains copyrighted once I'm dead? And for 70 years at that? That gives it a second lifetime to live on. Insanity.

Yeah I mean that might cover, I don't know, maybe my children who will live at least 75 years after I die hopefully.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[cpt kangarooski]

It's not like they would lose the exclusive right to Mickey Mouse himself as I'm sure Mickey is trademarked.

They would lose exclusive rights to the character, as the trademark is no substitute for the copyright, and cannot be used to stand in the way of people making copies and derivative works of public domain works. There is a similar doctrine in the patent field. What happens in fact is that the relevant trademarks die along with the copyright.

Some marks might still be viable. Peter Pan is a valid mark in peanut butter and bus lines. But where creative works are involved, there's no chance.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Anonymous Coward]

You plan on having kids when you're like 60?

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[NormalVisual]

Yeah I mean that might cover, I don't know, maybe my children who will live at least 75 years after I die hopefully.

But that defeats the purpose of the Copyright Clause - the idea is to encourage authors to create works by giving them a *temporary* monopoly on their works. Life + 70 gives the author a permanent monopoly from his perspective, and giving the copyright to the author's children when he dies cannot possibly encourage the creation of further works by said author, thus I believe the current state of copyright is outside the intended purpose as stated in the Constitution. I don't understand the concept that just because someone creates a work of art, their heirs should forever more be exclusively allowed to profit from it, aside from whatever monies were bequeathed to them that resulted from the use of the copyright by the original author. At what point does it stop? Should the author's great-great grandchildren have the same rights?

This whole bogus concept of "intellectual property" has opened up cans and cans of worms, and largely subverted the original purpose of copyright/patents. I think that it's ludicrous that even though Walt Disney died almost 40 years ago, neither I nor my children will likely be able to publish an original Mickey Mouse story. Disney has certainly profited handsomely from Mickey, so why is it so wrong that he now be returned to the public domain, where he properly belongs? For those that would claim, "but Mickey is a trademark!", I'd say that it's probably not a good idea to base your corporate identity on something that the law says you will eventually lose control over.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[bubkus_jones]

There was a dvd recently released of a "Best Of" of Mickey Mouse cartoons (or something like that), and it included Steamboat Willie (actually, a still from Steamboat Willie was on the cover).

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Andux]

Really? My impression was that, while one could freely create characters derived from the PD works, it would still be illegal to label those derivative works as Mickey Mouse (TM) without Disney's approval.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[bentcd]

A possible complication might be that the appearance of Mickey is also trademarked. But as the previous poster says, this particular (purely visual) trademark probably dies together with the copyright.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Mr. Shiny And New]

I'm pretty sure the appearance of Mickey is copyrighted. There was an artist who made drawings of disney characters being tied up, chained, beaten, tortured, etc, to make some point about the media's influence. Well, she was sued and had to change her artwork so that the characters were not recognizable as Disney's characters. Which diminishes the art's message, unless you know the story, in which case it proves the point. :)

Anyway, those works were totally new, not based on anything Disney had made, but it was trademark law that stopped her. No copyrights, screenplays, audio clips, etc were used in making that artwork, so even if Steamboat Willie was public domain, you still wouldn't be able to make new movies with Mickey in them. All you'd be allowed to do is make free copies of Steamboat Willie.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[bentcd]

Once copyright expires, you should technically be allowed to produce derivative works. In cases where this, in turn, gets stopped by trademark law, I can't really say which one wins out. There is a tendency, however, to not require very much "inconvenience to the public" argumentation in order to get a trademark "revoked" (for lack of a better term) by the courts so I'm not so sure that Mickey would stand up as a trademark in this case.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Mr. Shiny And New]

I think Disney could make a successful argument that just because their trademark image is old doesn't mean it's not used in trade... especially Mickey's image, and the image of the other main characters. You have to admit, Mickey and what he looks like are instantly recognizable as Disney property, and if people started using Disney characters in their art, people will think Disney made it, which hurts Disney's brand.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[cpt kangarooski]

Well it has to be used in commerce, and no one would argue that the MM mark isn't.

The issue is whether the expiration of a copyright (or patent) can cause certain associated trademarks to expire. And the answer is that they can.

A trademark has to indicate that a marked good or service originates from a specific source which maintains a given level of quality (regardless of whether the quality is good or bad). The 'Coke' trademark, for example, must indicate that one entity (the Coke company) makes all the goods with that mark, and maintains quality controls over it.

Additionally, the mark cannot be the generic term for the marked good or service (i.e. the Coke company cannot get a trademark for 'soda' or 'pop' or 'soft drink'), nor can the mark be merely descriptive of the good or service in question. This is because the public and competitors are entitled to use those words as well.

In the case of Mickey Mouse, if the character entered the copyright public domain, then anyone is entitled to create works with that character. A trademark is not a substitute for a copyright, after all. This means that now Disney cannot control the quality of copies of creative works (a sort of good) using the character. Furthermore, since the name 'Mickey Mouse' is the generic name for that character, the trademark has suffered genericide.

So yes, Disney's brand would not only be hurt, it would -- with regards to some of their marks, anyway -- be destroyed.

Of course, they could fight where there was infringement on the 'Disney' trademark, but this just means that people making their own Mickey Mouse works have to avoid confusing people as to the origin of them. It doesn't mean that they cannot use the character, or that they even have to change it. Rather, they just say something like 'Joe Smith's Mickey Mouse' instead of 'Disney's Mickey Mouse,' which is what Disney would have to start doing, if they don't already.

Re:Do lawmakers really think

[Mr. Shiny And New]

Your argument makes sense, but I'm still not convinced that a court would actually find against Disney in this case; a Mickey Mouse movie entering public domain would allow you to make copies of that movie, and it would allow you to make derivative works, but would your derivative works be allowed to contain Mickey as such? Has such a case ever occurred? I'm sure there is old Coke marketing material that has entered public domain, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to use the words Coca-Cola or the image of their logo on your products, does it?

Cue angry rants.

[TexasDex]

Yeah. I know this is a bad thing. But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'. It's getting damn tiring hearing about our rights being eroded and getting angry about it. So I have decided it's time to give my blood pressure a rest. I think I'll make a cup of tea instead.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Re:Cue angry rants.

[oberondarksoul]

I think this works quite nicely for the lawmakers. People get full of righteous indignation to begin with, but by the time their final rights are taken away, people grow apathetic. It's the seige tactics of the 21st Century: continually erode people's rights, until they capitulate and you can seize the whole bally lot of them.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[mmeister]

But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'.

I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass. I'm really sick and tired of these greedy companies and these greedy Congressmen stripping me of my rights for the sake of the all mighty dollar.

Unfortunately our politicians are SO CORRUPT that they've sold their own soul as well as the souls of their constituents to these FAT ASS companies. I'm already planning to take several weeks out of the next election and devote it to throwing out the incumbent, whatever party he/she may be.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[ToasterofDOOM]

Ahh, it's refreshing to see that some people in this world have some sense.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[pcmanjon]

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

        -- Benjamin Franklin

Seems like they knew what they were talking about. Politicians just don't say things like that now days.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Fuck y'all. I'm moving to a place where the people wrapping themselves in the flag aren't the same people who are holding a subpoena for all the books I read in the library. You go right ahead and keep vigil over your "freedom." What you are calling vigilance looks to me more like sitting shiva.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[grumpygrodyguy]

[1] But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'.

[2] I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass.

If you really want to help, devote yourself to helping these guys or these guys, or you can start your own project. No offense to anyone here, but if I was a betting man I'd put my money on the average Slashdotter's Technical skills, not his/her ability to win hearts and minds...or affect social opinion.

The demographic that voted us into this mess are beer drinking, flag waving yehaw walping wash my soul on sunday types. Until Bubba and Jinny have suffered enough from $3 gas prices, unemployment, and no health care...we're pleading into deaf ears.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[jmv]

Thanks. Can you make one for me while you're at it?

Re:Cue angry rants.

[falconwolf]

Yeah. I know this is a bad thing. But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'. It's getting damn tiring hearing about our rights being eroded and getting angry about it. So I have decided it's time to give my blood pressure a rest. I think I'll make a cup of tea instead.

Instead of a cup of tea perhaps a cup of traiters' blood? Well I guess we could have another Boston Tea Party.

Falcon

Re:Cue angry rants.

[sillybilly]

That's how horses, elephants, and people break in - they get harassed long enough.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I can hope is that people realise just how pissed off some people will get when their rights are truly violated.

Sure, I can't do anything about laws being passed, because the voters in this world are brain dead, democracy doesn't work, etc.

However, when the masked marauders of the time come knocking on my door because of thoughtcrime, I won't greet them with a cup of tea.

I will greet them with my 12 gauge.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder, when will there be enough violent people, to start a violent overthrow?

It gives me chills up my spine thinking about it...

Re:Cue angry rants.

[0111 1110]

I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass.

Say that again when you're in your thirties. In college I used to call into radio talk shows and argue my libertarian views. I also argued my athiest views with fundamentalist Christians. It all seemed so important to me at the time. Philosophy. Truth. The way things should be. Now it makes me yawn just thinking about it. God. Who cares? Theres nothing you can do about it. If someone really does want to start a revolution and actually overthrow the US government I'd be the first in line. And I'd be quite willing to give my life. Would you be willing to die? But no one has come knocking with secretly distributed pamphlets or anything. Unless you resort to violence on a massive scale (like Osama) there is nothing meaningful that one person can do except maybe run for office himself. Another realistic plan might be something like the Free State Project except with guns to defend against the inevitable US military. We'd probably all die. Every last one of us. But it would be worth it. At least for me.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Savantissimo]

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...

And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

-Thomas Jefferson
November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy

                                        *
            So every bondman in his own hand bears
                The power to cancel his captivity.
                          - William Shakespeare
                      Julius Caesar (Casca at I, iii)

Re:Cue angry rants.

[mmeister]

Say that again when you're in your thirties.

Already there!

I went through my angry phase in my early twenties. Settled down a bit and am revving back up. The corruption is just growing too much, too fast. Our politicians aren't just for sale, they're advertising that they're for sale. They don't even care that it's immoral.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[ikkonoishi]

I'm moving to a place where the people wrapping themselves in the flag aren't the same people setting fire to it...

Wait no I'm not. That's always funny as hell.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[0111 1110]

Nice. But the government troops were fighting with muskets and maybe cannons. It was relatively easy to fight them back with muskets. Today the anti-government forces would at best have small arms like rifles with laser sights and maybe some light kevlar body armor for protection. Except for the lasers and body armor, the government has advanced like half a century past that stuff. It's like the current US military fighting against WWII Germans and Japanese. It would be a massacre, not a battle.

How do you fight against stealth bombers that drop giant laser guided (shock and awe) mushroom cloud bombs in the middle of the night. Or fighter jets with missiles and advanced military helicopters with machine guns and missiles, tanks that can do 30-40 mph, cruise missiles, robotic planes (and god knows what else), military uniforms and helmets with real body armor. The list goes on and on. We'd be lucky to have access to grenades. So the only chance would be to win a large portion of the military over to our cause. But considering the kind of flag waving jarheads that usually join the military I think chances of that would be fat/slim. They are like American cops. They will carry out their orders no matter what.

And of course it's not just the US. Any of the well armed first world countries today would be nearly impossible to overthrow by the civilian population. Only other (first world) governments have any chance at all.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

How many times have YOU seen somebody burning a flag?

Now, justify fucking with the Constitution based on that pathetically low (probably zero) number. You assholes make me sick.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Dun Malg]

Another realistic plan might be something like the Free State Project except with guns to defend against the inevitable US military

FWIW, as a fromer member of the armed forces I can say if it comes down to large scale civil insurrection where sending the [FBI|BATF|DEA] isn't enough, you'll likely find yourself standing next to a lot of the US military rather than in front of it.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[jdigriz]

So you're willing to give your life for your country, but not to live for it? Arguing with people who disagree with you is not particularly useful, unless it's for the benefit of an audience, because if they were reasonable in the first place, they'd already agree with your arguments, assuming you yourself are reasonable. Quite frankly, the people running the parties right now are completely inept and it would only take a few thousand coordinated like-minded individuals in each state to take each party organization over completely legally according to their own rules. Witness the takeover of the GOP by the theocons. I should know. Starting from nothing more than showing up to a precinct convention in '02 on a whim, with no prior experience in politics, I got selected as a delegate to my party's state convention twice in the last two years. At the last one, I even got a bit about space exploration inserted into the party platform at the state level. Politics sucks as much as it does because the good people of this country have given up and opted out leaving it to the powerhungry, inept and corrupt. Show up, speak out with conviction, and don't let them fool you with the idea that the general elections are where the action is, the policy and candidates are selected *within* the two major parties by a tiny minority of voters. I think something like 9% of eligible voters vote in primaries.

Sure, you may be willing to take a bullet for your country but are you willing to drag your ass to public hearings that start at 8am and go till 3am just to testify? Are you willing to spend an entire weekend of our time voting on and hashing out hundreds of resolutions, many of them submitted by dimwits? Are you willing to become a volunteer registrar and get 100 other likeminded people to register and vote in the next election. Democracy is hard, painful work. Stopping a bullet just hurts for a little while. All the same, ballots not bullets I say! In the face of widespread public involvement these bastards in the legislatures just slink away and try to sneak it in again some other time when we're not looking. They respect massed political power. But...they use tedium, complexity and apathy as weapons against the populace to make sure that people don't care. Hence all the droning speeches, the overblown impenetrable language of the bils, the public hearings till 3am. Sheer volume of verbiage puts people to sleep and then a deall is cut in a back room and by a committee. We have to guard against that. And toss the bastards out come November!

Re:Cue angry rants.

[ocelotbob]

What, and move to some socialist shithole where if you invent something useful, they'll rob it from you at gunpoint all in the name of "the greater good"?

Re:Cue angry rants.

[ocelotbob]

Two words: Guerilla warfare

Think iraq here. Hide amongst your own people, quick hit and run jobs. Tough to find such an enemy, difficult/impossible to truly counter.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[mOdQuArK!]

FWIW, as a fromer member of the armed forces I can say if it comes down to large scale civil insurrection where sending the [FBI|BATF|DEA] isn't enough, you'll likely find yourself standing next to a lot of the US military rather than in front of it.

That's actually one of the GOOD things about having a military which is drawn primarily from the general population. It doesn't go over too well when a tyrant wanna-be tells them to mow down their friends & family.

I think it's a pretty typical tactic for tyrant-wannabes to assemble a large elite police force, make sure they don't have too much contact with the general population, give them lots of privileges, and deliberately do things which make the general population hate them (which further isolates them from the general population).

Re:Cue angry rants.

[h4rm0ny]

Yeah. I know this is a bad thing. But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'. It's getting damn tiring hearing about our rights being eroded and getting angry about it.

Anger's function is to enable us to do something about the situation. Frustration and fatigue build up when we can't. If you do a few things to act against the erosion of rights, whatever, you may find that your anger discharges in a positive way, rather than burning you out. Doesn't mean overthrowing your Government, or anything - You're one person. So keep it in perspective and make one person's contribution, write a letter to your congressman on an issue, interest / inform someone in the situation who wasn't previously informed, go on a protest. The key is to keep things in perspective and realize that you have in however small a way, taken action against what bothers and get some satisfaction.

I'm not meaning this as a lecture or moral obligation. Just that if you're starting to burn out with the anger, turning it outwards at a better target will feel good for you.

Hope this helps,

-H.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[NormalVisual]

How do you fight against stealth bombers that drop giant laser guided (shock and awe) mushroom cloud bombs in the middle of the night.

There's a tall, goofy-looking Saudi Arabian guy somewhere out there that's been doing just that for a number of years, and I don't really think we have the first idea where he is. We may not have legal access to grenades and such, but don't think for a moment that they would be totally unavailable - there are too many other interested parties out there that would be willing to fund/supply such an insurrection in the U.S., plus I'd imagine there would be plenty of members of the U.S. military that would refuse to fight against their countrymen, and would probably bring their toys to the party too.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[h4rm0ny]

I went through my angry phase in my early twenties. Settled down a bit and am revving back up.

And here. Not quite hit the big 30 yet, but I can see it quite well from where I am. *sob*. And yet, I'm also finding myself revving up for a bit World changing. And the nice thing is that by this point, I'm so much more able to achieve things than when I was younger.

As I posted elsewhere, the secret is to find satisfaction in making one-person's contribution.

And to whoever posted about Usama, yes - he has shown what one person can do, but Ghandi achieved more.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[h4rm0ny]

There is a post further up from a serviceman talking about what would happen if the Army were called in on its own people. It would be a bit much to ask soldiers to go up against their own.

The technique of pulling this off, is dissassociation. You'd need to turn the "us" of army and population into a "us and them" of army and population. You'd need a communist witch hunt for the modern day, convince the soldiers that they were protecting the country from traitors of some sort. But it would be hard, really hard.

Don't get me wrong - I don't underestimate the training techniques of the modern army. I was once on a Greyhound bus with a few recruits just finishing bootcamp. It was amazing how suggestible they were to anyone who wanted to make them do things (me). But to describe the army as full of "flag-waving jar-heads" is to do them a disservice. Very few people wouldn't think something was wrong when sent against their own country. Especially if we're talking the sort of mass-unrest that would actually require military intervention. And for every group of "jar-heads" there is a commanding officer who has demonstrably better reasoning skills.

The army is not typically drawn from the sons and daughters of the rich. And it's them who would have the necessary dissasociation to regard a mass of citizens as enemy who need to be slapped back down. The army is built of ordinary people (as much as anyone is ordinary) so you're trying to turn people on themselves. Very very dangerous. If a government tries that tactic, you know they are truly afraid.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Savantissimo]

Yep. You're right. I was simply giving some quotes that more eloquently expressed the mood of the post to which I was reponding. However, the other response to your post is also correct - guerilla tactics have worked against big armies in the past. Getting the critical mass needed would be difficult these days, though. Anything less than a full takeover would just make the State stronger and more ruthless. On the other hand, with encryption, steganography and a modern cell-structure for limiting damage from infiltrators, securing communications and coordinating action would be easier than ever before. This is theoretical, though. We are a long way from running out of decent, nonviolent options.

Guerilla tactics and organization can be even more effectively applied to non-military objectives. An excellent target would be gaining control of the the strategic state Republican and Democratic party organizations through covert but legal means. Then choose what choice of candidates will be offered, and use broad-based overt online organization to rock the primaries of both parties. With enough power in the state and Federal legislatures, the legacy of tortured legal opinions and case law can be swept away and the Constitution restored.

Another essential target would be to use laws (assuming that taking over the parties is as easy as I think) or perhaps more covert methods (and I'm not sure what those would be) to bring the large corporations and foundations to heel. Those organizations have effective control of the media, which in turn shape policy and public opinion.

In surprisingly short order it may be possible to undo much of the damage that has been done to the American mind and make this country freer than it ever was before.

Think of the military-industrial /political-media-education complex as just another system to be hacked, and like-minded citizens can indeed retake control of the nation.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[utexaspunk]

I wonder, when will there be enough violent people, to start a violent overthrow?

You know, I read statements like this all the time on slashdot, and I think what seems to be missing is a truly viable and popularly acceptable alternative to our current government. Why the hell would I risk my neck to overthrow the government without any sort of guarantee that the replacement won't be as bad or worse than what we've got? Write me a constitution for a government that won't go corrupt in 250 years, and I'll sign up for your revolution.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[sik puppy]

Well, Sir Winston Churchill said it best:

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other kinds."

(yes I realize the US is a republic and not a democracy)

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Celvin]

I think it's time to change the poll on the front-page:

Time before slashdot servers get seized in the name of "National security":
- 1 hr
- 3 hrs
- 1 day
- 3 days
- Never
- CowboyNeal fights of the FBI with guerilla tactics!

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

If only the world matched your weird fucked up Yankee view, then America actually would be the land of the free, rather than the land of the fat and the ignorant.

It would be funny if you weren't as dangerously stupid as you are.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's illegal for me to say this (I'm not an American - I'll post anonymous anyway), but why haven't you people assassinated anyone yet?

Surely you're at least tempted to play the game of shoot people until someone guesses what you want - it wouldn't even take them long to guess, when you did away with, say, the US president, the main players in the RIAA etc, several congresspeople who're clearly in the pocket of your favourite corporation...

Come on! You're US of Americans the gun is the solution! Assassination (and stock market manipulation) are the only weapons that can hurt a corporation!

Re:Cue angry rants.

[bentcd]

I served in the Norwegian air force for my compulsory year of military training. Norwegian conscript forces are pretty lax, and the air force even more so. Additionally, I ended up at a mostly academic training facility for a month. At this facility, a bunch of us went out to do some rafting and the girl we hired to lead the expedition told us that she always enjoyed it when recruits from the air force base came to do rafting because they always followed her directions without question and with the utmost effort.
And that's from only a very relaxed military training regime.
Of course, this isn't to say that we'd follow unreasonable orders. But when given reasonable ones (e.g., paddle upstream!), we wouldn't hesitate. I wouldn't know whether or not the US military trains its troops to follow unreasonable orders, but Norwegian conscripts generally are not.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[h4rm0ny]

I've spent a little time in Norway also. Lovely place (shame about the whaling). I find it hard to imagine that Norwegian military training is a psychologically brutal as US training. Even so, it conditions people to obey orders.

But as to following unreasonable orders? Well from the pre-soldier's point of view, they are all unreasonable. Go out and get shot at for the sake of some people you don't know? Value your life at less than the goals of people who boss you around all the time? And most of all, kill people on command. That last does not come easily to 98% of people. We have built in instincts against that for good reason. But I heard an interesting talk from a trainer in the US army about conditioning people to overcome this.

And one of things he focused on was not the conditioning itself, but the stress that comes with acting on it. It's not for nothing that the US military is interested in drugs that damage short-term memory formation.

But stress and discomfort increase when you know you are doing wrong.

The chief goal of US military training is to break the bonds with civilian life, bonds to family and loved ones, in preperation for replacing them with emotional bonds to the army. But this is not 100$ effective and, with time and introspection, becomes more complex. Turning the army against the civillians would place a soldier in a great deal of psychological conflict and it the effort would have to be preserved with heavy propaganda and strict prevention of non-confrontational contact with the "enemy."

You also have to consider how long this effort would last. The army still needs to recruit, still needs support. If not backed by a willing civillian population there will be problems with both of these.

In short, simple army supression of a population is not possible. Supplement with intimidation laws (curfews, public gathering restrictions, sedition, et al.), secret police (e.g. don't have to go through normal procedures (e.g. warrant restrictions, DMCA provisions on can't tell anyone we're investigating them, no knowledge of the evidence against you, et al.) then you start getting somewhere. But even so, these are desperate measures. If the whole world is under one government, then perhaps you can make this last longer than it ought, but a country that does this is crippling itself. Hence the diversion of militarisation.

Nazi style government is the credit card of social engineering. It can get you out of an unpleasant situation, but it will not last and the bailiffs have a tendancy to string you up with piano wire.
If you have to send the army in, you're in pretty big trouble.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Azghoul]

Well, since most gas is still well under $3 in the South, unemployment is 5% nationwide (less than that in VA), and most folks still have health care... if those are what you're betting on, you're in big trouble.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[bentcd]

ÃEmpires have typically tried to get around some of this by using troops from elsewhere when suppressing civilians of some area. For bonus points, use troops from an ethnic group that is (for whatever reason) opposed to the ones you need to suppress. This should work well in multi-ethnic empires such as ancient Rome, China and the Soviet Union. The US isn't quite there yet but it could conceivably get there if poorly integrated Mexican or Chinese population groups became large enough.
As for Norwegian military training, conscripts aren't generally trained to kill. They are trained to use their equipment, but there are rules against e.g., using targets that look like humans. The closest we get are cardboard cutouts with a quadratic "head" on top of a rectangular "body" with no artwork on it other than concentric circles (or ellipses). Since conscripts generally return to civilian lives after their year of service, we basically don't want to train them to be killers :-)
Our professional forces (the ones we send to Afghanistan etc.) might get more realistic training the this, I don't know.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[h4rm0ny]

For bonus points, use troops from an ethnic group that is (for whatever reason) opposed to the ones you need to suppress.

You've just given me the vision of a future US government importing some of the Arab forces they're currently training in Iraq for maintaining order. Thank-you. That's the best laugh I've had all day.

I'm not sure it's funny, mind you.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you fight against stealth bombers that drop giant laser guided (shock and awe) mushroom cloud bombs in the middle of the night. Or fighter jets with missiles and advanced military helicopters with machine guns and missiles, tanks that can do 30-40 mph, cruise missiles, robotic planes (and god knows what else), military uniforms and helmets with real body armor. The list goes on and on. We'd be lucky to have access to grenades.

The Palestinians have a lot worst odds when it comes to fighting the Israeli military. Yet that dosn't them fighting against a much better armed invader which views them as sub human.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you fight against stealth bombers that drop giant laser guided (shock and awe) mushroom cloud bombs in the middle of the night. Or fighter jets with missiles and advanced military helicopters with machine guns and missiles, tanks that can do 30-40 mph, cruise missiles, robotic planes (and god knows what else), military uniforms and helmets with real body armor?

With fanatics and suicide bombers. With hidden bases, hijackings, kidnappings. With assistance from foreign terrorist groups and rogue states. With bloody jihad.

When the freedom fighters could be hiding in any civilian home, the airforce are crippled. When every man, woman, or child on the streets is a potential suicide bomber, the army is crippled. It's different in Israel and Iraq, where the troops have less of an emotional investment in the things they attack -- do you really think US troops would do as well as they're doing now if the enemy threatening them had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a midwest accent? Do you think US pilots would really be able to release bombs over Manhattan?

It would be very, very bloody. And the insurrectionists would have to become terrorists in deed as well as name. But it could be done.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[AviLazar]

The price of freedom is a good checkbook. We can rant and scream (on /. no less) all we want... you want a point made, line the pockets of the politicians you voted into office.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

you want a point made, line the pockets of the politicians you voted into office.

I didn't vote them into office. In fact, only 22% of the voting population in the UK did, and in my country (England) they weren't even the majority party, all of which tells you something about how flawed our voting system is.

As for the US, we don't get to vote on the politicians there at all, unfortunately, or Kerry would have won a landslide. :-(

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Master Bait]

Aren't we supposed to be outraged before the friggin' law is passed instead of after? What a waste.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[FreeUser]

Yeah. I know this is a bad thing. But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'. It's getting damn tiring hearing about our rights being eroded and getting angry about it.

That is exactly what they count on, and why they win.

From the RIAA/MPAA on down to Bush Junior, they simply brazen it out and do what they like, the will of the people and the good of society/their country/their neighbors be damned.

They know our energy to feel outrage and fight them is far less than the amount of atrocity and abuse they can heap on us, and thus the lowest common demonominator governance wins.

Welcome to the New World Order. All Your Thoughts Belong to Us, and Are a Violation of Our Copyright.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[mrogers]

Any of the well armed first world countries today would be nearly impossible to overthrow by the civilian population.

Tell that to Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara and Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

There's a very good chance that what you imagine in your brain to be Socialist, isn't.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Some_Llama]

I think we could return most of the control back to the people by either taking away the right of corporations to be treated as people, or make corporations fully responsible and treated as people (since that is how they are seen in the eyes of the law).

So if a corporation is responsible for killing a person, lock it up for manslaughter (no business dealings for the term of their imprisionment).

Since the second alternative would basically kill all corporations, I say the only viable alternative is to return the corporation status to that of pre-person status.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Some_Llama]

"That's actually one of the GOOD things about having a military which is drawn primarily from the general population. It doesn't go over too well when a tyrant wanna-be tells them to mow down their friends & family."

That's why the have the "national guard" so that you have a wide distrubution of soldiers from acorss the country, so when you have to act upon an uprising in one specific area, the chance that a soldier would actually be facing friends or family is very slim indeed...

Makes me think currently of the WTO protestors and historically Kent State...

Re:Cue angry rants.

[falconwolf]

How do you fight against stealth bombers that drop giant laser guided (shock and awe) mushroom cloud bombs in the middle of the night. Or fighter jets with missiles and advanced military helicopters with machine guns and missiles, tanks that can do 30-40 mph, cruise missiles, robotic planes (and god knows what else),

None of which are very effective in urban combat, except the mushroom clouds but then many civilians would die too and such an action would awaken the populace, nor have they been able to find bin Laden. Dispite all those fabulous weapons systems they haven't able to defeat all the rebels in Afghanistan or in Iraq.

Today the anti-government forces would at best have small arms

Not if they know what they're doing. Explosives are relatively easy to make, Oklahoma City ring a bell? Setting up ambushes can net more. Moltov cocktails can be pretty effective as well. Besides even those gungho jarheads would second thoughts about firing on their own civilians. Nor are many of them at least when I was in the army many weren't all that gungho, sure there were a few but others were drifting their way through the military, looking forward to retiring from the military, or were saving money to go to college. One sergeant in a unit of mine was working on getting his BA while he was in, it took 8 years but the day he got was the happiest day for him.

Simply if it only required advanced modern weapons Iraq would be pacified by now.

Falcon

Re:Cue angry rants.

[ocelotbob]

Socialist: the governments of shitholes like France. Marked by high unemployment, high taxes, nationalized industries and low economic growth. Socialist governments have a tendency to nationize and run into the ground any industry they touch in the name of the "people's best interest" - for examples of this, see the british car industry.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Thanks for proving me right. You flunk government class.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah. The real price of freedom is a bullet to somebody's head, whether that of a freedom-hating politician or that of a freedom-loving patriot.

(This, coming from somebody who holds Thomas Jefferson as a personal hero.)

Re:Cue angry rants.

[Money for Nothin']

WTF did Ghandi achieve? World peace?

Clearly not, for religion has prevented peace for thousands of years.

Religion will likewise be what incites the destruction of the human race. The tools for doing so are in place -- there are plenty of NBC weapons floating around, and an increasing number of them every day. It just takes one person to pull the trigger, be it the terrorist-king Osama bin Laden in downtown NYC, or a war-mongering Bush in the White House, or some fascist, theocratic mullah in Iran or Saudi Arabia, or the batshit-crazy Kim Jong-Il, or anybody else...

All there needs to be is a reason to press the Big Red Button. And everybody else is weaker than us, so they have a reason: the U.S. is too powerful and dominating. It's the "David vs. Goliath" syndrome. Big penis vs. little penis.

I'm not much younger than you (mid-20s), but I personally have little doubt that we will see WWIII in our lifetimes. There has never been a century in U.S. history in which some major, century-defining, multi-lateral war has not occurred; the 1700s saw the Revolutionary War, the 1800s saw the Spanish-American War and the Civil War, the 1900s saw WWI and WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

Plus there are a variety of smaller "wars" and skirmishes dotting the timeline between those bigger events.

The 2000s has no reason I can think of to prove any different from the previous 3 centuries.

Re:Cue angry rants.

[h4rm0ny]

WTF did Ghandi achieve? World peace?

Ghandi organized an ambulance service of over a thousand unpaid volunteers in the South African War, saving many lives. Achievement one.

Ghandi led a major protest movement there which led to the restoration of the rights of Indian settlers. His non-violent approach and ability to inspire others to do the same brought this about whereas a violent approach would have failed against the stronger government forces.

In India, he was a major force in ending British occupation - again an ostensibly stronger force. Additionally, his non-violent approach may have ultimately subverted a bloody war of independence in which many would have died. He began his independence efforts when the British government passed laws allowing incarceration without trial (sounds familiar).

During the indpendence movement, he also found time to improve the legal status of India's "untouchables" and for a time, brought an end to growing violent clashes between Muslim and Hindu factions by refusing to eat until the riots ended. He also brought education to many rural areas of India.

In addition to all of the measurable achievements, he showed how much can be achieved without violence, even in the face of extreme provocation. This has strengthed the influence of successors who argue for peaceful resolutions.

As a young lawyer, there was nothing about his life or position that said he could go on to do these things, yet he chose to try anyway, making a huge difference to the lives of millions. So I reckon that just goes to show that we don't have to be prisoners of history. Wars can be prevented and the World changed.

You think mankind will incinerate itself. I think there is cause to hope. If everyone thinks like you, then they'll be right. If everyone thinks like me, then we have a bright future. I believe my way of thinking is the better one and I'll continue to pass it on to anyone who has ears to hear. ;)

Cheers,

-H.

Work Arounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death

Wow, no wonder Disney is able to keep extending its copyright on Mickey Mouse, I mean Walt Disney is in his cryogenic chamber, so he isn't really even dead yet. I wonder if they will put George Lucas' live head in a jar, that way there will always be official Star Wars merchandise.

Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[El Cubano]

extend Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death

Today in class, the professor handed out some copies that came out of IEEE Computer from January 1982. Under current copyright law, the copyrights on those articles will not expire until well after I do. But to what end?

Really, how commercially valuable is a 23 year old article about parallel computing? It makes me shake my head. If you can't extract the majority of the commercial benefit of your creation in the first couple of decades, I don't think you deserve the ability to even get a copyright.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[Quasar1999]

that's right, YOU don't get the copyright, the mega-worldwide-super-uber-dooper big ass company bent on world domination that you work for does.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[SirSlud]

The irony is that copyright was originally created to give legal teeth to nobodies. Today, copyright is really only useful to the same 'friends of the king' that the original copyright law was written to legally de-fang.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[anubi]

Thats assuming the mega-worldwide-super-uber-dooper big ass company has hired you.

With this current trend in outsourcing, while leaving all sorts of highly trained people adrift in the wake to fend for themselves, how long will it be before even the super big corporations end up tripping over the very laws they had lobbied to have passed?

I know in my case, I used to work for an aerospace company. Laid off. Now working for myself, and have several patents in the mill.

I realize companies are unwittingly making huge "and" gates which control whether or not production can function. In days past, mostly one had to have mainly skills and financial resources in order to begin production of a salable product. Now, one has to have increasing arrays of permissions as well to run production.

Like a huge engine can be disabled for lack of one bolt, a huge industrial production process can be disabled by lack of one permission of rightsholder.

Yes, there is a problem of 'eminent domain' where we have already seen Connecticut landowners stripped of their property because a business wanted it. I believe this will happen in patent law too.

I will quote something taught to me as a kid...

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One Nation, under God, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All."

If the last three words are not valid, I guess the first three words aren't valid either.

If we landmine our intellectual property landscape, we all will get blown up; the only secure job is that of the morticians.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[grumpygrodyguy]

If we landmine our intellectual property landscape, we all will get blown up; the only secure job is that of the morticians.

Exactly.

The lawyers are playing both sides of the fence, and they are reaping all the rewards.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[KillShill]

couple of decades?

what are you smoking and may i be allowed to bludgeon you with it?

try 5 years.

most sales of copyrighted products occur in the first year anyway. to say that you need 20+ (100+) years is just as bad as the cartels saying it.

if 1800+ days isn't enough to make money off of your "standing on the shoulders of humanity" product then you shouldn't be allowed to cross the street by yourself let alone get copyrights on things.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[Savantissimo]

"Now working for myself, and have several patents in the mill."

How did you manage to afford the PTO and lawyer fees, if you don't mind me asking? I've wanted to patent some ideas for a long time but the cost always seemed prohibitive. Not to mention the fact that a patent is just a license to sue, so if you can't come up with some hundreds of thousands of dollars for litigation you just have to count on the kindness not just of strangers, but of corporations.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[anubi]

No, not cheap.

Even simple narrow ones like mine are running in the thousands of dollars.

Mine mostly claim I have the right to make what I designed.

I'm afraid if I don't at least send it in, someone else will simply get my product, disassemble it to see how it works, then patent it, then sue me for making it.

I think its the same thing thats driving large companies like Microsoft to patent everything in sight, so no one else will do so just so they can come back and bite them.

We are weaving a helluva nasty web of litigation... I have no idea how to communicate to the common voter just how urgent it is for all of us to get Congressmen who see this mess for what it is elected.

Problem is with the new electronic voting, I am not so sure people's votes really count anymore - seeing just how obscure and unaccountable the powers-that-be have made the election systems.

Some call me paranoid. I have seen over and over and over again how people pull the wool over my eyes to get what they want - at my expense... and from all I can see, they are doing it again.

I still remember having to ask Dad's permission to do anything... and it looks like we will all find ourselves in that predicament soon.

I never did take much to being a beggar.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[SirSlud]

Amen. Nice to see some people realize that the limited term of patents (and copyrights) should encourage hard work, not dissuade you from it after the first big score.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[h4rm0ny]

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One Nation, under God, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All."

If the last three words are not valid, I guess the first three words aren't valid either.

That's a beautiful turn of phrase. Worth becoming one of /.'s stock quotes. I'm in the UK and I've always found it disturbing how little children are taught to recite their alleigiance.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[Savantissimo]

Thanks for the answer. Patenting to prove that you have the right to make your own designs is even more paranoid than I am - and that's a compliment.

Truth is, we're already inside the event horizon for a totalitarian state - neither 1984 nor Brave New World but with roughly the governance of the former and the opinion control of the latter. I think the only way we can escape as a society is to jettison the mass of the administrators, ad-men and assorted ass-kissers downward at high velocity.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[anubi]

This is how paranoid I am getting...

I remain firmly convinced the Patriot Act has very little to do with Iraq and a helluva lot to do with making sure there will never be another Boston Tea Party.

If Britain had a strong functional Patriot Act, George Washington, Paul Revere, and all those other 'terrorists' to the Crown could have been dealt with and America as we know it would have never been.

The powers that be will need the Powers of the Act to maintain control once the masses figure out what happened. I think most of us on Slashdot already know, but so far theres not enough of us to statistically throw an election.

Which is why I believe why some powers that be seem so determined to replace our verifiable paper voting systems with something that can not be verified.

Should I take my tinfoil hat off yet?

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[Anonymous Coward]

"patents (and copyrights) should encourage hard work, not dissuade you from it..."

Nor, in the case of patents, to legally prevent others from doing their own hard work that may be similar to yours.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[Tony Hoyle]

Won't work. A good patent lawyer would have told you this (one that just wanted your money wouldn't of course).

You need more than the money to register the patent. You need the money to *defend* the patent - often tens of thousands of dollars.

If your idea is good, a company will rip it off anyway. Then you'd have to sue them for it. If the company is evil enough they probably have a few patents of their own that you can be described as breaking and you'll get countersued. Do you have enough in the bank for that?

If you don't have that kind of money do *not* patent - rely on secrecy.. it's cheaper.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[surprise_audit]

What percentage of polling places would have to be trashed in order for an election to be re-scheduled?? What would the government do if sufficient voters staged protests that there was no possible way to haul them all away and lock them up??

I'm dreaming, I know - it's tough enough to get people out and exercise their legal right to vote any more, let alone do anything that would get them arrested. That's where the terrorists in the White House win - enough rights have been abrogated that people are fearful of being labelled "terrorist" for attempting to exercise rights granted to them in their own damn Constitution.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[Anonymous Coward]

If we landmine our intellectual property landscape, we all will get blown up; the only secure job is that of the morticians.

Indeed. It's why I'm saving up to go to mortuary school soon. Unlike IT jobs, they can't outsource the morticians.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[ureshii_akuma]

It is not even a matter of how valuable a 23 year old paper. It is a matter of whether knowing they'd be granted a monopoly for life+70 made it any more likely for the author to write and publish the article than knowing they would have a monopoly for life, or even a monopoly for 20 years.

The whole point of the artificial right of copyright is to encourage creators, who put resources into their creation, to create knowing they will have a monopoly on their creation which gives them an opportunity to beneift from their creation (note that copyright does not assure you of benefit, it just allows you the exclusive opportunity to benefit).

Does anyone really believe there is a single creator out their who would say, "Well, I was going to write this song/book/movie, but since I only have a monopoly on it for my lifetime, screw it!"

Would Hollywood suddenly collapse if the media conglomerates only held the copyright on a property for 50 years? Doubtful. In fact, the influx of properties that could be used for free in the creation of new works may even be quite a boon for them. It certainly would be for smaller creative entities.

Copyright as it exists today is a sickening perversion of its original goal and aim. It is not supposed to exist to allow corporations to milk profits from creative works until the end of the Earth. It is unquestionable that society benefits when works enter the public domain - look out how much Shakespeare is used and abused in modern film and theater. In modern copyright, the public is giving up their rights to new works, but the copyright holders are refusing to keep up their end of the bargain and give up their rights in a reasonable time.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[mpe]

Yes, there is a problem of 'eminent domain' where we have already seen Connecticut landowners stripped of their property because a business wanted it.

The way this appears to be going any judge who approves such an order is likely to find the whole town ready to kick him or her out of their house.

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[Savantissimo]

I agree for the most part, except that I think that the likelihood that the majority will figure it out is quite slim. The public education system has manufactured enough stupidity and inculcated enough belief in the powerlessness of individuals to ensure that that won't happen. The echo chamber of corporate media controls the terms of debate for both the masses and 95% of the nominal elites anyway.

The practical ability to mount a revolt had already been managed out of existence sometime between 1910 and Roosevelt's second term. (H.L. Mencken is a good guide to the history of that process. Gatto's Underground History of American Education, especially chapters 9 and 15, also has a great deal of information about the methods of mass control.)

The Patriot Act - no, let's not give them that control over language - rather, the Police State Act is just a manifestation of the natural amoral imperative of all organizations to expand their dominion by any means available. Its purpose is to provide the State justification and cover for using the power they already had to crush whomever might get in their way. The jack-boots are not too worried about mass movements, since they have the ability to strangle most such movements in the crib. Those that might slip through will have their votes counted on these rigged machines, as you said. It's a belt-and-suspenders approach that shows every sign of being successful so far.

So, no, don't take off your tinfoil hat unless you think it might just be enhancing your radar signature. ;|

Re:Today I realized exactly how stupid this is

[anubi]

Your link to the Underground History of American Education is quite a wowser!!!

Ever read Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram?

Wiki

He's that Yale psychology researcher which did that study to see just how far people would obey him when he ordered them to painfully electrocute someone else.

We continue to stay the course.

[tamrood]

And I continue to be disgusted, angry, and write to my congressmen and senators. I am not however, surprised.

Re:We continue to stay the course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Off topic, but why would you expect them to care about you ?

Because the government is supposed to represent the will of the people in this mis-classified democracy of ours ?

What will of the people can a government possibly represent when the populace is ignorant ?

Clearly the government is representing someone's will, but it most assuredly is not that of the people.

Why would they care what you want, it's not you the government is in power to represent.

Re:We continue to stay the course.

[SlimFastForYou]

I wish that the government/corps would at least be a little more honest in the way they names stuff.

For example:
"protect Intellectual Property Rights" (from ch 15)
Digital Rights Management
Digital Millenium Copyright Act
Patriot Act

All of these sound positive based on the names. A purposeful shortage of rights should not be called "rights", it should be called "restrictions". For example, "Digital Restrictions Management". Or "copyrestriction" laws. Though it is a bit cowardly, they use tricky names because they know that they could not get support any other way. It's pitiful, but no senator or organization want's to be seen as "anti-rights" or "anti-patriotic".

I suggest that we call such laws/bills/technology what they really are. "Intellectual Property Restrictions", "Copyrestriction law", "Digital Restricitons Management", etc etc. If they are going to take our rights, they should at least do it without the guise that they are giving us more rights when in reality they are doing the exact opposite.

Re:We continue to stay the course.

[ciroknight]

And they will continue writing laws that you go against, no matter who you vote for, because all of the higher ups and re-electees are getting paid by the companies and all of the young guns are learning from the higher ups.

Meanwhile, the average American is getting fucked in the ass, while the upperclass American politican is pulling down a cool hundred grand or two doing nothing more than arguing why their company should get a tax break.

I'm so sick to death of American politics, but there's nothing, and I literally mean nothing, we can do about it until we get competent people into the legislator, which simply can't happen because the people who are voting are the people being swayed by the political pressures that may be, which, once again, are controlled by the big companies.

As more and more American jobs get outsourced to other countries, I hope more Americans realize the driving force behind this migration. They realize they simply can't pay you any less and get the same amount of work done, so they pay someone else who can do the work for less.

The real truth of the matter is, no matter how pissed we get about things, the very corporations we support by buying into them are the very corporations who keep us down. It's like paying an endentured servant to come to your house and work for you, but then turning around and charging them rent at your house.

Sadly, we're at the point where not even a new American Revolution could take care of the problem. Our military's so advanced that if the general public were to turn out to fight it, the American war machine would be able to keep the American people at bay. So much for the "Right to bear arms".

We've got one last right to support us now, and that's our freedom of speech, and for goodness sake we had better exaust it before the policitians can.

Re:We continue to stay the course.

[Volvogga]

What good does freedom of speach do when the polititions pay us no mind, or find some reason to censor it?

Voteing is supposed to be a representation of ones voice, right? In my crap town, the city council will bring up proposals for the population to vote on. When they get shot down, the city council will just keep bringing it to vote until its passed. I think that there is one comming up thats been up for vote three times already! Try to get some of the council out, and, like you said, the good ol' boys just whip the new guys into shape.

A new American Revolution may not work in the long run, but it would defenatly get some of these assholes to sit up and take notice. Hell, if one damn state would attemt to succed from the union, and gave some reasons like the ones in the parent post, maybe that would be enough to get some people to say, "Hey, we really are getting fucked arn't we?".

"Halleluiah! Holy Shit! Where's the Tylenol?!?!"

Re:We continue to stay the course.

[0111 1110]

Sadly, we're at the point where not even a new American Revolution could take care of the problem. Our military's so advanced that if the general public were to turn out to fight it, the American war machine would be able to keep the American people at bay. So much for the "Right to bear arms".

This is so true. An interesting byproduct of having such an advanced military. How long before half the soldiers will be armor plated robots with rotary machine guns who cannot be killed and can easily be repaired if damaged by small arms fire. Once a military power becomes so powerful. So advanced. So well armed. It becomes a danger to its own people. Regardless of any so called 'checks and balances' within the government. Governments always fall to tyranny. It is only a matter of time.

And who do you think the Corporate Media Machine would get behind? The rest of America would believe that we truly were terrorists. They would be cheering for the US government. We would be considered evil. We would not be regarded as martyrs to a great cause. Just a bunch of criminals who should be executed for treason. Middle America especially would have this belief.

I sincerely believe that the character of the average American has fundamentally changed in the past couple of centuries. We are now some of the most easily led people in the world. Brainwashed to believe almost anything our government or our corporate media tells us: to believe just about anything.

Re:We continue to stay the course.

[jonfr]

And I continue to be disgusted, angry, and write to my congressmen and senators. [..]

You don't pay into your congressmen campain fund, however the companyes do. Guess who is going to have more impact on the congressmen.

It is an fact that DMCA ony help big companyes, becose with it they can do anything legally. All in the name of the profit.

Re:We continue to stay the course.

[Confessed Geek]

Your "Representatives" do not care about you or your letter, however your letter and pro/anti stance on any given issue will go into their demographic statistics and polls. Since their job is to get elected again they will follow their polls, so your letter does have a small impact. (All this of course is negated if your "representative" has a messianic complex or is a lame duck)

Circumvention devices?

[Zweideutig]

That wording sounds dangerously ambiguous. This seems to make bit torrent illegal as it can be used to circumvent purchasing the software (I also realize it is intended for legal things.) But where does the liability lie? If I write a program that I intend people to use legally, and they used it to circumvent some DRM, am I liable. If I include "do not use this program for circumvention of copyright protection measures," does that mean I could put that ona file sharing p2p client and not have the RIAA/MPAA after me?

Re:Circumvention devices?

[shark72]

"That wording sounds dangerously ambiguous."

"circumvention devices" is shorthand for what Chapter 15 covers for at least three pages. You're right to be worried -- but your first step should be to read the actual treaty, rather than extrapolating off of a two-word phrase.

The summary contains a handy link to the chapter.

Re:Circumvention devices?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can RIP a DVD to a file without even touch the cryptographic protetions of it.

Thrus, having those files so made in a P2P doesn't constitue a DMCA circunvention device felony (but can be a plain copyright violation).

Cheers,

Re:Circumvention devices?

[surprise_audit]

In the original DMCA the phrase "circumvention device" was linked to breaking "effective" encryption. I don't think "effective" was defined, which would leave it up to a judge to pick from definitions supplied by prosecution and defense lawyers. Prosecution would assert that rot-13 was "effective" in that the content was incomprehensible to the naked eye. Defense would assert that "effective" should mean "not easily breakable". A judge might lean towards whichever side had the most lawyers, or whoever could make the biggest campaign contributions, or whoever looked like rallying the most votes at the next election, or some other random factor.

Slightly better

[Lord Marlborough]

At least it's not democracy we're exporting this time. Crazy laws are less likely to get people killed.

Re:Slightly better

[Goeland86]

mmm, you're forgetting the essential here, it's "attemting to". Trust me, it's gonna shut down more commerce than it's going to benefit to the exporters. I'm guessing that sooner or later Europe will refuse to import stuff from the US and we'll end up with a loss of international business making the big corps reanalyze their views. I hope Europe makes a good stand on this, I mean, why would you give your GRAND-children your copyrights over stuff that's so popular it's made all the cash it can already! The Rolling Stones aren't the richest because of copyright laws but because they're doing good stuff and still making new songs, not just selling their oldies!

It'll be interesting how many countries adhere to those conditions... I don't expect that many to do so, which will cripple their whole business idea.

Naptime

[cdills]

There really isn't any other way this could happen. I'm tired of being angry about all of this, because in reality it's completely logical.

Corporations are 50 years behind the times, and will continue to be forced to play catchup for the indefinite future. The government will legislate based on who they hear, and money speaks louder than words. Meanwhile people like me sit in thier rooms thinking about what could have been.

Maybe I'll take a nap.

LOL PATENTS RULE LOL

[LOL PATENTS RULE LOL]

LOL PATENTS RULE LOL

This sucks

[ToasterofDOOM]

Agreements like NAFTA and the new CAFTA are good in concept, but suck in application because people play politics and tack all sorts of useless or counterproductive crap onto them. This just makes me angry. ALL I WANT IS FREE TRADE! ITS CALLED A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT, NOT FREE TRADE AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW ALL OF THESE RULES AND KISS OUR ASS. </rant>

Re:This sucks

[stinerman]

You might be interested in Rep. Ron Paul's (R-TX) comments on CAFTA. He basically said that CAFTA isn't free trade; it is managed trade. He said that he could draw up a free trade treaty in a matter of a paragraph, but that the CAFTA bill was a couple hundred pages.

Side note: Watching C-SPAN when bored makes for interesting conversation the next day with friends.

Where were EFF and CDT?

[geistbear]

Normally EFF(http://www.eff.org/) and CDT(http://www.cdt.org/) send out alerts. As close as this legislation was with only a two vote passage in the House, it's a real shame they fell down on the job. I think they would have been able to make a difference on this vote.

Re:Where were EFF and CDT?

[smeager]

I remember getting and email about this from EFF about 2 months ago, (I think), right after the first bill they tried this with was shot down. I guess that Congress isn't there for the well-being of the public just the well-being of the those that have the money. Say goodbye to public domain.

Re:Where were EFF and CDT?

[fishbowl]

>Say goodbye to public domain.

Fine, drive the creative arts underground. We'll have a renaissance of amazing creative stuff with a jagged edge. It'll make Rock&Roll and HipHop look like kid stuff.

Give a generation something to be rebellious about. I DARE you. It will NOT go the way you planned it.

Re:Where were EFF and CDT?

[Dachannien]

Give a generation something to be rebellious about. I DARE you. It will NOT go the way you planned it.

Not anymore. There's too much damn money in it now.

CAFTA means

[The Hobo]

Central American Free Trade Agreement

Captain Obvious (?)

Re:CAFTA means

[stinerman]

Oddly enough the full name is DR-CAFTA in order to not make the Dominican Republic feel left out. Our president made sure no one forgot Poland and now he's moving onward to make sure no one forgets the Dominican Republic.

Only one thing to say....

[pionzypher]

Lame.

    Seems to me that we're almost at a breaking point where the rest of the world simply says screw it and blows us off to a point.
 
  Look at what we're doing to Japan with steel. Trying to enforce our shit on the world can only go on so long before it's simply not worth it. The EU's had this software patent battle waging for how long? If the *AA thinks they're going to just give it up now... well I don't even know how to respond...

Re:Only one thing to say....

[pionzypher]

Actually, looking at the list of countries this affects.(Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua)

I can't see this being enforced well, nor a big deal. Unless I'm largely mistaken, none of those countries are even in the top 5 for pirating software, music or movies. Then again, I suppose that Russia, China, etc. wouldn't stand for it, and would just tell us where to go put that lovely round piece of paper.

The copyright extension clause makes sense too. The mpaa/riaa don't care about code or computer articles. They care about movies and music. Elvis is still selling CDs, so are the beetles. Gone with the wind and the wizard of oz are still selling. So are all the old disney cartoons. Old books, etc. It's not that they haven't made a boatload of cash off of this stuff yet as someone suggested... simply that they don't want to give up the relatively steady revenue stream that comes from the classics. I can't blame them for that, but to make it so broad and in such a cheap way.
Screw it, tea time for me as well.

Re:Only one thing to say....

[ebyrob]

The copyright extension clause makes sense too.

Of course it does. Especially if you remember that the Sonny Bono term extension act was mostly passed to "get the US in line" with the EU and the Berne Convention. Creating a new agreement and passing it back the other direction with increased requirements is a perfect way to create an un-ending copyright term extension loop.

(50 years after creation + 70 years after publication is longer than anything I've heard of before, though it is only applicable under specialized circumstances... But that doesn't necessarily make it less useful for forcing other methodologies to simply extend all their limits to meet it.)

Re:Only one thing to say....

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you stupid or just hickly ignorant? The rest of the world is making big ass bank from trading with the USA. It's the USA's lower and middle classes that are getting screwed.

You need to lower your anti-American bias and grow the fuck up, moron.

Re:Only one thing to say....

[pionzypher]

Kindly point out where I said that trade with the USA wasn't profitable? I said us trying to push policy on other countries pisses them off. If you think I'm just showing some form of anti-american sentiment, answer me this.. What would happen if China had some stipulation that they would only trade X commodity with us if we adopted their anti cessation policies towards Taiwan. Think about it carefully before you answer.

Then again, I'm probably just wasting my time biting thirteen year old AC trollbait.

Anarchy is not freedom

[poptones]

Defending "Freedom" is why we have laws. if "free trade" meant anything goes there would be all out trade wars as one country tried to dump its most profitable exports on other nations in order to win control of markets.

The US has a history of negotiating treaties and then abandoning them and resorting to force to retain control they should have sacrificed when they left the treaty - but that doesn't negate the inherent value in a treaty so long as all parties play by the rules.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[AtariAmarok]

"meant anything goes there would be all out trade wars as one country tried to dump its most profitable exports"

Sounds good to me: it would lower the price of the goods.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[timmarhy]

there is no such thing as free trade with the usa. they play by their own rules, when it suits them. america is nothing but a big bully boy

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[ToasterofDOOM]

Exactly, thank you. People think that without restrictions, the global/international economy would fall into chaos. NOT TRUE! Sure, some rules help but most are useless restrictions. Also, if companies flooded the market with their most profitable goods the prices would plument, but so woud their profits. People aren't that dumb GP.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[SirSlud]

Cmon, the sad part of this is that if only side of a party of people has the might to push the rules through, they reallyt wern't that 'inherently valuable' too all in the first place.

Its just persistance. If I have enough money and power to just keep arguing, eventually you will fold (or eventually do something that tips the moral scales in your favour.) That doesn't mean my ideas were inherently valuable in the first place, just that I wore you down to the point where conceeding was cheaper than putting up a fight in the first place.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[AtariAmarok]

Exactly. Protectionist trade laws too often are mainly to "protect" those who do a bad job of producing something.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[nagora]

there is no such thing as free trade with the usa.

Nor for that matter, and for the same reasons, does America ally with anyone. America has lots of allies that will and do help it out, but the US is totally unreliable when the boot's on the other foot. American treaties, of all kinds, aren't worth the paper they're written on.

TWW

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[Reivec]

If there were absolutly no trade rules the worker would lose out. Workers would be paid nothing and get no benifits. They would barely make enough to survive on the most meager terms and would die young. Are you a worker? Yeah... thought so.

PS. Do not take this as if I agree with slipping retarded copyright law into a trade agreement, that is just as bad in my book. But extremes in either direction are usually bad.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[prof_tc]

Anarchy may not be freedom, but I'm wondering how what we have is. The US is still probably #1 in freedom, but all through history, the loss of freedom was a gradual process, like slowly turning up the heat on a pot of seafood.

I know we need some protection of our markets, but how does exporting the DMCA help us?

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[shadow_slicer]

How so?
It's been a few years since high school economics, but I thought that free trade raises the amount of available luxuries due to the advantages in efficiencies of different countries.
Sure suddenly removing all tariffs and trade rules would cause chaos, but eventually the market should settle out.

I don't quite see how this would cause workers to get paid nothing and get no benefits...You could be trying to make the same sort of outsourcing argument I see occasionally about "those foreigners taking our jobs", but I don't really understand that logic either since the net increase in efficiency achieved by hiring cheaper foreign labor should cause more jobs to open up than were taken.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[Savantissimo]

If a company can move production to a country where the labor rates are $0.15/hr with no benefits and no employment taxes, can do essentially whatever they want to the workers, and can dump the toxic waste wherever they please, then that company will be able to sell goods here cheaper while still making a higher profit than a company that pays a good wage in the US and obeys US laws. US consumers get cheaper widgets, the offshoring company makes more sales at a higher margin, and the foreign workers get jobs slightly better than what they would otherwise have.

However US workers lose the jobs that went overseas, the company that kept its production in the US goes out of business and all its workers lose their jobs, and if this happens enough, in the long run the US workers can't afford to buy widgets anymore, the offshoring company goes out of business and the foreign workers are out of their shitty jobs - but now their environment is poisoned, too. Of course the situation is more complicated than that- you will get economic instability, current account deficits, greater wealth inequalities within both countries, and other effects - but that's the gist of it.

In absolute numbers there are far more Asians who are sufficiently smart, skilled and knowledgeable for almost any given job than there are Americans. If the labor market were completely free, there would be no reason for Americans to earn more than those Asians. This is good news for the Asians and bad news for Americans. Similar arguments apply to the other countries in the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Once you realize that free trade only works for us if we have something to trade, and we don't actually make much in the way of physical goods anymore, the economic necessity of geting the IP restrictions in the treaty becomes obvious. Neal Stephenson put it a lot better than I:

When it gets down to it--talking trade balances here...once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here--once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel--once the Invisible Hand has taken all the historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity--y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else

music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

And pizza gets cold when delivered intercontinentally.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[mOdQuArK!]

raises the amount of available luxuries due to the advantages in efficiencies of different countries.

That's pretty worthless if you have no job to buy anything. You'll end up like the poorest Russians just after the Soviet Union collapsed looking at the nice loaves of bread on the shelves & wishing you could afford one.

net increase in efficiency achieved by hiring cheaper foreign labor should cause more jobs to open up than were taken.

How do you figure that? I haven't heard of any inherent economic mechanism that causes new jobs to automatically open up in the old labor market when existing jobs are outsourced.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[Breakfast Pants]

Protectionist trade laws happen because when 99.9% of the population slightly benefits from say, free trade on sugar they don't make noise about it in appreciation; at the same time .1% of the population (corn farmers) make a hell of a lot of noise. If people could just see that noise for what it is--"I want society to suffer so I can benefit, wah wah wah boo hoo"--it might not be a problem. Maybe education is the answer, but it sure doesn't seem to be catching on.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[shadow_slicer]

It's because the global economy is a closed system.
An increase in the efficiency of the economy increases the total amount of wealth available (this may be seen as the cost of the product falling as costs of production decrease [but this does not necessarily have to be the case]). This extra wealth flows to either the customers or owners who then use the extra money. This extra money goes back into the economy where it is multiplied (the amount of increase depends on the economy's efficiency). This increase in consumer capital makes new markets viable, leading to a growth in jobs.

Re:Anarchy is not freedom

[shadow_slicer]

So is it a good thing that America doesn't really produce anything anymore (other than guns, corn, music, and pizza [movies are being made in Australia these days, and software is made in India])?

Under a free market, America would be forced to get off their collective butts and do something.
In the 1960s what did Japan do better than anyone else? Japan didn't have the political muscle America has to force people to accept one-sided trade regulations. Now where is Japan now?

Actually though, America does make some good stuff. Neal Stephenson probably doesn't mention that stuff because being cynical sells more techno-fiction (his stuff is not sci-fi -- it's not about technology. IMHO it's a very immature and shallow fiction that allows geeky losers to feel like their dicks are bigger than everyone else's, but that's beside the point...[Read some David Brin if you want a real Sci-Fi novel]).
America makes planes, cars, food, electronics, and other items that are too numerous to mention.

You're right though, that in a free labor market, there is no reason for similarly qualified Asians to make less than Americans, but there's also no reason in a free trade market that a pound of rice costs more in American than in Asia. Sure everybody would get the same wages, but you'd also pay the same for products. (What sort of efficiency gains do you think we'd get once we stopped importing goods that were made here and then exported because they're that sold for that much cheaper over seas...)
Besides in a free market, America itself would have an excellent position. We still have lots of room here for expansion, numerous resources on the continent, and educated population and a stable government. Japan is too crowded, China's governement is unpredictable, Europe's too crowded (though they're probably closest to the US), and the other nations either have stability problems or infrastructure issues.

EU Constitution problem solved

[Triumph The Insult C]

just use ours. it's not like we are anymore

Re:EU Constitution problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't want yours. We prefer to not have big money steal all our freedoms away.

Re:EU Constitution problem solved

[TheRaven64]

It was put on eBay a couple of years ago. I mirrored if for posterity.

Free Trade Bills

[SirSlud]

Good idea, but its like asking foxes to write chicken-protection laws.

You just cant have freetrade after not free-trade. You have to both work towards it as a common goal, and transition your way off. Do many Americans really feel like America espouses free-trade as an end-all-be-all, because it seems to me like an idological dream along the lines of communism; good in theory, but unimplementable via legislation.

Free trade is supposed to equalize producers of actual product, isn't it? It doesn't seem fair that one side starts off with more money for "education" (advertising) and still subsidizes via tax breaks thanks to a large tax base and a good legal team.

There is a thin line between flamebait and just saying what you think is 'fair' these days.

Airholes?

[AtariAmarok]

"I wonder if they will put George Lucas' live head in a jar, that way there will always be official Star Wars merchandise."

Depends on if you put airholes in the jar. Jar...

Re:Airholes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Lucas' head has been dead some time now.

It's da Mouse!

[khasim]

It's not about whether a tech article or other informational writing will be worth protecting.

It's all about entertainment and keeping those few songs, movies and such securely locked up for as long as the corps can turn a profit.

Exporting the DMCA is a good idea.

[xScruffx]

export DMCA
sudo "rm -rf $DMCA"

Re:Exporting the DMCA is a good idea.

[stuuf]

I was thinking more along the lines of:

package CAFTA::Treaty;

use Exporter;
@ISA= qw/Exporter/;
@EXPORT = qw/DMCA/;

1;

but yours actually makes sense.

There is no future, only the now.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you do now is all that matters. The future is already a mess. Let the things of tomorrow think for themselves.

The future of UNITED STATES is hell, and I don't mean Hell Michigan. All these problems wouldn't happen if there were no corporations. It's difficult to demand to be responsible for your own actions. Now, in any cause of UNITED STATES, I may be held responsible for the actions of a corporation. Name the most used products, and you will find the conspiracy. DRIVER LICENSES; because it is immoral (licentious) to exercise your duty of movement the common ways. Military-enforced Insurance, because you are estoppeled for drafting a Promisory Note in exchange for property damages.

Now my friends are being fined for not registering their bicycle with DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES. If it demands money, it is not law; it is commerce. Is not the President for a corporation known as UNITED STATES, not to be confused with the united States of America?

USC TITLE 28, 3002
  15, "United States" means
      (a) a Federal corporation

Re:There is no future, only the now.

[Peyna]

USC TITLE 28, 3002
    15, "United States" means
            (a) a Federal corporation


I shall never feed this troll again. I promise.

Read the context of the statute you cite. Treat it like a #define statement.

#define UNITED_STATES a federal corporation an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or an instrumentality of the United States.

So, where ever you see "UNITED_STATES" in a sentence, you replace it with what follows in the #define statement for that statute.

In other words, when a statute in that section refers to the United States, it is at the same time referring to any and all government agencies, federal corporations, etc. Thus, the law applies to all of those groups.

Go ahead though, keep your tin foil hat, but stop with this nonsensical troll.

Then the Emperor has already won

[Trogre]

Tiring of getting angry over your rights eroding and making a cup of tea is exactly what they want you to do.

If the people all get sick of hearing about this stuff and sink into apathy, they are much easier to control.

Don't give up, dude.

Ughh...

[WindozeSux]

I didn't RTFA.

Yet I know why this was passed, it wasn't passed to protect the rights of artists..no,no..it was passed so that the RIAA and friends would generate more money. I mean seriously 70 years after they die?! If someone is young and you're old, well, you ain't gonna have that peice of work.

Two words to describe this: Illogical and stupid.

allofmp3.com

[slashpot]

Will this affect my cheapskate ( allofmp3.com ) iPod habbit?

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

No, only in Soviet Russia would the Central American Free Trade Agreement get followed.

Re:allofmp3.com

[stinerman]

Actually, in Soviet Russia CAFTA follows YOU!

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

So we manage to get the countries to agree to our IP laws before we'll trade, but fair labor standards? Well that's just too much to ask of them.

Superpowers flex their wings

[RAMMS EIN]

It must be kind of nice to be a superpower, I think. You can make laws that inhibit productivity and innovation, without fear of hurting your position in the world, secure in the knowledge that you can impose the same laws on others. I mean, even if the countries this treaty pertains to don't like the intellectual property part of it, they still have much to gain by signing it. It's an opportunity I can imagine they wouldn't easily pass up. A nice illustration of how bad lawmakers aren't only a problem to the country they make laws in...

Re:Superpowers flex their wings

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

You can make laws that inhibit productivity and innovation, without fear of hurting your position in the world

That's news to me. The US is losing ground fast to India and China in technology. A lot of it is due to our stifling intellectual "property" (more accurate word would be "monopoly") laws

If we keeping on this path we might not STAY a superpower.

(*) Intellectual property is a monopoly power granted by the gov't which allows one to declare the competition illegal (such competition being anyone other than the monopoly holder trying to produce anything subject to the monopoly power grant). It isn't property in any normal sense of the word - where it is something that exists independent of gov't, is something one could have a natural right to, and where one is of necessity deprived of it if others obtain it (take my car and I can't drive, copy some bits from me and I can still use them).

Re:Superpowers flex their wings

[dbIII]

It must be kind of nice to be a superpower, I think. You can make laws that inhibit productivity and innovation

Instead of removing stupid laws that limit things at home the solution is to export them to reduce the ability of others to compete as well?

People should realise that this sort of thing will only be relevant so long as the USA is considered a more important trade partner than China.

Australia is already showing which side they would back after getting screwed on a trade deal with the USA - eventually the consequences of completely throwing off the deal may be so small as to be irrelevant after getting a trade treaty with China.

Re:Superpowers flex their wings

[fishbowl]

"It must be kind of nice to be a superpower, I think."

You can invade a sovreign nation, kill scores of thousands of people, replace its government with one of your own choosing, and no other nation on the planet will raise the slightest military opposition to your actions. Even the most perfunctory objections will be muted.

THAT, my friend, is POWER.

Re:Superpowers flex their wings

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody raised any military objections to the invasion of Iraq because nobody gave a damn. North Korea on the other hand is a much bigger threat to the US than Saddam was, but you pussyfoot around them because the Chinese would object strongly if any military options were exercised, and China is big enough to take care of itself. So you appease with promises of money and food, while the North Koreans thumb their noses at you knowing that the thought of upsetting big, bad old China makes you crap your pants. Power? Let's look back in history for some real examples of power...

Power was Alexander's Macedonia, which conquered the entire known world in seven years (including superpowers of the time such as Persia) and left a cultural legacy that has survived for 2500 years. Power was Imperial Rome, a single city that bashed much bigger opponents into hundreds of years of submission, resulting in a linguistic, cultural, architectural, and religious heritage that has continued for 1500 years after its fall.

By contrast with these two examples, the US is nothing but a bully that beats up little kids who don't have a brother big enough to give it a bloody nose. Do you really think that a true power such as Rome at its height would have pussyfooted around a bunch of beligerant shites like the North Koreans just because they had some big protector? They'd have gone and kicked both of their arses, even if (as with the Punic Wars) it took centuries of defeats and consequent military and political reforms to do it.

Re:Superpowers flex their wings

[Anonymous Coward]

All these DMCA provisions do is benefit the BSA, MPAA... at the expense of American manufacturing jobs. How many people have to lose their job for Sony and Microsoft to be happy with their revenue?

Re:Superpowers flex their wings

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the other part of it.

That's the part where special interests get politicians to write some garbage like anti-circumvention, life+70, etc. into treaties. Then, later, if people try to reform U.S. copyright law, the same politicians can turn around and cynically claim that "We'd like to reform copyright law, but we can't, because it would break all of these treaties."

Good thing....

[PenguinBoyDave]

I'm sure glad Special Interest wasn't allowed to influence US policy. BOHICA

Waste of time

[hackwrench]

The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.'"

'Odd,' said Arthur, 'I thought you said it was a democracy.'

'I did,' said Ford, 'It is.'

'So,' said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, 'why don't the people get rid of the lizards?'

'It honestly doesn't occur to them,' said Ford. 'They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.'

'You mean they actually vote for the lizards?'

'Oh yes,' said Ford with a shrug, 'of course.'

'But,' said Arthur, going for the big one again, 'why?'

'Because if they didn't vote for a lizard,' said Ford, 'the wrong lizard might get in'"

-- Douglas Adams

AAAAA

[bk4u]

BSA, RIAA, DMCA, MPAA, CAFTA Someone call the AAAAA (American Association Against Acronym Abuse), we've got one serious offense here!

Re:AAAAA

[Schrockwell]

ROFL, WTF? OMG BBL, BBQ!

Re:AAAAA

[Goeland86]

indeed, I believe they're all synonyms, or close enough.
BSA: Bull Shit of America,
RIAA: the same, really, just makes money off people who have their own tastes for music,
DMCA: Da Millenium's Crap of America, basically another way of saying BSA.
MPAA: Maximized Profit Association of America. Full of people that enter the BSA category.
CAFTA: Colossal Anti Freedom Terrorists of America

So indeed, we're very screwed. Someone please help America? God is obviously on vacation or something...

Re:AAAAA

[Robber Baron]

Here's one more for your list:

NAFTA: Not Another Fucking Trade Agreement!!

(At least that's what it stands for in Canada!)

Re:AAAAA

[surprise_audit]

And here's me thinking that the AAAAA was a motoring organisation for drunks that drive. Learn something every day on Slashdot... :)

Re:AAAAA

[Anonymous Coward]

BSA, RIAA, DMCA, MPAA...

Why don't they call it what is: MAFIA
Because that is what it is, government-backed
protection for activities which are in many cases
surprisingly similar to those employed by the
traditional mob..

Re:The key word is TRADE

[symbolic]

And where there are willing parties, trade will occur. On the flipside, where one party is unwilling, trade ceases. When trade ceases, it forces the vendor into the position of having to re-evaluate their offerings - including their terms. It is so easy to put an end to this garbage once and for all, but as long as people feel like their short-term entertainment fix is far more important than the choices they have, and the freedom to exercise those choices, this nonsense will continue. I have no sympathy- consumers are putting themselves into this mess.

Capitalism Cocktail

[mpapet]

For CAFTA members. Developing countries get increased access to our markets and we get to enforce our IP schemes.

Move along because their's truly nothing to see here.

It never ceases to amaze me that the savvy /. crowd is outraged about this kind of thing.

-Capitalism is about owning things so you can capture the wealth making capacities of that thing. Variations of capitalism that conflict with the american version are not welcome.

-The U.S. gov't wants IP/whatever to remain in total control of the current owners. Anything less is giving away the store.

-The modern american political administration is focused on making it safe to make a profit and create wealth. DMCA and the rest is just an extension of that belief.

-I don't want to hear complaints about rights being trampled on either. In exchange for remanding whatever right you feel has been violated, you will likely get something else in return. (Generally speaking, it's entertainment)

It's capitalism and everything is for sale, including your precious rights.

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me make a correction for you:

-The modern american political administration is focused on making it safe to keep a profit and keep wealth. DMCA and the rest is just an extension of that belief.

You can make a profit and wealth by creating good competitive products (capatilism). This is the RIAA/MPAA/any other monopoly putting in laws so that they can keep their money and keep their outrageously high profits (especially for only being a middle man). I dont know why microsoft was the only company slammed with a monopoly case when instances like the RIAA and MPAA are much more clear cut.

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[sol_geek77]

I really hate to say this but I agree with you.

Over the years America has turned from a manufacturing country to an R and D country. I think this further emphasizes that by making money off IP and not the goods.

To paraphrase BASF "We don't make things, we just make money off those that do."

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you will get something in return. I have a small software company in Costa Rica and I am getting really worried about the implication for our country we obviously don't have the $ to defend or whatever in court against a big US dev company.

Bad stuff!

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[fishbowl]

Put pressure on your government not to sign this treaty then. If your leaders do sign it, then your quarrel is not with the US Congress, but with your own countrymen. Take responsibility for once.

You MAY NOT assign blame to the US, if your country signs this treaty, period.

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[Anonymous Coward]

lol
is not that easy.
The CAFTA is a big list of things, the patents stuff is a small one and we have a real pressure from US, and the other countries which basically don't care about this stuff.

It will be an interesting challenge.

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[Alsee]

I defy you to justify innocent NONINFRINGING people facing prison under the DMCA.

Do you support the DMCRA? It ammends the DMCA to say that INNOCENT NONINFRINGING people do not go to prison. Pretty simple really. Do you support the DMCRA? Or are can you explain to me how and why you defend INNOCENT NONINFRINGING people being imprisoned?

Or were you being sarcastic? I considered that possibility, but it didn't seem to fit with your "not wanting to hear complaints" line.

-

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[PlacidPundit]

I agree with most of what you have said. But Copyright and Patent are not, nor were they ever intended to be, property rights. This is the stumbling block.

It is clear that the authors of the Constitution did NOT view Copyright and Patent as "property." It's presence in Article I, Section 8 ("Enumerated Powers of Congress") is an immediate tip-off. This Section grants legislative powers. By definition, Congress could never pass a law to "grant" a right, since rights, in the Founders' philosophy, were inherent properties of the natural universe.

Further, if they had considered works to be Natural Law property, they would simply have indicated this in the Bill of Rights (which, by the way, does not grant rights either--it limits the action of the Central Power).

Also, a careful examination of Copyright and Patent demonstrates that they are intended to be viewed as special monopoly powers rather than ownership of anything at all.

Finally, the limits originally placed on Copyright and Patent by the first Congress (certainly people who understood the Constitution) are totally incompatible with any concept of property. Property is held in perpetuity. Copyright was limited to a maximum 28 year term.

Re:Capitalism Cocktail

[Anonymous Coward]

If the keyboard was copyrighted under these laws, you'd be paying $100+ to type that comment because the copyright wouldn't expire for 100 years!

Whether or not people are that dumb is irrelevant.

[hackwrench]

Companies are supposed to flood the market with their most valuable goods. The companies that can't make a profit collapse and those resources become free to produce goods in other sectors of the economy. Wash, rinse, repeat.

right! this was predicted!

[Blymie]

Listen to this MPAA speech from a couple of years ago!

http://be.back.l8r.net:8000/mpaa_speech.ogg

Gunboat diplomacy rewritten

[HiThere]

People have rightly called Teddy Rooseveldt's foreign policy "Gunboat Diplomacy", and you might ask a Japanese national how much they appreciated it. It has been rightly condemned for decades. (Ignoring that somewhat similar tactics continued to be practiced under differing names.)

But last time, at least the country that was underwriting the gunboats got some of the money. This time it's a rip-off of everyone. This one is targeted at unions, workers, the environment, environmentalists, fair trade, truth in packageing, and a miscellaney of other good causes...good being defined as "doing good for people", or "helping people that chose to help themselves (or each other)".

Who can trust any "representative" that would vote for something like this? This is in the best interest of no individual. Even those with large stock holdings stand to lose more than they gain. Managers, qua, managers, and corporate executives, qua, corporate executive may stand to gain more than they lose, but as individuals even they stand to lose more than they gain. And people aren't really defined by their job, that's only a part of who they are.

Did the vote divide along party lines? Not from what I hear. Both parties voted for this abomination. BOTH. If someone tells you that the Democrats should be elected because the Republicans let things like this happen, just ask them how did their representative vote on CAFTA? How did their senator vote?

Who represents people, rather than corporations? I'm not talking about the janitor vs. the CEO...those are both corporate job descriptions. BOTH. Neither describes people. People may be homeowers, and they may be renters. This doesn't describe who they are, this describes a temporary attribute. Likewise a manager and a janitor are temporary attributes. If laws are written to benefit the structure, the corporation, rather than people, then there can be no goodness inherrent in them. Laws can only be good if they are written for the benefit of people. (This doesn't guarantee that they are good, by any means, but it makes it arguable. Good laws have other characteristics. Just exactly what those are has never been decided, though I generally tend to side with T. Jefferson.)

Re:Gunboat diplomacy rewritten

[transami]

Well Said!

Re:Gunboat diplomacy rewritten

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, but to be fair,

"Whatever the economic merits, the vote on Wednesday night made it clear that the political appeal of the trade agreement was low. Only 15 Democrats supported the measure. And despite intense pressure from President Bush and House Republican leaders, 27 Republicans voted against the deal; many others badly wanted to do so." New York Times (7/29/05)

~Security - ~Freedom

[geekee]

" They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

                -- Benjamin Franklin"

Liberty cannot exist without security. Therefore, this statement makes no sense. Threat of physical harm while performing an activity that one should be free to do, dissuades someone from performing that activity. Therefore, liberty is lost.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[955301]

essential liberty. temporary security.

These things, these adjectives, they actually mean something and serve the purpose of specificity. Try not to ignore them, will you?

His point was that you must endure the threat of physical harm while engaging in those activites required to promote and emphasize those principles which are essential to our spirit and freedom (actual freedom, not how the word is used today).

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[Stalyn]

Liberty cannot exist without security. Therefore, this statement makes no sense. Threat of physical harm while performing an activity that one should be free to do, dissuades someone from performing that activity. Therefore, liberty is lost.

This seems to be a new meme that without security freedom cannot exist. I'm not sure what spawned it most likely the ongoing "global struggle against extremism". I guess it depends on your definition of freedom. If you believe freedom is a space that you're allowed to roam guarded by outside powers then yes this kind of freedom by definition requires security. However notice this type of freedom is not much different than the freedom possessed by a sheep. It can roam around in its little pasture protected by the shepherd from wolves. However all your freedom depends on the competency of the shepherd and that the shepherd is an agent of mercy and good will. Basically you remove the responsibility of the entitlement to freedom to someone else. Is that really freedom?

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[Lord Pillage]

They still have the choice to do that activity if they wish, do they not? Liberty is defined as the condition of being free from restriction or control.

As long as no person imposes any restrictions on what they will or will not do then their liberty remains intact. The only things that permanently limit liberty are the laws of physics.

Threat of physical harm may not always dissuade someone from doing something as you should know from all the stupid things people do getting themselves hurt (ie. skydiving, mountain climbing, etc.).

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[Zeinfeld]

Liberty cannot exist without security. Therefore, this statement makes no sense. Threat of physical harm while performing an activity that one should be free to do, dissuades someone from performing that activity. Therefore, liberty is lost.

The key words in the phrase are essential liberty.

It does not appear to me that CAFTA deals with any issue that Franklin would have considered an essential liberty. Franklin was talking about freedom of speech and due process of law.

On the other hand Franklin would no doubt be saying that imprisonment without trial, military tribunals and the use of torture were exactly the type of abuses that the constitution was drafted to prevent.

There is a big difference between national security and a pretext for a power grab by the executive. The administration does not seem to have much interest in Osama Bin Forgotten, except when it comes to getting the vote out for elections.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[Savantissimo]

Franklin was a printer in an era when copy restrictions in America were essentially nonexistent. Newspapers like the one he wrote for as a boy depended on copying from one another. He trained himself to write well by cutting up copies of Addison and Steele, rewording each line, casting them in verse and translating back to prose: rip-mix-burn 1700s-style. Franklin was in trouble with the law in Boston for saying things the powers that be did not approve of, so he was sensitive to government restrictions on the press. On the other hand, he was a bestselling author every year after he started publishing Poor Richard's Almanac, so he understood the advantages of copyright.

Franklin would care very much about copyright and would see it from more than one angle. He would be appalled at the abuses of prisoners as well, likely more so than IP law, but there is no doubt that he would consider the right to publish and to make fair use of published materials essential liberties.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[packeteer]

There is no right to do absolutly whatever the fuck you want. If you consider yourself too scared by terrorists to go about your ESSENTIAL liberties you have a problem. Your essential liberties dont include living life the American way. Your essential liberties do not include going to malls. They do not include a calm, safe, and consumeristic life.

Many people are upset that people want to change their way of life. I am sorry but that is simply YOUR way of life, not a garunteed way to live. The constitution never promised cheap gas.

What B.F. is trying to say is that if you are willing to give up your right to vote beucase you are too scared of being blown up at the polls then you do not deserve to vote at all but you CANNOT take that right from someone else. It is true that even temporary security is something to try and achieve but not at the cost of liberties.

There are many quotes from the Founding Fathers that would back up my arguement that your way of life or life at all is not garunteed. The last one is my personal favorite, it is essentially give me liberty or give me death but it applies a bit more to consumerism and this so called "American Way of Life".

  " They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"
    -- Benjamin Franklin"

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
    -- Thomas Jefferson

"I know not what course others make take, but as for me: give me Liberty, or give me death."
    -- Patrick Henry

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
    -- Thomas Jefferson

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
    -- Samuel Adams

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

It's when you trade away freedom/liberty that by doing so doesn't affect your defensiveness, then you're merely being tricked into giving away what is essential. If you give away all your freedom/liberty, then you become no better than that which you are defending yourself against. Becoming that which is no better than that of your opposition is meaningless in moral.

Since the fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all, we often tend to jump to what may appear to be the best conclusion of all quickly. Given a closer more detailed look over, what is often presented to us out of haste, is only a trick to get the better of us.

If I legally own a DVD, and do not break the Copyright law stating not to duplicate the contents of the DVD, then I should be allowed to view those contents, anyway I choose. This includes any OS, any application, etc.

How much evil does it take before people open their eyes to just how little freedom they really have left? Every little compromise adds up!

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[jafac]

Indeed, liberty cannot exist without security. By the same (idiotic) token, if one gives up one's liberties for security, then what's the point of security?

In the case of CAFTA, the liberty we're trading, is freedom of speech (by acquiescing to software patents, dmca, and copyright fascism) for the security of hoping that by giving away our rights to corporations, they'll be nice and keep innovating and hiring us. The events of the past 12 or so years of NAFTA seem to indicate that no matter what welfare we hand out to corporations, there's no guarantee they'll keep us employed, or that they'll keep innovating. Socialize the risk, privatize the profit.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[InvalidError]

And just like the shepherd, the government keeps its sheep alive and well to:
1) shear them
2) skin them
3) eat them

With more laws favourising businesses over people, people get treated increasingly more like sheep.

Well, this lack of long-term vision will eventually backfire and cause damage far worse than they may be imagining now. The digital age was supposed to mean convergence... but with all the proprietary DRM, media formats and incompatible platforms, it looks more like an age of divergence.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that even temporary security is something to try and achieve but not at the cost of liberties.

"to try to achieve".

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[arivanov]

Well... So?

The problem is not that these are not known. They are drilled into the skulls of Joe Average all the way through school and further on. To no avail. Because there is another thought by another great American poet and philosopher which Americans tend to forget:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905)

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[benzapp]

Those adjectives are also meaningless. What is essential liberty? Who defines what is essential? The artist wants to be free to create art, the warrior wants to be free to make war, and farmer wants to be free to farm.

All of them want the security of the state to further their own desires for liberty.

Freedom is an illusion, designed as tool of manipulation for grumbling slave strata yearning for dominion.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[iminplaya]

What is essential liberty?

It's what many people mistakenly call "Inalienable rights". Which they believe cannot be taken away. Obvouisly they can be, so a more appropriate name is essential liberty which makes no such implication. I believe I like the rest of your post. Whether you're serious or not doesn't matter. It makes a lot of sense. There are many, however, who simply want the freedom to be left alone, unmolested, and to live and die in peace.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[cl0secall]

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[mrogers]

Subjectivity and meaninglessness are not the same thing.

Freedom is an illusion, designed as tool of manipulation for grumbling slave strata yearning for dominion.

If freedom is an illusion, what defines a slave?

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[Saxerman]

Those adjectives are also meaningless. What is essential liberty? Who defines what is essential?

Certainly proper debate requires a shared language which includes some agreed upon definitions. And while you can certainly make the case that essential liberty is inherently personal and does not completely translate well, this does not preclude a generally accepted idea that, as you claim, we call seek the freedom to seek our own desires. (Referred elsewhere as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.)

Freedom is an illusion, designed as tool of manipulation for grumbling slave strata yearning for dominion.

Freedom (like security) is a state of mind, not a state of being. The concepts of Freedom surly existed in primitive minds before the dawn of civilization. The concepts of being free from hunger, free from sickness, free from the terrors of the environment are part of the core constructs of conscious life. You can certainly argue that the concepts have since been warped to suit the needs of the powerful, but this does not cause the concepts themselves to lose meaning or value. It merely requires humanitarians to fight harder.

However, if you're of the philosophical bent that all states of mind are illusionary, I would argue that Freedom is no more ethereal than any other concept.

Re:~Security - ~Freedom

[955301]

Tell that to the North Koreans.

An Example of an Essential Liberty:
The freedom to seek out or create food for your personal survival without someone obstructing you in the interest of power.

Take your three people and distill what is important to all of them. Those are the essentials. The Artist may not want to make war, the Farmer may not want to create art, the warrior may not want to farm. They all want to do more than sit in one place and starve to death because someone else gets power from making them do so.

And I disagree that they all want security from the state. Most people would be fine having a group of neighbors in the same place or situation as them with which to struggle together. None of them believe another person who doesn't share their situation can know what's best for them. Ask a farmer, warrior or artist some time - it's a common theme.

The state's primary purpose is to defend borders. But when that task is done, the leaders have a tendency to turn inwards and dictate from higher up.

Who cares?

[Ray Alloc]

Don't know about that particular treaty, but treaties are meant to be broken sooner than later. Anyway, US influence over the rest of the world is rapidly vanishing, so there is nothing to worry about.

Countries with more realistic copyright and patent policies are the ones with the fastest growth, which show the vanity of all that tired stuff.

What about if i'm a terrorist

[rawwa.venoise]

I'm a terrorist (GRRRRR) Does the DMCA give me the right to refute evidences in an american court if by some reason some police force take my computer and my protected files? Well, they just circumvented my files. What about child pornography? I alredy see the picture: My client is innocent. Under the DMCA they can not circumvent my client password protected files.

Re:What about if i'm a terrorist

[dmaduram]

If the Patriot Act and ancillary legislation from the Dept. of Homeland Security can stop an American citizen from receiving due process in American courts, I don't think that they'll have any problem circumventing DMCA restrictions.

Just as a friendly fyi, I'd suggest checking out this article on American citizens in Guantanamo.

PS: Very interesting question! :)

Re:What about if i'm a terrorist

[dbIII]

I'm a terrorist (GRRRRR) Does the DMCA give me the right to refute evidences in an american court

You won't get to appear in an american court - there's a new legal system that has been in the process of being invented for people held as terrorist suspects for the last four years, which in it's current form is set up to ignore a lot of evidence for the defence. No trials have been run yet, so it remains to be seen what it's final form will be. The reason for setting up a completely new justice system appears to be driven by expediency and desired verdicts - otherwise terrorists would be charged with the same laws they have been sentenced under for centuries. They didn't even need a new law for Guy Fawkes.

The point above about other crimes is probably not relevant - police with warrants don't get charged with breaking and entering when they do a search, the same should apply for search and seizure of files on a computer.

The DMCA is yet another symptom of a broken IP system.

Re:What about if i'm a terrorist

[An Onerous Coward]

You just don't get it. See, laws like the DMCA are designed to protect the rulers (politicians, law enforcement, big business) from the ruled. If a law makes things inconvenient for the rulers, they simply don't follow it. That explains everything from why Congress doesn't have to follow OSHA regs to our newfound ability to hold people indefinitely without trial.

Re:What about if i'm a terrorist

[rawwa.venoise]

And so on that sense, people should start to re-think the notion of democracy. If a goverment dosen't follow the rules then what kind of goverment is it? The only thing i remember similar to that is the ditactorship.

Then, a question has come to me again.

Is it legal and not againt US constitution to allow the goverment to use whatever means exists to enforce the law even if it goes against the law?

just realized

[Amouth]

you know i started to read this article while i was burning a cd (one i own) so that my wife can listen to it in the car without messing it up..

and i just realized.. when are they going to start sueing everyone with a computer..

becuse logic states that in a computer to view the content is to view a copy of it.. as the orginal is not on your screen but stored in pits or magnetic marks..

so realy when are they jsut going to start this crap.. becuse that is when i am going to open a media company and just start beating the crap out of people for no reason becuse aperntly that is a right granted by out government for owning a copy right on anything..

Re:just realized

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of running off and suing, perhaps you should stop buying music and movies, as the money you spend on them will simply go towards lobbyists who will lobby for laws like CAFTA. You are part of the problem!

Re:just realized

[Anonymous Coward]

Q) When are they going to start sueing everyone with a computer?

A) They'll only prosecute you if you're doing something else that they don't like but that other thing happens to be legal. So be a good little boy, never speak out, and you'll be fine.

Re:just realized

[surprise_audit]

I believe that was dealt with very early on. A computer can "copy" a program from disk to memory in order to execute. If that wasn't allowed, nobody would ever sell any software. Similarly for content - if you have the original media and a non-infringing method of viewing/playing it, you're covered. The big stink over DeCSS was because it broke the "effective encryption" and allowed content to be viewed on a machine that was not tightly controlled. DVDs in a regular player usually won't let you skip commercials and copyright warnings. DeCSS ignores that and skips straight to the good stuff.

Re:just realized

[Amouth]

oh i understand fully i was jsut pointing out the vauge-ness of this new crap..

Where does this end?

[Stratochief]

What will it take for the majority of americans to become outraged enough about this to stop it. I know one thing for certain that will bring the Slashdot masses into the streets to stop this, but I don't think anybody has obtained a copywrite on masturbation yet.

Re:Where does this end?

[fishbowl]

"What will it take for the majority of americans to become outraged enough about this to stop it."

The *majority* of Americans?

You'd need an issue that both takes away their access to food and shelter *and* that enjoins them from seeking ways to get those basic needs back.

I'm serious. You won't see conditions that must prevail in order to engender a revolution until people FAR worse off than they are today. Most people are actually quite content with the status quo. Considering "things need to get a lot worse before people decide they have nothing to lose by laying down their very lives in order to rise up against tyranny", you must realize that things aren't even fully to the "bad" stage yet.

Re:Where does this end?

[plasmacutter]

"you must realize that things aren't even fully to the "bad" stage yet."

Oh how wrong you are sir =/

These demons have invented new methods of oppression and coercion. Everyone looks for the jack booted thugs, but they don't see the invisible strings controlling the media, preventing alternative parties from rising, giving away our personal freedoms to corporations under the guise of "contract" and "copyright" so they can micromanage our lives, and all the while distracting us by directing our attention to the "enemies".. the terrorists and the eeevil gay people.

Right now we have no real freedom but the freedom to consume. anything which does not involve spending money is portrayed as evil, or in some way legislated to require the spending of money. I'm surprised wrenches are even allowed, those poor repair people must not have a good lobby, after all the DMCA is around for digital products.

muahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

eggggscellent. The barrage of outrageous legislation seems to be wearing them down.

Let's stop this now

[Rambo666]

Here's an idea. Let's find out who these asshole law makers are and publish their names and make sure they don't get re-elected or work in the tech industry again?

Re:Let's stop this now

[stinerman]

Such idealism!

The legislative districts are so gerrymandered in some parts of the country you could literally prop up a cadaver in a wheelchair and he/she would handily beat the opposition (alluding to Strom Thurmond). In many parts of the country people would rather have no representative than a [pinko democrat/jesus-freak republican].

Of course, we all know independant candidates aren't going to win, so basically you're stuck with the guy you have now until redistricting in 2010.

Re:Let's stop this now

[dumllama]

At election time, you are given two choices of candidates (if you are lucky).

Candidate 1: A known theif.
Candidate 2: A racist.

Choose between them. Are your DMCA concerns really going to impact your vote? (the above situation has happened)

More realistically, one wants abortion to be legal all the time, while the other seeks to make it illegal all the time. Does the DMCA really matter in that situation? Do the candidates even differ in their position on the DMCA?

Republicanism is a very shallow form of democracy. Don't waste too much time with it.

WTF

[Thaelon]

What a bunch of fucking bullshit!!!

What the fuck is congress doing making laws that benefit massive coroprations at the expense of the fucking citizens? And then trying to inflict them on other countries?!

I think we're fast approaching the time to switch to the jury box, if not the ammo box.*

*"There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now." - Ed Howdershelt

Re:WTF

[FauxPasIII]

> I think we're fast approaching the time to switch to the jury box, if not the ammo box.

Too late for the jury box. The courts are totally sewn up with pro-corporate, anti-individual extremists.
O'Conner was one of the last dominos to fall.

This is EXACTLY why you've been hearing so much rabble about "activist judges" and "legislating from
the bench" and "nuclear options" lately. The corporations needed to lock the door of the courts to
keep people like you and me out, and now they've done so.

Re:WTF

[fishbowl]

"What the fuck is congress doing making laws that benefit massive coroprations at the expense of the fucking citizens?"

Most of those citizens derive their livelihood directly from corporations. The concept enjoys a great deal of support. There is far more activism at work in support of the status quo than there is opposing it. It's that simple.

"And then trying to inflict them on other countries?"

Are the governments in question operating with the consent of the governed, or aren't they? They are signing treaties with the US, and the people are tolerating this, if not adamantly supporting it.

"I think we're fast approaching the time to switch to the jury box, if not the ammo box.*"

Okay, you want to shoot people as a step to resolving social order. Who would you shoot, and how exactly would that help achieve your goal?

If you're suggesting what I think you are, that is, advocating violent rebellion against the state as a corrective action against tyranny, then would you care to explain exactly what issues you believe are so fundamentally divisive as to be intolerable to so many people that they would consider forfeiting their lives in order to try to bring an end to the tyranny? This is a necessary condition before your notion become appropriate or workable.

Re:WTF

[plasmacutter]

"Most of those citizens derive their livelihood directly from corporations"

BS.. "In addition, U.S. multinational corporations are now responsible for more than one-quarter of U.S. output and about 15 percent of U.S. employment." source I remember it mentioned in econ courses that around 70% of US employment is in small business, not multinational conglomerates.

"Are the governments in question operating with the consent of the governed, or aren't they? They are signing treaties with the US, and the people are tolerating this, if not adamantly supporting it."

They are impovershed and possibly going hungry. They are being pushed into this under duress and you know it.

"Okay, you want to shoot people as a step to resolving social order. Who would you shoot, and how exactly would that help achieve your goal?"

I hope youre only thinking in the hypothetical. While it may be fun to think hypethetically of horrible ways in which those you disagree with may die, death is pretty gruesome, and I choose not to think of them on slashdot. The patriot act was recently extended, and I like being outside of prison thank you very much.

"If you're suggesting what I think you are, that is, advocating violent rebellion against the state as a corrective action against tyranny, then would you care to explain exactly what issues you believe are so fundamentally divisive as to be intolerable to so many people that they would consider forfeiting their lives in order to try to bring an end to the tyranny? This is a necessary condition before your notion become appropriate or workable."

Ok.. let's start with the fact that while IP lobbyists point at p2p and scream "commies!", the central ownership of nearly all information by a consolidated cartel, and the denial of people's right to personally own information they've bought (i.e. the abolishment of fair use laws, and legal protections of DRM which allow corporations to personally govern people's private property "for" them) actually represents something much closer to the oppressive form of communism practiced in soviet russia.

Then there is the fact that neither democrats nor republicans represent our views, yet they've rigged the system so it's virtually impossible for third parties to get on the ballot. (more connected with that in a sec)

Then there is the fact that the court system has been, for the last 7-10 years, slowly refusing to uphold the constitution, culminating in eldred v. ashcroft (limited copyright clause) and the famous souter emminent domain ruling (government seizure of private property). There are plenty which support ludicrous contractual limitations to what should be personal private property, such as the ability to sue someone for modding an xbox.

Then there is the fact that the so called "mainstream press" is owned by a number of people small enough to fit in a minivan, and who are all very chummy with the incumbent politicians and the corporations to which they schill... a monopoly on information.. which curiously fails to give third party or alternative candidates proper coverage, opting instead to treat them as "illegitimate vote wastes" and pour all over the incumbent parties.

There is the establishment of "free speech zones" which are in the middle of nowhere which were held up as constitutional despite the inalienable freedom to assemble provided by the constitution, and the fact that even in those "zones", in which protestors are guaranteed as little access to the public or press as possible, they are still harrassed, unfairly arrested, and tossed into cells.

Then there is the fact that the FCC, FTC, and antitrust groups refuse to act unless beaten over the head with a baseball bat, then slap such abusive monopolies as microsoft(huge list) and the RIAA(price fixing) with pocket change fines and penalties which in the long run actually INCREASE their unfair market adv

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, you want to shoot people as a step to resolving social order. Who would you shoot?

You.

Re:WTF

[fishbowl]

"You."

That will be difficult. I'm one of those heavily armed liberals.

Re:WTF

[fishbowl]

"BS."

Ok, so let's have a spot check.

I get a salary from a corporation. I'm also paid from a private corporation in which I am a partner; just a small supplementary thing. In my hometown, most people are either retired on pensions from corporations, or else working for corporations, or else incorporated themselves; mostly farms. I'd like to say I have investment income that could change this, but, that has never panned out.

Your turn.

Re:WTF

[plasmacutter]

Basing clonclusions on what you see locally is not viable.

It's the fallacy of composition. What is true for the part (local area) is not necessary true for the whole (the whole nation).

If i were to live in palistinian territories i could use your same philosophy and determine that all the US does is oppress palistine. After all, my neighbor would be oppressed with US support, my family would be oppressed with US support, and myself would be oppressed with us support.

Way to go Slashdot !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Post on an important topic that affects American workers ... after the deal has gone down and we get screwed (again).

Way to go, Taco !!!

Nothing New

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty pathetic, but hey its not as if the governments of the countries in the CAFTA are not American dominated.

When this kind of crap goes down

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I just sit and laugh. The USgov is in debt for TRILLIONS of dollars. Like Pretty soon, the people buying these bonds wil figure out what the corporate masters figured out decades ago:

It Ain't Gettin' Paid Back. EVER.

The idea is to loot the treasury while they can, and then move on to greener pastures elsewhere. 70 years on copyright? Who cares? Once the economy implodes, the USA will crumble like the CCCP did in the early 1990s. The debt will disappear because the USgov disappeared. Oil will be largely unavailable, the sauburbs will implode, and North America will become just another impoverished shit hole backwater, while the Steel Wheels of Corporate capitalism crush the life out of some other up and coming part of the planet. Remember: YOU VOTED FOR IT.

Sure: 70 years on copyright? Fuck - make it a 1000. It's not going to matter. And for that matter - up the national debt. I want to see the USA in the hole for $10 quadrillion bucks.

As it is, if the USgov paid back its debt at the rate of $1,000,000 a day (HA!)it'll take over 21,000 years to pay it back. So who cares? Blow that out by a factor of 10,000x. IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

Stick a Fork In America, kids. She's done.

RS

Re:When this kind of crap goes down

[Anonymous Coward]

$365 million dollars a year is a drop in a bucket compared to US GDP etc...

Re:When this kind of crap goes down

[sillybilly]

"Remember: YOU VOTED FOR IT."

I didn't vote for it. In fact, I didn't even vote for Kerry, like what's the point? I have no way of checking that yes, my vote was counted correctly after I cast it. Trust the gov't approved officials who are out to get themselves reelected? Why don't we just let the Supreme Court decide it all from the start, instead of wasting hundred millions of people's precious time? And let's have the president elected by the Supreme Court nominate people for the Supreme Court. Yeah, foxes running the henhouse.

In any case, the newstainment media decides it all , by what they can and cannot report, not even the voters. The press as private property, in private hands, under the control of a few - what a joke. Dan Rather gets fired - oh, mea culpa, correction, he gets to resign and work on something else, still a puppet of the same corporation.

But even if the media didn't decide, you'd be naive to still believe that voting makes a difference. At a US citizenship ceremony, I heard the judge heartily saying "I know a lot of you come from countries, where, even if there was an election, you only had a single candidate on the ballot."

Yeah, imagine that! Show up at the voting booth, and choose. Choose from the choices given to you. Ahh, you say "what do you mean choose, how can I choose when there is only one candidate to pick from?". Well, easy does it, if that's your problem, we can give you two candidates. Happy now?

Whatever, like voting makes a difference. It gets you fooled into thinking you're in control of your own destiny, not those bullshitting you. The only kind of voting that really counts is when people are willing to risk their own lives enough to collectively march on the street during Vietnam after it personally affected them (no wonder a general draft is not reenacted for Iraq, that'd be an instant fuse to light the whole country into marching,) or boycott buses after Rosa Parks, or show passive resistance to the british army following Gandhi.

Unfortunately when people are comfortable enough, and things don't affect them very personally at the moment, they don't care enough to rise up, cry foul, and protest. Those who do care, come to filtering places like Slashdot and run their mouths, and can be monitored, and surgically eliminated as hotspots ready to ignite something, just at the right moment. Alone we fall, together we stand - well, lets eat up the boyscout spirit too, by telling moms if your son is a boyscout, he gets struck by lightning. Talk about mind control and mass control, that even the Church couldn't achieve in its heyday via mandatory visits to the confession booths.

The 2nd amendment is a very ugly and unfortunate thing to have. It didn't quite make it to be the 1st amendment, but whoever wrote the Constitution really knew what they were up against. The right of the people to be Donald Trump. Guess what? One of the citizenship questions is "have you ever advocated overthrowing a government?" No I haven't (yet), but I fully support the Constitution. Gun-control anyone? Should we abolish the 2nd amendment? Mr. Strawman says: No, remember, guns don't kill people, people kill people. Yeah right. Like a guy with a knife or a spray-can can kill me easier than with a gun? How about more straw man arguments that are easy to refute, so we unknowingly side with the arguments we didn't want to in the first place?

Re:When this kind of crap goes down

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Well, SillyBilly, I didn't mean YOU...

;-)

The second amendment thing is a red herring. The right wing militia types like to get all worked up thinking it will save them from pure fascism. Even an M16 isn't much help against a remote control drone loaded with high explosives flying at night, and certainly won't stop a stand-off bomb. And in terms of actual fighting, you can take an M16 with fulltilt rock and roll and you're going to have a real hard time against a Cobra gunship.

The only even marginally effective weapons in a hot fire fight of resistance are the kinds of things we see in Iraq, but we call that "Terrorism" these days, and those freaks are one hell of a lot better funded than a bunch of beer swilling rednecks with assault weapons.

No - the second amendment crowd are completely out of touch with the facts of modern warfare and crowd control, much less anything related to the actual levers of control that are in the form of manufactured consent and self-expression limited to questions of consumer choices.

The thing is, those wannabe heroes are not looking at what's actually coming down the pike: they're fighting a war that was finished over 200 years ago, and even then, the good guys lost.

The picture is not a good one. Basically, unless something changes REALLY soon, this is what's likely to happen:

Neocon shitbags will continue to run the government into the ground, paring back freedoms of everyone except the corporations. As the USA continues to dig its own grave, wealth will continue to flow OUT of the country at ever greater velocity. Eventually, the people holding the bank notes will get pissed the USA can't keep up with the interest payments and institute the same kind of draconian bullshit the USA and WorldBank has pulled on the 3rd world for the past 50 years. The USA will be prostrate. With no credit, there will be no money to continue the shift over from petroleum, and the US will get stuck in the middle. The suburbs will self destruct, and the USA will simply split up. Once it's gone, the multitrillion dollar debt disappears. The governments that will come up in the mess will be largely regional. Look for a west coastal country, similar to Chile, but more liberal. The Northeast would likely go something like Canada. The midwest and south will sink into a kind of nutty Xian frothing shit fit. I could see Mexico BUYING Arizona and New Mexico. Texas might even go its own way, and turn into a small fascist nation completely deluded that it matters. The midwest will suffer badly. Shortly after this all goes down, the Oglala aquifer will give out, turning vast regions of the midwest into semi arid PRARIE (what a concept!). None of these new nations will have much in the way of credit, so it will be interesting to see how any of them will come out of it. My guess is the pinheads running Texas will form an axis with the South and declare war on the North East. They'll have some small amount of oil (from Texas and Lousiana) to run their military machines in one final attempt at pointless testosterone poisoned dick brained victory. They'll lose, of course, because the people with the oil, Canada, won't stand for it, and the EU and the far west will come in on the side of the Northeast.

The south and Texas will again be defeated, but this time it'll be much more brutal, making Sherman's march look like a day at Disneyland.

At that point, somewhere around 2040, the oil will simply run out. The Northwest with its hydroelectric and the West with its solar farms will generally survive. The Northeast will have bunchies of nukes and use Texas as the dumping ground for the radioactive waste, and then sell the lower half of the state to the Mexicans.

Around 2080, the first few fusion plants are finally online and working properly, but it's too little too late. What's left of China after the smallpox outbreak/terror attack buys Alaska and big chunks of Alberta to pump the last of the oil out so they can bomb the crap out of

Re:When this kind of crap goes down

[sillybilly]

I think therefore I am. You are too. Thank you for your opinion. I'm riding the same wavelength.

Comments:
Midwest arid prairie - the US is in one of the best positions against implosion because of this awesome rich soil, and luscious vegetation. Food is the most important thing. I'm more worried about Japan, because there already isn't enough fish in the ocean, for a nation half the population of the US, stuck on such a barren piece of rock. Mexico, Venezuela Middle East, Africa, Brazil, all rainforests, stand to lose a lot more from global warming, while Canadia, Siberia, Argentina tends to gain a lot. Imagine the russians signing the Kyoto treaty - how nuts can Putin get? I guess he's worried that another Napoleon or Hitler won't break their teeth in the cruel Russian Winter that only the indigenous people can stand. Still, imagine the warm, temperate northern Russia the new superpower, Leningrad - oops, St. Petersburg - the most temperate climate, and lake Baikal as the top vacation spot? Imagine Northern Canadia as the new US. Imagine if a climate upset turns the monsoon-Himalaya fed India into the equivalent of Saudi Arabia? Maybe Australia can be turned into a green Argentina too, from desert into rich vegetation, via proper weather pattern maniluplation? Perhaps there is a way to properlty mess with this climate and write India off. The new warfare? How to twist the earth's climate and the wind and ocean currents to blow according to your strategic needs, while your opposition is causing it to blow according to their needs! Wind-war!
The Chinese are a bit different than the Indians though, they got everything - luscious grass, high Himalaya mountains in case forests creep higher like in Africa, Gobi-desert, can even run up and invade/unite with siberia/uzkhyrghizistan if pressed. It's a lot harder for the japanese to run upwards and do the same, they'd have to deal with the koreans, and chinese doing the same. I guess you can always resort to throwing smallpox at the chinese, til it sticks, while the japanese will be just held up to high moral standards to do nothing, and whither off. Imagine genetically engineered smallpox, that only attacks persons who were born with incorrect, not officially approved by the World Bank or IMF's list of genes! What a glory for biotech!
Heck, we got a nice high spot in Afghanistan, to keep an eye on all this crap, so no worries here. Bush, yer daddy, at the helm of the guns, will protect you with his low-yield nukular non-WMD weapons that can erase masses who dare disagree with a texan.

Ahahaha - Mickey Mouse ever out of copyright? You're dreaming, right? Just think of Disney, and all the jobs lost if they don't stay profitable, and anybody can march around in their own Mickey-Mouse mascot outfit and talk to the children!!! Nah, I think even Santa Claus will get an improvement, and a patent/copyright on that improvement. Disney will own Santa too.
  I can already see it, Santa(tm)

Re:When this kind of crap goes down

[PsiPsiStar]

Despite the population density, I'm not sure the Chinese people are really mobile enough to really get wiped out by an airborne epidemic.

Most of China is still regional and so insular that different towns have their own take on the Chinese language. You might be able to take out the major cities, which would really screw the country over in terms of destroying its intellectual capital. But as long as it still had its physical industry, I think it'd recover.

I think if the US has half a brain it will invest in nuclear energy and wind power. Travel will be expensive, but we'll still have electricity.

But remember - we're special because "We're Americans."

At the moment, we are. Our money is the international standard (till the Euro takes off) our language is the international standard. Our culture, or what passes for it, is exported to the ends of the earth. Heck, few other countries are quite as unified as we are in terms of both size internal resources, common language.

America does have a unique position, for now.

Re:When this kind of crap goes down

[Eivind]

Yeah, it's a lot of money. At the moment around 8 trillion (8*10^12) dollars. And it's growing at an alarming rate (alarming as in much quicker than the BNP of the USA)

I agree with you that it very likely won't be paid back. But on the other hand I'm not sure it won't stabilise (as in start to grow no more than the BNP) which would make it indefinitely sustainable.

It's about 25K for every American, at todays interest-rates this means every American is out around 750$ a year in interest.

That's a lot of money, but it's still a small part of the average american income of $40.000. 2% of Americas income goes to pay interest on the loans.

If the wild growth doesn't slow or stop though, or if the interest-rates grow, it's soon going to be quite a lot more.

Re:When this kind of crap goes down

[Anonymous Coward]

This country is utterly corrupt and unredeemable. It's no longer even embarrasing to be this sleazy. We've become so clueless and jaded our corporate masters can simply run a commercial on TV about trees and sunshine and we all fall in line.

I guess China will give all of them sanctuary when they pul the final fuck on us...

We are going to..

[grasshoppa]

...legislate ourselves in to irrelavence.

You watch, in 20 years we will be second to China or Russia in the grand scheme of things.

And maybe that's for the best, with the kind of people we have in this country.

Re:We are going to..

[Anonymous Coward]

They already are

Liberty cannot exist without security.

[falconwolf]

Secure from whom, government? It's government that threatens liberty by force of arms at the bidding of the corporate aristocracy.

Falcon

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"
Thomas Jefferson

Central America: You're not alone

[serps]

As an Australian IT professional, I'm well aware of the USA's tactics; it's political suicide for a foreign government to knock back a free trade agreement with such an august country as the US. So, the really nasty DMCA/IP laws get inserted into the country's laws as a predicate to signing the agreement.

It has already happened in Australia, and I believe it also occurred when the Singaporeans signed their FTA.

Now, I don't begrudge the USA for trying this; hey, each country is out for all it can get, right? What I'm dismayed about is the position these other countries are now in: forced to enact bad laws for marginal FTA returns on a population base that will be paying the cost long after the politicians who signed the agreement retire.

Re:Central America: You're not alone

[Petrushka]

As an Australian IT professional, I'm well aware of the USA's tactics; it's political suicide for a foreign government to knock back a free trade agreement with such an august country as the US. So, the really nasty DMCA/IP laws get inserted into the country's laws as a predicate to signing the agreement.

Here in NZ, this catch -- and what a doozy of a catch -- appears to be one of the main motivators towards seeking an FTA with China instead of with the USA.

Well, in terms of morals and human rights, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other; so we might as well at least go for the option that allows us more autonomy, and halfway sensible copyright laws.

That would be China, by the way.

So where do I send my check?

[bburdette]

Yes, we all agree our IP system is broken. What I want to know is, who is out there lobbying to change it? Is there a political organization dedicated to patent reform? If such a thing exists, they can certainly count on a donation from me.

Re:So where do I send my check?

[prof_tc]

Thats about the only solution too.... We've got to be able to put out more money than the (i'm sure everyone else has plenty of explitives) RIAA and MPAA companies. Its not an easy task, but we have their incredible inefficiency in our favor

Re:So where do I send my check?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats about the only solution too.... We've got to be able to put out more money than the (i'm sure everyone else has plenty of explitives) RIAA and MPAA companies. Its not an easy task, but we have their incredible inefficiency in our favor

Get a clue. Politicians don't get elected by having money. They get elected by spending money on publicity. Guess what, the RIAA and MPAA can give politicians more publicity (good or bad) than they could ever buy. There is a reason politicians always side with the media. If you want to change the way things work, you will have to become the media.

Let's Define "circumvention"

[VernonNemitz]

"...make it illegal to produce 'circumvention devices' for protected works."

If I buy an good-quality book, the data is "protected" reasonably well for several hundred years, provided I don't seriously abuse it like throwing into a fireplace. But if I buy a good-quality CD or DVD, somehow it always picks up scratches that eventually makes the data lost. Where is the "protection" of the data???

Dare we say that the companies making those discs have deliberately CIRCUMVENTED the ability of the discs to protect data for centuries? Dare we therefore throw all their CEOs in jail for illegal activities?

liscensed code

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes you a hacker, in the future anyone caught programming without a liscense will be treated no differently than a medical professional.
Convicted of 1st degree hacking. lolz.

more and more than just that

[thjayoromanov]

but the u.s. gov't protects its own agriculture and forces IP laws on developing countries. how the fuck will they develop? they can't export food, they can't export tech. all they can export is products from american multinational industries that installs factories in developing countries because of the low cost of work. oops china just a little south

free trade: no such animal

[sum.zero]

these latest treaties are just icing on the cake / contingency plans. the us has been extorting foreign markets pretty effectively using the imf and world bank up to this point...

sum.zero

Re:free trade: no such animal

[gstoddart]

these latest treaties are just icing on the cake / contingency plans. the us has been extorting foreign markets pretty effectively using the imf and world bank up to this point...

As a Canuck, we've had so-called free-trade with the US for some years now.

We see a lot of protectionistic measures (eg softwood tarrifs, steel) which when appealed to the NAFTA tribunal and the WTO still don't get repealed.

We see water treaties (eg Devil's Lake drainage project) and the like being ignored when it suits them.

As far as I can tell, the current administration (and, the last several actually) believe free-trade means that you can sell goods to the US as long as you can't produce it cheaper than they can --- and as long as you're willing to import lot's of American products and sign on for taking up some of their laws.

International organizations which they helped to found (UN, WTO) get declared as irrelevant and corrupt when they don't immediately jump to follow the US on any decision. But then they use them as a PR vehicle to show how well international diplomacy and democracy are working for them this week.

I guess that 'manifest destiny' crap still seems to guide their current thinking.

Run with this.

[955301]

How about we all get together and write an application which makes tracking bills and resolutions easy for the layman. You can pick and choose the ones you agree with and the app will create a report during election season sumarizing who to vote for based on your picks?

Instead of the crap the politicians are spewing.

Then it won't matter who belongs to what party.

Re:Run with this.

[hackwrench]

An app tracking bills is good...but the problem with voting is that they are all lizards, so most of the bills are bad, containing things like riders even when the main topic the bill addresses may be good.

Re:Run with this.

[Savantissimo]

Good idea, but the key is committee votes - that's where all the action takes place, not on the floor.

Re:Run with this.

[doc modulo]

I agree, excellent idea!

Do it the way Yoda does things.

Seriously.

I'll help because the US corporations are exporting this shit now. They've tried software patents in Europe which was blocked but they did get some sort of DMCA into the EU.

What kind of intellectual sewage are they feeding you down there? Voting behaviour in the USA is astounding to me.

Re:Run with this.

[h4rm0ny]

Sounds fun. I could do this as PHP based web-site. Could maybe even offer hosting.

Tricky bit is keeping up to speed on the the bills and resolutions. You'd need to organize a group to do this and divvy up responsibility for different areas, so that there weren't big delays and ommisions. Maybe post for volunteers on one of the more political boards.

E-mail me if you actually get as far as that. I'm in the UK but as another poster pointed out, you're exporting this crap now. Plus I love banging out toys like this. :)

Re:Run with this.

[jahudabudy]

I like this idea, and think it would be a very useful project (I would sure use it), BUT
don't forget about non-roll call voting. For those too lazy to click the link, basically, US Congress can cast "secret" votes on issues, as in no one knows who voted for or against. Call me cynical, but I think that if a tool like you suggest saw wide-spread use, and actually started affecting the political landscape, we'd see a lot more voice and standing votes. Of course, that in itself would actually be usefull knowledge as it would indicate Congress' intentions towards we the people.

Re:Run with this.

[955301]

Thought about this some. The app will have tabs for each committee. You configure it to only track those committees you are interested in. The rest would be greyed out.

Estimated, given the volume of measures being reviewed, that the average Johnny would have 10 bills or resolutions per week to review.

Johnny wouldn't have to catch up after a vacation or getting behind. He'd simply pick up with the current bills. His vote during election time just has to be based on *something* the representative or senator did, not what they said they would do. Even if it's only one bill, it's better than televised talking head crap.

Bills Johnny made a choice about that changed after the fact would be highlighted for more review.

We could have options to receive rss feeds from interest groups with opinions about the bills. To help Johnny make his choice.

Re:Run with this.

[955301]

Problem is the parties consolidated early on into only two relevant ones. If the Democratic party implodes or disbands deliberately, I'm almost certain the subgroups in the Republican party would diverge into their own parties. It's common-enemy crap.

That and a torrent of irrelevant crap making a bunch of noise while the important issues slip by.

I'm thinking a non-web-based application (e.g., Java Application) getting information from thomas.loc.gov & the legislative branches' XML initiatives.

Eventually we could summarize voters opinions and send an inconspicuous email with the statistics to the appropriate representative.

I could use some help on this idea. Been pondering it for a while with no momentum:

http://polico.sourceforge.net/

So far I have a command line scraper so far which takes Johnny's zip code and tells him who his reps are. Need to pick it up again...

Re:Run with this.

[955301]

Worked out the numbers. The average citizen in the US is only interested in a few committees. Works out to about 10 bills or resolutions per week. And let me tell you, a lot of them are utterly useless - "Contratulate so-and-so for model citizen behavior..." garbage.

As far as keeping up as the content providers, thomas.loc.gov does it for us. We just need to scrape. And at least the house (xml.house.gov) is working towards xml formatted bills and resolutions. Special interest opinions could be RSS feeds. Hell, may even support blogged rss opinions about bills.

Need to do it as an application - don't want to keep the persons choices on a central server and want very interactive behavior from the app.

If I get far, you'll know because I'll mysteriously die in a car crash. Heh.

Re:Run with this.

[955301]

Great information! Thanks. I always thought they recorded the actual choices of each Senator later.

Perhaps if the project gains momentum we can push people to harass legislators for a few choice bills:

* no anonymous voting.
* elimination of riders.
* legislation in layman's terms.

Wishful thinking, I'm sure. But might as well try, because right now, Johnny can't vote.

Re:Run with this.

[955301]

I think the reason they are all lizards is that politics in the US is a messy field of bushes where it's hard to track what's going on.

If we clear the brush and harass anything left crawling around, the lizards are bound to leave. I don't think they would stay around if several million people were enthusiastically watching their every move.

Idealistic, I know but intersting thing to try.

Re:Run with this.

[h4rm0ny]

Need to do it as an application - don't want to keep the persons choices on a central server and want very interactive behavior from the app.

There's no need to preserve people's choices on the server. If you want to make them persistant, then they can keep a cookie containing the nature of their query(ies). That doesn't provide them with assurance that their query wasn't logged though, so you can have an OSS app that works client side if you want, and simply downloads the latest dataset of voting history. This is slower however. You can actually have very interactive behaviour with the web-based app. Can even do some bars and graphs without problem. MySQL backend provides for pretty effective searching and is a good way of managing their queries (easier than coding a non-RDBS application for the client, I would think).

Up to you, of course, Just offering a suggestion as to how I would do it. I don't think the lack of trust on the client should be a problem as the nature of their queries isn't going to be half as scary to the powers that be as the simple fact that someone is bothering to query at all. ;)

Anyway, good luck with this, and do give me a shout if you get anywhere. It's given me an idea for a related UK project. Don't forget to keep a secret envelope containing all this stuff to be opened in the event of mysterious car crash. I've got one. ;)

Re:Run with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your URL needs work, did find it though.
Politico!

Re:Run with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

brilliant

i'm in. bug fixes, minor coding...

im not good enough to do design

Re:Run with this.

[955301]

yeah, sorry about that. I'll get the project updated this weekend and switched to Maven 2 instead of Forrest for the website and build. Been working on Maven 2 lately, but just about ready to finish up there with my contributions.

Maybe Politico will get going after all.

He's not.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Don't give up, dude.

He's not giving up.

He's hinting about a certain event more than two centuries ago, which led to the U.S. independence.

Some English dudes decided to change a measuring unit to pay less for American tea. Americans got mad and threw all tea into the sea -- not bad, it even rhymes!

Well, one thing leads to another and soon it's ex-colony for you, Mr. King.

Now, pardon if I was not accurate (I'm not even from U.S.A.). But what will the world do about all this bureaucrat unit-changing-like-moves such as DMCA etc.?

I guess some people really are getting upset. What if some countries decide to really get though on "piracy"? What if they begin to enforce already existing so that people can no longer copy proprietary programs illegally for free?

Well, that would be dangerous, because almost every desktop runs the same desktop proprietary program, no?

The only way out is promoting a GPL desktop so that it becomes a viable alternative -- and then, only then, getting though on "pirates".

And guess what 3rd world countries are doing now?

Easy solution to Intellectual Property protection

[freelock]

If the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA really want their copyrights, trademarks, and patents treated like other property, making it a crime to "steal," treating it as a coveted asset, why don't we let them? ... and then, treat that IP like other property: tax it!

After all, how many countless millions is the government spending, lobbying other countries to crack down on "pirates," all without the entertainment industry paying for it? If they insist on it being their exclusive property, they should get charged a property tax, like the rest of us have to do for our real property.

I would feel much more sympathetic over their claimed lost sales to piracy if they actually applied some of those dollars to our social security problems ;-)

mod parent UP =)

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are calling vigilance looks to me more like sitting shiva.

You called it properly. Screw the jury box, they've destroyed it.... i personally think it's time for the ammo box. 4 boxes: soap, ballot, jury, ammo.

Thank you!

[TexasDex]

I'm glad somebody caught that reference. I was afraid I was being too subtle. Even more I was afraid that none of the /. population reads history anymore.

Re:Thank you!

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, I should thank you for bringing some life to /.

These ironies make life richer.

I get depressed when I do the same, tell a subtle joke just to get modded offtopic.

Maybe next time I'll get hope in that someone like you might equally appreciate a fine ironic comment.

Live long and prosper! \\//_

2 minute error bug = Slashdot stopping anon posts?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
- Thomas Jefferson

Can someone PLEASE un-break the 2 minute gap check?

Its been broken for a while, and it seems to ALWAYS hit me if I post anonymously.

I think it might be intentionally broken, to make anonymous posting less possible. Not eliminate it or put in an obvious restriction - just reject the post with an error that makes it seem like there is buggy code in the system.

Taking away the freedom to post anon effectively and make it so no one will protest since they won't figure out what is going on.

This does not matter, it doesn't help the **AA's

[plasmacutter]

Most developers of circumvention devices do so anonymously and host them on sites which are veritably GUARANTEED not to implement the DMCA.

-Canada (they are not banning devices useful for fair use)
-Russia (yeah.. the US will surely bully them.. HAHA)
-Sweden (they already implemented their law and nothing happened, surprise!)
I think India belongs on this list as well as china and malaysia.

All it takes is ONE internet connected nation.. or even NOT internet connected. Even if they were to quell all currently connected nations, an enterprising individual would quickly sense the smell of cash and lay lines just for the purpose of giving the world their fix on freedom and fair use.

It Sucks, But ...

[bleckywelcky]

The great thing about treaties is that you can break them. Unfortunately I don't think any of these countries will break away from the treaties for ridiculous copyright measures anyhow. Although, the other great thing about treaties is that you don't have to follow every part of them. CAFTA members can soak up all the free trade measures and not even take a glance at the copyright measures if they choose. Then when the BSA/RIAA/MPAA/Devil lobby hard enough, CAFTA will ask member countries to obey the copyright measures, but they won't issue sanctions for something so small.

Nevermind the fact that 70 years after the author's death is fucking ridiculous. And then you have corporations ... they never die.

To the point!

[nighty5]

The BSA, RIAA and MPAA successfully lobbied .....

Lets get to the point, the above just gave a huge chunk of cash to congress in order to make it happen.

A troll calling someone a troll...priceless $

[Anonymous Coward]

That post you slander as being a troll is quoting an actual source, while you are just throwing curses in likeness of a immature child.

I believe your dispute could be attributed to the recent, oh say 4-year old, dispute. Some people stole a aeroplanes in mid-flight and crashed them onto some buildings. Why is it the United States seeking to recompnse for damages {New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington District of Columbia} ?

I believe what you are trying to say is just what I had shown above. Thoughtful to prevent fraud, lets consider "a" and "the" in a given statute; after-all, a statute is an erected process and doesn't delegate authority to a corporation by immediate reference. A statute is used as a template in a contract, and the parties subject to their roles guided by the design of the statute, but what if there was a "United States" in a contract? You are confusing process with Process (note the "P"). Only proper nouns are capitalized.

I just google-searched some information. Maybe you can explain this result of a quick google search?

IRS Publication 521, p. 7: Definition of United States-this definition will surprise you!
"United States defined. For this section of this publication, 'United States' includes the posessions of the United States."

19 Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) 883-884: Foreign Corporations-The United States government is a foreign corporation with respect to a state.

What extent of territory do the United States of America comprise? In order to answer this question intelligently, it is necessary to ascertain the meaning of the term "United States."
[Definition 3 in Hooven & Allison above] Indeed, the Articles of Confederation were merely an agreement between the thirteen States in their corporate capacity, or, more correctly, an agreement by each of the thirteen States with all the others. There were, therefore, thirteen parties to the confederation, and no more, and the people of the different States as individuals had directly no relations with it. Accordingly, it was the States in their corporate capacity that voted in the Continental Congress, and not the individual members of the Congress; and hence the voting power of a State did not at all depend upon the number of its delegates in Congress, and in fact each State was left to determine for itself, within certain limits, how many delegates it would send. Hence also each State had the same voting power. Even the style of the Continental Congress was "The United States in Congress assembled," -- not (as the present style would suggest) "The Delegates of the United States in Congress assembled"; and if the style had been "The Thirteen United States in Congress assembled," the meaning would have been precisely the same.

[Definition 1 in Hooven & Allison above] Secondly. -- Since the adoption of the Constitution, the term "United States" has been the name of the sovereign, and that sovereign occupies a position analogous to that of the personal sovereignties of most European countries. Indeed the analogy between them is close, at least in one respect, than at first sight appears; for a natural person who is also a sovereign has two personalities, one natural, the other artificial and legal, and it is the latter that is sovereign. It is as true, therefore, of England (for example) as it is of this country, that her sovereign is an artificial and legal person (i.e., a body politic and corporate), and, therefore, never dies. The difference between the two sovereigns is, that, while the former consists of a single person, the latter consists of many persons, each of whom is a member of the body politic. In short, while the former is a corporation sole, the latter is a corporation aggregate. Who, then, are those persons of whom the United States as a body politic consist

Re:A troll calling someone a troll...priceless $

[Peyna]

First, my post was not a troll. A troll is someone who posts a stupid comment hoping someone will take the bait and reply, thinking it was a serious comment. These "trolls" are almost always rehashed from previous ones, and rarely contain any new data. My post was a response to the troll, but certainly was not seeking any such response or hoping to snag people in with my own post into thinking I actually believed what I said.

The statute that the person I replied to cited has nothing to do with establishing a corporation known as the United States, and everything to do with defining for the purposes of that section that whereever you see the term "United States" you should read it as though it said all of those other things.

An example of "a federal corporation" would be the FDIC. Therefore, those laws in that section that refer to the United States, also apply to the FDIC.

I don't need to cite things out of context to prove my point, logic does it just fine for me.

Look inwards?

[Trinition]

Today in class, the professor handed out some copies that came out of IEEE Computer... ... how commercially valuable is a 23 year old article about parallel computing?

Sounds like your school found a viable purpose for such an article, and as part of your education I assume you (or someone else) is paying for, it is being commercially used. Did you professor violate copyright in handing it out, or did he actually pay for the rights to use it?

Re:Look inwards?

[SirSlud]

Youre in idiot, if you think that educating people constitutes commercial usefulness.

Should my grade 3 math teacher have paid somebody for teaching us long division? Its been useful, but hardly more useful to very specifuc private companies than to the public.

If you think using a patent in an undergrad university class constitutes commercial use, please stop using your car or computer, because they simply wouldn't be affordable to you if the kind of bullshit you spewed were taken verbatim as justification for legal protection.

I think you may find that in time, you're more of a case by case apologist than somebody that understands the economic ramifications of extented patent protection.

Re:Look inwards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Commercial use is *not* the issue here.

The issue is that the person that "thought of it" (whatever "it" might be) demands protection from competitors and the singular right to demand money for his efforts for such a long time that *nobody* can "build on his shoulders" anymore.

When the protection ends (if it will *at all*) the "it" will be worth next-to-nothing, and thus worthless for the people that allowed the protection-mechanism in the first place ...

Re:Look inwards?

[Trinition]

Hey, I know exactly what you're saying. I'm just saying that the grandparent seemed to think that the article the professor was handing out copies of needed no copyright protection because he doubted the commercial value of it. 'm just pointing out that there was obviously some value in it if the professor thought it was valuable teaching material. If you've been to a university lately, you know there's a lot of money to be had in selling educational materials (visit the campus bookstore!)

Re:Look inwards?

[Trinition]

Who's the idiot (how rude!)

Teaching somebody long division is quite different from taking somebody's recently published article about their research of using long divison and handing out copies to those third graders. It wasn't the fact that the professor was teaching a skill, but the materials he was teaching the skill with.

Should the professor have bought only one 23 year old text book, and make photocopies for every student in the class, do you think that somehow WOULDN'T be violating copyright just because his intent was to teach?

He was not excerpting. This was NOT fair use.

And if you've been to a univeristy book store lately, you'd know there's PLENTY of money to be had in selling educational materials (books, trade journals, etc.)

This has nothing to do with patents, and everything to do with the fact that the grandparent saw no commercial viability in an article that had enough value that the professor wanted to use it as teaching material -- I simply pointed out the contradiction in that.

Re:Look inwards?

[UltimateRobotLover]

So, you're saying that all textbooks should be copyright free.

Re:Look inwards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Education isn't commercial use...

Re:Look inwards?

[Anonymous Coward]

My issue with copywritten research is that the research was usually funded by the government. The government funds research on the off chance it may help the people.

I know the "my tax dollars paid... blah blah blah" gets old, but it has weight in this case. Publically funded research (specifically University funded research, not the secret service junk) should be made available to the public.

In this case, copyright is useful for preventing a company from taking an idea making a product, and screwing the researcher. That said, it should still be made available.

Re:Look inwards?

[mpe]

Should my grade 3 math teacher have paid somebody for teaching us long division?

The way things are going it wouldn't suprise me if a textbook publisher were to try and argue that textbooks should be Pay-Per-View...

Re:Look inwards?

[mpe]

Teaching somebody long division is quite different from taking somebody's recently published article about their research of using long divison and handing out copies to those third graders.

Twenty odd years is hardly reacent. It's not even unknown for students to study events from a few decades past as "History".

Should the professor have bought only one 23 year old text book, and make photocopies for every student in the class, do you think that somehow WOULDN'T be violating copyright just because his intent was to teach?

The vast majority of 20 odd year old books are out of print anyway

Re:Look inwards?

[Rolan]

Sounds like your school found a viable purpose for such an article, and as part of your education I assume you (or someone else) is paying for, it is being commercially used. Did you professor violate copyright in handing it out, or did he actually pay for the rights to use it?

You really couldn't be any more wrong.

Re:Look inwards?

[kelnos]

Did the professor techincally infringe on the copyright by making those copies? Yeah, looks like he did.

I think the more important question here isn't whether or not something is commercially viable after a certain period of time, but whether or not we (our gov't) should grant commercial protection for something that has been out for 20-odd years. I'd say no. For a publication of that nature, 23 years is more than enough.

On a side note, what would you suggest the professor have done? I seriously doubt it would be possible to buy extra copies of a 23-year-old issue of a magazine. So not only does copyright impose an unreasonable burden on the consumer (after a certain period of time), but it looks like most companies don't even have an interest in keeping their copyrighted product on the market for anywhere near the full copyright term. So essentially, it's a waste, and that issue of that magazine should have fallen into the public domain years ago.

Re:Look inwards?

[Trinition]

I concur!

Careful what you wish for...

[MacDork]

and then, treat that IP like other property: tax it!

you just might get it. According to what I've read, the income tax was supposed to 'soak the rich' but look at it now. If you taxed IP, who do you think has the pull to lobby congress to ensure they pay the least of it? And just like the income tax pretty much obliterated your right to financial privacy, an IP tax would obliterate your right to intellectual privacy. Every written work you create is automatically copyrighted under US law. Now, if the good ol' IRS is going to tax that effectively, they're going to need a copy of every email, blog, diary, picture and video you make. Do you really want that 80 years down the line. Sure, it'll start with the big guys paying all the taxes, just like income tax did. But it won't stay that way. I don't think any of us 'regular folks' want that, but the top 0.1%'er megalomaniacs would love it.

Re:Careful what you wish for...

[suitepotato]

It's a total fallacy that you can or should "soak the rich" since A) the middle class hold the bulk of the cash and not "the rich", B) those who employ people are always rich or richer than you (when was the last time a homeless schitzo or someone from the projects handed you a $60K/year tech job? No one in the projects I grew up in did, that's for frigging sure), and C) rich is a measure of a static snapshot of holdings, ie, wealth, and not a measure of a dynamic cash flow.

There are a lot of "rich" people who have almost zero cash flow on a daily basis and we tax INCOME not cash after it has already been income. Want to change this? Fine, expect the IRS to tax your pay every second after it is in your pocket until you've spent what is left. You'll be taxed before the paycheck hits your account, and they will continuous drain your account, taxing that money over and over and over... That is what it means to go from taxing income to taxing cash on hand.

I aspire to become rich someday and don't need to be sent back to the projects and government welfare because someone wanted to open the can of worms that it would be to tax wealth and not income. You can't soak the rich without ultimately going straight into total socialistic property rights abolition and economic anarchy and deprivation. You want to start the second American revolution? That would do it.

representative's job...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the representative read that crap. Now that we're all literate, I don't wanna read a pile of legalese when there are real books out there.

Free Trade Bills

[Fuzzball963]

Actually this is just part of a much broader Free Trade Association of the America's bill that has yet to be passed so Bush is passing it in bits and pieces :). It sounds a lot to me like an attempt to form an EU type thing in the Western hemisphere, including eliminating borders,tariffs etc. I've heard rumor they eventually want to move to only one currency for all those countries and it won't be the US Dollar :). Only upside I can see to these is that they do stipulate all the countries go metric system and standardize trade laws etc within a reasonable timeframe, and that can only be a good thing :)

Those are American organizations

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't expand statutory copyright abuse in America, it just applies the current overextended state of American copyright to other countries which sign the CAFTA treaty.

Circumvention Devices

[RichMan]

The following are circumvention devices or may be used as such and should be outlawed immediately

1) pencils
2) paper
3) calculators
4) finite state machines of any sort
5) eyes/ears memory and voice/hands
      - an individual may have eyes/ears and memory, or voice/hands and memory. But any combination eyes/ears and voice/hands clearly consititues a circumvention device.

Re:Easy solution to Intellectual Property protecti

[McGiraf]

Ha ha ha ha!

that is a good idea!

Re: Fight with your mind and dollars

[vettemph]

If you stop buying from the **AA and Microsoft, they will go broke very fast.
  If you publish everything in CreativeCommons and GPL you can pry your freedom out of the perverted hands and take it home with you.
  It's so very simple, do it instead of just talking about it. I can't remember the last time I purchased multimedia or software.
  DRM and the DMCA only works on protected goods, do not buy DRM'd goods.

Future now

[poptones]

What most "free data" anarchists seem to consistently overlook is that at present there is no protection on our data. It's mondo ironic many of those "free data" people are also vocal PRIVACY advocates! Well honey... if you can't even protect the data that is on your machine how the fuck do you expect to effectively guard your privacy online?

You want universal internet access? Then you need to get joe mechanic to understand why it's important to him so he will join your battle cry. Right now the internet is riddled with holes and leaks and misinformation - much like radio was at the turn of the last century.

And anti-DRM advocates are modern day equivalent of those earlier technological luddites who feared radio. In order for computing systems to become more person we must begin constructing them with more security. It doesn't have to be built into everything... I doubt anyone needs a firewall on their blender (although they might want on on their garage door opener and most likely definitely want one in their cellphone).

Those same provisions in the DMCA that allow YOU to be prosecuted for cracking the DRM wrapper on Britney Spears' latest single also apply to the guy who sniff the keys to YOUR system in order to lift your credit card numbers or the pictures you took of your kid playing in the bathtub.

The DMCA does not outlaw the sharing of data... it establishes a basic model for protecting data that we DON'T want to be shared. But what good is it if our trading partners aren't compelled to respect our laws on the protection of YOUR data and MY data when call centers start springing up in Guatemala?

Re:Future now

[h4rm0ny]

What most "free data" anarchists seem to consistently overlook

Who are these "free data anarchists" ? I'm an anarchist and I believe people should be able to choose privacy. I don't think most of the people you're trying to argue against fall into the category you have defined.

And anti-DRM advocates are modern day equivalent of those earlier technological luddites who feared radio. In order for computing systems to become more personal we must begin constructing them with more security.

I can make my computer as personal as I like without handing over the control of it to a third party. Security is fine. I'd like the security under my control, please. Not someone else's. Also, what mass protest movement was there against radio? I don't remember these people that you liken us to?

Re:Future now

[poptones]

I can make my computer as personal as I like...

Really? If your favorite teen idol offered you a chance at a very intimate cam chat with him/her on the condition that you could prove you had no convenient means of capturing the stream and sharing it with others, what would you do?

You could do nothing because presently we do not have that choice. If you and I are face to face there is still a small chance we are being monitored by somoene nearby or that one of us is carrying a concealed recorder, but those odds are pretty slim. In the computing arena the odds are not only great, they are 100% assured because there is no way to do it any other way. Every stream, every pixel, every bit can be captued and shared against the wishes of either party.

The point is those "interested parties" are not just hollywood, they are every last one of us. Any system can be gamed, but a system of meeting with a mutually agreed upon level of security would provably *increase* the sharing of data of all sorts because it would instill greater trust in everyone using these systems.

I'm an anarchist and I believe people should be able to choose privacy.

How do you feel about DRM? Look at the posts here on the issue - venom and mistrust. A certain level of mistrust is one thing but the internet is littered with "NO DRM" type sites. These are not people saying "be careful" these are people saying we should do all we can to reject it outright, dismiss it as an impossible goal and stay forever with a communications paradigm invented decades ago. They call for freedom but outright reject the one tool that CAN free us all from the credit banks and the old school publishers.

People have to eat and we need a neutral ecommerce platform - and some form of DRM is the only means we will ever have of creating a relatively anonymous "e-cash" system that would allow us to trade trustworthy tokens of commerce electronically. Without a universally trusted platform p2p cash type purchases can never happen - it's servitude to the money changers (and their outrageous fees) or nothing.

So what kind of freedom do you want? The freedom to collect and share every bit that you "own" because it passes through your computer, or the freedom to trade data and generate wealth without feeling the thumb of local governments pressing down upon us?

If you don't want to be trusted, no one is going to put a gun to your head. But at present no one needs to put a gun to anyone's head, because there's no choice to make - the alternative is simply impossible for now; there can be no meaningful "trust."

Also, what mass protest movement was there against radio?

Not only were they not uncommon in the 20's, these sorts of "protests" are STILL far too common. Look up cellphones and cancer and see the levels to which people will take their battles to be free from the dreaded radio wave.

Fight back!

[Anonymous Coward]

In mainland Europe they marched against this crap. Please don't take offense but seriously you American guys instead of continually whining about it at Slashdot (where mostly everyone agrees with you-including me)

a. write a letter to you congressmen

b. Give a small donation to the EFF

c. Organize a group to go to Washington.

d. Get 1000 people from each of your cities and show up in front of government buildings with BIG signs. Then call the local news. (local news may actually show up as they tend to be community based)

Fight back.

      I live in Canada and trust me my MP knows how I feel. Unfortunately this information war is being orchestrated from specific US interests and that is where ALL the focus should be. If you guys get an organized political lobby to fight this--even I will donate to it, It will protect my rights and privacy even up here. I don't want to live in a situation were everything I do electronically is monitored by the government. This is where it is all going inch by inch. Instead of arguing in support of downloading (which the average Joe looks at as just "stealing"--- this should be argued from a privacy standpoint which is the far bigger threat and something the public can understand since they have to deal with your patriot act too.

      Beware though--- the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/government will use it as an opportunity to bombard the public with TV images of "starving" artists, terrorists, pedophiles, hackers, and anything else they can think of to give them the power to read every last bit off your computer and profile you.

        If this approach doesn't work (which it probably won't as the 'elite' never listen to anything but brute force) then do what you guys do best, beat these greedy idiots with technology. Support/promote/TEACH and use open source projects that offer stenography, encryption, proxies, plausible deniability and whatever other technology that can obfuscate the flow of data over the Internet. Make the technology easily adoptable by the general public. Once the public are acclimated to free flowing information they won't want to go back. It may well become the "darknet" but secure channels over the Internet will also still exist as big business will make sure of that.

    We can play the same game they do. If we make it hard enough (meaning expensive enough) to trace data then they have no choice but to change their business models and laws to suit 21st century realities. Even the mighty NSA can't compete against an organized effort of worldwide programmers dedicated to achieving this goal. If we can achieve this then information will flow freely.

      Governments will have to go back to old fashioned way of collecting data (legwork) instead of Soviet style secret monitoring and logging. It
worked throughout history and we're still here so I can't see why this would be a problem. People argue I'm being paranoid. For christ sakes they just got a hold of this technology and they're already monitoring major terrorst threats like uhmmm.... GREENPEACE.

      If they can't find work peddling CDS those people that provide such an incredibly invaluable service to our society (MR.B) can go back to what they used to do before the twentieth century---promoting buskers and running sideshow circuses.

Music, film, art, software, culture and civilization will all survive nicely without their help.

      ~ for the NSA archives

BarBeQue angry rats.

[Anonymous Coward]

About exactly the time the housing bubble bursts and there's another major phony terrorist attack. The blue collars have been annoyed for quite a long time, as soon as the bulk of the white collars realise they have been ripped off royally is about when it might start. Might start, no guarantees though. Right now most are still in denial based on their ability to garner credit and to count theoretical equity and stock as "money", but eventually they will understand they have been conned. It's a major psychological hurdle for people, it causes cognitive dissonance, they might see the data, but their brains refuse to accept the data.

Just a guess, though, it might never happen no matter how bad it gets. US Society has been de-nadded pretty effectively. You dassn't talk back to de man ya know....

Thanks, Republicans (and many sell-out Dems)

[Zhe Mappel]

Thanks for finding yet another way to export more jobs; screw workers; spread corporate values; and tie up IP in copyright.

Knew we could count on you. And you know you can always count on us to ignore your abuse of power. Yes, you do as you please--we'll just wave our little flags and get bent out of shape every time some gay wants to marry or somebody doesn't want their kid turned into a Jesusbot at school.

As Mencken memorably wrote, "Democracy is also a form of worship: it's the worship of Jackals by Jackasses."

Re:Thanks, Republicans (and many sell-out Dems)

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws are good. Most lawyers on the other hand....

"All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we'd be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half."

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), "Breathing Space", The Baltimore Evening Sun, 1924 Aug 4. Reprinted in A Carnival of Buncombe.

Doesn't the killing bother anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally the *IAA stuff isn't nearly as disturbing to me as is the number of people who are likely to die because they will no longer be able to get generic drugs in their country.

See http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0727-03.ht m
and
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/2 9/1420251

In particular, the part about how there were protests in the other countries that were silenced by the military was interesting. Don't recall hearing about that in the mainstream US media...

Also interesting to hear about all the "computer glitches" recording votes the wrong way on this...

Don't include India

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe India passed a DMCA-like law early this year. Actually it was reported to be even more harsh in several ways. Maybe it was only being proposed, but the press coverage in India was mostly favorable. The government saw it as a way to court US tech businesses... in contrast to the weakness of China's "IP" laws. Of course the US chooses cheap labor over most other things. And the DMCA isn't really something tech companies want, but media companies. Oh well, just details :)

The price of freedom?

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can say is that it sure seems that South America was bought off on the cheap.

Europe is way more expensive for the US to buy off. Maybe it's the high Euro?

The benficiary: China.

When they take over most of the US IP, they'll benefit from all the laws we wrote. I hope there's anough boomers left to accept their payback from the next generation.

I can see the future!

[Crystalmonkey]

Everyone on slashdot will rant about how these people are taking away our freedoms, showing a lack of morals and scruples, etc...

The general public will nod and say "Sure... we understand, you're absolutely right," while rolling their eyes at our "insanity."

And of course, the people who propose this will get more money and the politicians who support this will get re-elected.

Educate the masses, don't just whine about it on Slashdot.

Re:2 minute error bug = Slashdot stopping anon pos

[ocelotbob]

So create a sock puppet account. Come on, it's not that fucking hard. Oh noes, they're taking away our right to post anonymously. Boo fucking hoo, crybaby.

Shut up already

[tfiedler]

Either shut up about this already or start spending your dollars somewhere besides with the RIAA, MPAA and their buddies. As long as you whining fools continue to fund these corporate monsters by listening to their music and watching their movies, you've voted to support their political will. If on the other hand you were half as outraged as you say you are, you'd spend your money ONLY supporting local musicians, movies and theaters and tell the corporate slavemasters to take a hike. Until you do that, shut up.

doesn't matter.circumvention tools don't need HTTP

[plasmacutter]

They don't need to store circumvention tools on HTTP anymore.

they could just put up websites describing the project and telling people where to look without even hyperlinking.

If they want to get bold, they could put up a trackerless torrent for download. I don't think that's illegal even in the US.

Re:Easy solution to Intellectual Property protecti

[wheeda]

Ya, I had this idea a while ago too. We should roll it back so that people would have to apply for the copyright. At the time of application, they would state the value of the IP. They would then be taxed at a fixed rate for the life of the copyright. Since we don't want to have a bunch of auditors looking stuff over to make sure that people stated a reasonable value, there needs to be a balance some how. The balance is that the copyright holder can be paid the stated value and the IP then becomes public domain. The IP holder should be allowed to change the value of thier IP if they chose. If they stop paying taxes on the IP, it gets reposed by the people and becomes public domain.

I am not part of this hypothetical group...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to buy a major label of studio "product" since 2001.

The product sucks. I don't download it either. I'm tired of seeing remakes of remakes of remakes, or prequals to remakes of reality shows. let's not even talk about how boring "main stream" bands are.

Still.. they seem to continue to go strong. What do you suggest I do other than Bi***. I give spare cash to the EFF, i boycott, and yet they still come.

Congress refuses to act and has actually taken THEIR REDICULOUS SIDE!, and the american people are innocent marketing brainwash victims =/.

  Yet... anyone who knows about REAL brainwashing techniques (often called conversion) knows it's 99.9% irreversible.

So, what options do you suggest?

Blame Gutless Democrats like Feinstein

[Ralph Spoilsport]

These people suck.

Feinstein Voted Yes.

Per her website:

CAFTA Implementation (S. 1307)
169 6-29 Y Frist motion to proceed to the bill. (61-34)
170 6-30 Y Passage. (54-45)

Here's the record of Democrats who voted FOR the bill:

Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Cornyn (R-TX), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting (GUTLESS FUCKER)
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

now, of course ,come election time, the Republicans will run some loony right wing shit bag against each of them, and so everyone will vote FOR the Deomcrat...

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

RS

Re:Blame Gutless Democrats like Feinstein

[Concerned Onlooker]

So, what's your point? Did no Republicans vote yea? Are you disappointed that Democrats are not standing up to corporate greed? Do you think Republicans are somehow better? Do you think Porgy Tirebiter could do a better job?

Re:Blame Gutless Democrats like Feinstein

[Ralph Spoilsport]

A Concerned Onlooker wrote:

So, what's your point?

I'll get to that.

Did no Republicans vote yea?

They all voted yea. But I did not expect otherwise.

Are you disappointed that Democrats are not standing up to corporate greed?

Yes.

Do you think Republicans are somehow better?

No.

Do you think Porgy Tirebiter could do a better job?

Oh heck - he couldn't even be elected dogkiller in this environment. (grin)

To my point: The Democratic party needs to stand up to the corporations, and stand on the side of the common citizen, pure and simple. People who are oposed to the neocon take over of the Republican party must stand up and mobilise and get the democratic party to stand for something, and get some discipline. Otherwise, they're fucked, and we're fucked right with them, and stuff that make CAFTA look like a kitchen sink play will soon be The Law Of The Land.

RS

The laws are NOT the problem!

[agentcdog]

OK... I'm getting kind of sick of everyone acting like the industry thrusts this stuff down their throats. 1. Don't vote for people who support this stuff. 2. That won't work... so don't by the crap. The only way to force a reasonable limit to IP protection is to enforce it with money. Don't buy from RIAA or MPAA. There's lots of great music out there so no whining about it. If you can't put your money where your mouth is, stop complaining. If you can, then tell all of your friends. Start a campaign if you can. That's the only way it will work. Don't fret about the laws... it's a market -- treat it as such.

Then it's time for america to STEP DOWN..

[plasmacutter]

"Once you realize that free trade only works for us if we have something to trade, and we don't actually make much in the way of physical goods anymore, the economic necessity of geting the IP restrictions in the treaty becomes obvious."

No.. when you get down to it, the economic incapability of the united states becomes obvious.

If the united states can't efficiently produce, then it loses... end of story.

The US has no right to be pushing off an inherently bullshit concept like "intellectual property" when her industry should be more competitive and efficient. When it comes down to it, production is real, services are real, but intellectual property is nothing more than a tolerated form of government protected extortion, and subjective concept at best. An economy based solely on intellectual property cannot stand.

shocked

[jafac]

Not at CAFTA's passage, or it's nasty provisionses. But check my User ID - I've been reading and posting on slashdot for a long time.

I've seen this debate hundreds of times. Usually, slanted towards the libertarian philosophy - and when I logged in to read this discussion, I expected a balance, or slant towards that direction. After all, this is a debate on free trade. But the character of these discussions has changed in the past several months. Fewer pro-lassez faire opinions. Fewer sustained discussions. And this thread, in particular, has me shocked to see such open discussion of things like, armed resistence, etc. Especially post-9/11, with all the pro-"kill terrorists" propaganda on the mainstream newsmedia. I'm not really sure how or why this is happening. Can we blame/credit blogs or the internet?

I'm just really shocked. It shows that there's a lot of untapped rage out there. I don't know where that rage was in November of 2004. But it's there now. I sure hope that a viable opposition party arises that can tap into that and start winning elections. It would be nice if that were the Democrats, because it won't require a third party to start from the ground up. But I sincerely doubt it. The Democrats have proven that they're utterly clueless at how to tap into what the electorate want.

Re:shocked

[plasmacutter]

Very good third parties exist.

Libertarians for one.

The democrats and republicans have been incumbent for so long however that they've managed to alter the way things are done to keep third parties off the ballot.

The media is also in bed with both these parties, and shunts third party candidates off the air, giving them as little time as possible and treating them as wasted votes.

Because of this, I don't see a viable third party comming to power. The machine is too strong to steer off the road of corruption this time in my opinion. I only hope the people still have the fortitude to fight back when it eventually dawns on them.

As far as I'm concerned it will take a miracle to pull this nation from the very brink of corporate facism, and I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.. it kind of brings back to memory a little opening song from the movie "canadian bacon"...

Re:shocked

[NatasRevol]

I think you can sum it up succinctly like this:

Politicians == Terrorists

They're just threatening (slightly) different freedoms.

Re:shocked

[stinerman]

After all, this is a debate on free trade.

Incorrect. This is a debate on managed trade. Free trade concerns having no tarrifs and barriers to international trade and nothing else. In another comment I mentioned that Ron Paul (R-TX) said a free trade treaty could be drawn up in about a paragraph.

As far as the armed resistance speak, 75% of it is self-aggrandizing trolls thinking they're going to get away from their computer for more than a day to fight "the man" like its some mod for BF2. The other 25% are just damned tired of continuing to vote for the loser in elections. When I voted in the 2004 election, the only person I voted for that won was running unopposed. In all actuality, nothing would have changed if I had not shown up to vote. In the 2002 election, I was able to help elect my county auditor and county commissioner. Everyone else lost. I'm sure its the same for Republicans/conservatives who live in Massachusetts (I'm liberal/libertarian in SW Ohio). They keep voting to make a change and nothing happens. Of course, I believe this is all due to gerrymandering, but I digress.

I truly think we're past the point of being able to vote-in reform, mostly because reform needs to start with ballot access laws and the current legislators think the laws we have on the books are just super. IMO, a constitutional convention is in order along with a complete rewrite of the US Code.

Re:shocked

[jafac]

As far as I'm concerned it will take a miracle to pull this nation from the very brink of corporate facism, and I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.. it kind of brings back to memory a little opening song from the movie "canadian bacon".

I don't think it will require divine intervention of any sort. The kind of power-hungry corporate fascism that currently grips America, will likely (as they all do) overextend itself out of greed and arrogance. It won't take a miracle. It will take a disaster. Not like 9/11. 9/11 was apparently not enough. We're already seeing how American competitiveness is suffering due to crony capitalism. Eventually, other players will simply come along and eat our lunch. When this results in the collapse of a viable middle-class, and the tax revenues necessary to maintain National Security, we'll become a target for takeover. Either economic, or military.

Germans got a wake-up call in the early years of the 1940's. Cities bombed to rubble, armies of pissed-off Russians came in, partitioned the country, slaughtered tens of thousands of civillians, and they lived through the Soviet occupation for 50 years. When they emerged, I think there was "attitude change". I hate to think of the US suffering a similar fate. I really hate it. But the wake-up call on 9/11/01 seems to only have been enough to force us collectively into a still-deeper sleep. Like a petulant teenager, smacking the snooze button on the alarm clock, instead of waking up and getting ready for school. But like the snooze button, the smack-down on terror is only a temporary cure.

Re:shocked

[jafac]

Incorrect. This is a debate on managed trade.

Well- yes, you're technically correct. But the matter is grossly oversimplified for the audience at home.

As far as the armed resistance speak, 75% of it is self-aggrandizing trolls thinking they're going to get away from their computer for more than a day to fight "the man" like its some mod for BF2. The other 25% are just damned tired of continuing to vote for the loser in elections......I truly think we're past the point of being able to vote-in reform, mostly because reform needs to start with ballot access laws and the current legislators think the laws we have on the books are just super. IMO, a constitutional convention is in order along with a complete rewrite of the US Code.

A constitutional convention at this point is about as realistic as "change by vote" and "armed resistance". In my opinion.

Are these kids really fired up and ready to fight and die to strike down the DMCA? I doubt it, and I hope not. But I still have faith that there's an untapped reservoir of voting power that can overcome both the Right Wing Noise Machine and Diebold/fraud. In November 2004, 51% voted for continuation. Today, if you look at Bush's approval rating, and various opinion polls, and the Hackett election in Ohio district 02, and also based on the quality of the discussion I'm seeing here on slashdot, and elsewhere, I really question what the result would be if we could re-do the November 2004 election today. As the first and greatest Republican said, you can fool some of the people all of the time (evidently, the 38% who approve of Bush today) and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. (take THAT smackdown, Goebbels!). I still have faith in that. The extreme right has a tight grip on the reigns of cable news and AM talkradio (where they can tightly control public debate). But it's slipping.

software patents?

[alonsoac]

I read the PDF and did not see anything about software patents, I could have missed it I guess. Can someone point me to that part please?

Re:software patents?

[Alsee]

I read the PDF and did not see anything about software patents, I could have missed it I guess. Can someone point me to that part please?

I think it was the line redefining "capable of industrial application" as "useful".

However I'm not sure that actually makes software patents mandatory. They can no longer deny software as "not industrial", but it should still be denyable as not belonging to a field of technology. That is the exact issue that the EU software patent directive was to address.

Software is algorithms and is a field of mathematics. Not a field of technology. Software and algorithems are not inventions, no more than a new and non-obvious and useful 100-digit number is an invention.

-

Re:software patents?

[Garabito]

From the PDF (emphasis mine):

Article 15.9: Patents

1. Each Party shall make patents available for any invention, whether a product or a process, in all fields of technology, provided that the invention is new, involves an inventive step, and is capable of industrial application. For purposes of this Article, a Party may treat the terms "inventive step" and "capable of industrial application" as being synonymous with the terms "non-obvious" and "useful," respectively.

There is still time to fight it!

[Garabito]

For those of us who live in Costa Rica, Nicaragua or Dominican Republic. Congress (or equivalent) of each one of these countries have not yet approved the treaty.

But it will be a difficult fight, tough. The American market and is very important for the economy of these countries, and not approving the agreement could hurt it badly.

In Costa Rica, there is a huge PR and marketing campaign promoting the "TLC" (as the treaty is known here), the benefits it's supposed to bring and how thousands of jobs will be gone if it doesn't get approved. Mainstream media is also pro-CAFTA. As a result, most people are not aware or are misinformed of all of its implications.

We see this posted on /. because of the issue with Software patents/DMCA, but that's just a sample of what DR-CAFTA really is: a bill that gives more power to U.S. corporations in the region. Thanks to this treaty, Big Pharma will extend their drug patents +5 years. Governments will have to compensate corporations if they get in the way of their right to make profits.

It's a shame we are so dependent on the U.S. that we have to accept crap like this.

Re:2 minute error bug = Slashdot stopping anon pos

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, fuck karma. It's an imaginary point system designed to make the thread that follows a story interesting, not to determine your worth in life.

Plus, it's not like you're really AC is it? I'm sure if I posted a plan to kill the president, or these asshole legislators, or some pretty white girl, they'd be all over my ip like yale coke whores on bush back in the day.

people who post AC are pussies

Technology vs. legislation

[Sheetrock]

A popular theme on the Internet going back to at least the days of Napster (when cracking down on "piracy" on the Internet began to become popular) is the idea that technology will always provide ways to download and enjoy movies, music, books and software illegally.

I have my doubts. For one thing the large interests that produce the media in question are, with the implementation of hardware DRM in PCs, on the verge of an unprecedented level of authority over our hardware creating the potential (and likelihood) of communication with your computer that you will have no ability to monitor or control. For another, I noticed in a Supreme Court transcript from MGM v. Grokster an interesting section regarding the concept of "willful ignorance" that suggested to me that should something like Freenet come under scrutiny its days would be numbered.

If encryption is illegal, steganography would be no answer for trying to continue the P2P party. You can't hide a ton of shit in a one pound sack.

The way I see it, the only effective way of fighting is to stop supporting the people that are harming you. If everybody would choose to buy used or from independent artists/developers the message would be a lot clearer. It has the benefit of being legal and in some cases you can directly support people who believe in the same ideals you do.

If the users of Slashdot patiently explained to everybody they knew the reasons why these laws are awful, that the media companies are pushing them, and ways in which people could legally get the entertainment they wanted without supporting the media companies pushing these laws I think we'd notice the effect. You know, harness the bitching that normally gets fed into this forum for the powers of good. But it's no more likely to happen than your suggestion because it's too much work.

Re:Technology vs. legislation

[Kjella]

I have my doubts. For one thing the large interests that produce the media in question are, with the implementation of hardware DRM in PCs, on the verge of an unprecedented level of authority over our hardware creating the potential (and likelihood) of communication with your computer that you will have no ability to monitor or control. For another, I noticed in a Supreme Court transcript from MGM v. Grokster an interesting section regarding the concept of "willful ignorance" that suggested to me that should something like Freenet come under scrutiny its days would be numbered.

Actually, Microsoft is doing a great job of having MPAA/RIAA sponsor their anti-piracy system. Stop something where the output is everything? Not going to happen. Software is different, there the output is nothing, it is the code that requires protection. Microsoft will see all "Trusted Computing" computers call home and verify their license, while content piracy continues.

Secondly, I read the ruling and the "willful ignorance" argument was pretty much shot to hell by counterevidence that they were deliberately encouraging copyright infringement. Basicly, you can't suddently shut your eyes and pretend to see nothing. The only real interesting point regarding BitTorrent, Freenet and the Sony-Betamax shield was the opinions at the end, and they were three in favor, three against, and three that said nothing at all.

Kjella

Re:Technology vs. legislation

[LividBlivet]

You can't hide a ton of shit in a one pound sack.

Sure you can!

Re:Technology vs. legislation

[Anonymous Coward]

--------
"I have my doubts. For one thing the large interests that produce the media in question are, with the implementation of hardware DRM"
--------

The U.S. government tends to label people that modify their computers in "unapproved ways" as criminals. However, it really is no different than someone tinkering with their car for those that actually do it. History to this point shows us firmware can be flashed, software can be patched, apps can be written. hardware checkpoints can be bypassed. DRM will be hacked as surely as everything else. This is not some theory and there are plenty of financial incentives for all sorts of people to do it. And once accomplished it all spreads like wildfire because of the Net. Even in the worse case scenario and Intel embeds DRM right into its chips (like I'm stupid enough to believe they don't already have unpublished "national security" backdoors already) primitive but effective software/hardware sandboxes can be written/engineered that run on open source to filter any "noise" out. Furthermore adopting such extreme security measures will only encourage nations that are already not fond of the U.S. spying and dictating information rules (China, Japan, France, Russia, Germany, Taiwan, Korea, etc...) to design their own chips and adopt open source further. The U.S. dominated car sales for decades but look at GM and Ford now (Chrysler is owned by Germans).

DRM will be attempted, and it will fall flat on its face when many customers start complaining that stuff they buy doesn't work (because of even more complexity and restrictions) which will just make bootleg copies and alternatives even more attractive. People buy computers to get to content.. not for the computer itself. If your computer no longer makes that easy, then I will just have to use some one elses. Therefore (you heard it here first) DRM will only guarantee explosive growth in open source for end users. Of course they may try to sue O/S out of existence (which is a distinct possibility and why Europeans are fighting patents so vigorously)

Either way I think people underestimate the combined power of millions of computer hardware and software enthusiasts (many of whom work for big I/T companies). Technology is not controlled by CEO's and presidents. They are too busy controlling the money and are fundamentally in a position of weakness because they're too removed from technical details to see the issues clearly. It's the people that work for them that are primarily familiar with the details of the technology. This is the reason why despite hundreds of billions of dollars already spent, any computer repair shop will tell you in practice there is far LESS security on the Net today than ever.

Once you try to control information it seems to create a wicked feedback loop of informants, paranoia and crazy moralities (ie. the church, totalitarianism) and should be limited only to critical situations (e.g. atom bombs)

The equation really is not that complicated. The more employees you hire and educate in I/T--the more people have the knowledge to undermine it. Personal computers long ago left the realm of single human genius, government, or company to comprehend every nuance of logic buried within them. Furthermore hackers (not crackers) tend to be far more imaginative than the typical I/T worker since they don't just do it "for a job". Lawyers can certainly arrange to catch individuals and particular groups that violate (and parade them in front of a biased media as "proof" of how they are winning the "war") but that costs huge dollars to do---plus they cannot stop the spread of technology anymore than they stopped beta, MP3s or file sharing. The U.S. can't stop it in the U.S. much less foreign nations. All they can do is just anger a great many people and breed even more distrust of the U.S. government.

Of course they can burden their criminal ju

Hey! Can't do that!

[Anonymous Coward]

EU can't borrow our constitution--our copyright doesn't expire until 70 years after the country dies!

given recent U.S standards on upholding treaties

[Anonymous Coward]

couldn't everyone just sign and then refuse to follow it?

It doesnt apply to the US government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, its one law for them, one law for the rest.

until they realizes....

[Anonymous Coward]

..that listening the cd means copy the cd data in ram and then decode... WE ARE ALL PIRATES!

CAFTA what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, not an American only familiar with your ever popular foreign policy and what I pick up on slashdot, whats CAFTA?

Re:CAFTA what?

[Anonymous Coward]

~Is it Canadian free trade something or whazat?

So what countries does this effect?

[crhylove]

Because I'm not moving there. This is bad for humanity as a species. It's SO OBVIOUS!

rhY

CAFTA votes

[Kaseijin]

Did the vote divide along party lines?

Close enough for government work. Combining the House and Senate rolls, we have (yea-nay-abstaining):

Republicans: 244-39-2
Democrats: 26-220-1
Independents: 1-1-0
Total: 271-260-3 (1 vacancy)

86% of seated Republicans voted for the bill, representing 90% of the 'aye' votes. 89% of seated Democrats voted against the bill, representing 85% of the 'nay' votes.

Re:CAFTA votes

[stinerman]

It should be noted that one of the House Republicans tried to vote "NO", but the machine did not register his vote. He left during the course of the vote and could not be found to correct the error. Furthermore, the other House Republican was planning to vote "NO", but had other priorities. It is worth noting that had those two Republicans voted "NO", the bill would have failed. Of course, you'd assume that DeLay/Blunt would have twisted at least one arm hard enough to get it to pass.

Re:CAFTA votes

[An Onerous Coward]

"The machine did not register my vote" sounds about as convincing as "my dog ate my homework". It sounds as though they wanted to vote yes, but couldn't face the political fallout back home.

Re:CAFTA votes

[stinerman]

He was steadfastly against the bill from the start. The official story.

Conspiracy theorists say that the Republican leadership erased his vote since he was a vocal opponent.

Re:CAFTA votes

[HiThere]

Perhaps I overstated. One of my "Democrat" senators voted for it. The other against.

I overgeneralized from the nature of the party in the state in which I reside to the nation, and my appologies to those who DO actually vote for the needs of people.

Your tax dollars at work

[Kaseijin]

Let's find out who these asshole law makers are and publish their names....

Done and done.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[anon37]

> Done and done.

No and No.

Those links are for the final votes on CAFTA not on the resolution to include DCMA in CAFTA.

DMCRA

[Dachannien]

So what does this mean for the anti-anti-circumvention clause in the DMCRA?

Re:DMCRA

[The Warlock]

You're deluding yourself if you think that that bill will ever, ever, ever get passed.

Re:DMCRA

[Antimatter3009]

I didn't know about this, but it's good to see at least someone in the Congress sees some of the issues here. Does anyone know the current status of this bill?

Big Surprise

[webzombie]

So the ruling American elite have struct a deal with the Central American ruling elite to protect each others interests... I'm wondering what exactly is FREE in all these FREE Trade Agreements the US is basically forcing it's trading partners to adopt.

Sad. Pretty soon there's going to be a law against FREE thought and FREEDOM of the 'RIGHT' Choice.

Acktung!

This just plain sucks.

[skhisma]

I'm so sick of hearing about how the MPAA and RIAA can run the US. Will it ever stop? I think i'll go vomit now.

Sticker Shock

[KarmaBlackballed]

D*@#n, can we negotiate on that price? Can I get a discount if I buy other things too?

If they had accepted my EARLIER submission...

[frankie]

...the acronym expansion would have been right there in my summary:

CAFTA's first export: the DMCA

On Cnet, Declan reports that while the media was focused on sugar prices and sweatshops, an important part of the newly-passed Central American Free Trade Agreement went by unnoticed: member nations must adopt an anti-circumvention clause matching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Hello... hello... hello...

[chihowa]

Kinda empty around here... We split or something?

;)

Mod parent up!

[catman]

Politics sucks as much as it does because the good people of this country have given up and opted out leaving it to the powerhungry, inept and corrupt. Show up, speak out with conviction, and don't let them fool you with the idea that the general elections are where the action is, the policy and candidates are selected *within* the two major parties by a tiny minority of voters. I think something like 9% of eligible voters vote in primaries.

The country needs an enema...

[adnausium]

How long will americans continue to sit idly by...as see folks in here commenting on how tired they are of being mad and ranting about the wrongs of the US government...how long before we decide we (as a nation) just wont take it anymore...I watched "gods & generals" the other night, and it reminded me in how short a time our country could turn to civil war. cause thats where we are headed folks. think about it. truthfully its probably well overdue. most military personel dont know what they are fighting for and civilians have forgoten how to fight for thier rights all together.

In a poor country where ....

[dindi]

-where copies of games are sold in shopping malls publicly
-where in many stores you cannot buy a console without a modchip
-where video rental places publicly rent you blue-belly (copied) DVDs (in some unlucky cases, just downloaded screeners formatted onto a DVD)
-where the 2-hand worker makes less than $200 a month

You either drop your prices (at least to the US price) or you have to enforce it with guns and armies.

Why? Well a game copy is now $8 for consoles ... an original is $80 ... mom works in MCdonalds flipping burgers for $180 a month, dad is a factory/field worker for $200 ......
Ahm did I forget, that they need a computer for little Jose and while little Jose can skip on xbox games (and can buy a PS1 CD for $2) he cannot skip on M$ Windows and Word and dunno what else, unless he wants to flip burgers like mommy or pick coffee like dad......

I guess at the end it will be some extra work for me installing/planning Linux based whatever for whoever maybe for some nice $$$, but before that I can see lots of legal trouble for lots of people here.

Ahm I live in Costa Rica and piracy here is more than scary.... no because people are evil, because they cannot afford .....
on top of that you have %80-%100 on top of US prices for many things .... especially electronics, software, music, video ....

now go figure ...

The only positive thing in that whole trade is that itt will break some bad monopolistic practices such as telco, insurance and maybe electricity and fuel ......

just my 5c: small businessess will go down as more pricesmart/walmart/megawhatever flows in.... making bad to worse .... but that is an other story

Education isn't commercial use?

[Trinition]

If that's the case, why did my university have to BUY tons of copies of Windows for all of its PCs? Why did I have to pay WAY more than the materials costs for textbooks?

Age is not the point

[Trinition]

You're arguing that something 20 years old shouldn't be under copyright. According to copyright law, 20 years *is* recent. I agree that 20 years is more than enough time for a copyright. But copyright terms is not the point of my whole argument.

Again, the origin of this thread was that a poster said that he didn't see a 23 year old journal as commercially valuable despite the fact that his professor was using it in a way I believed to be a commercial purposes, and thus commercially valuable.

It's as if someone was saying "I don't see how you could eat an animal!" as they are chowing down on a steak.

The real problem with CAFTA

[AviLazar]

Democrats overwhelmingly opposed CAFTA, arguing that free trade agreements negotiated by both the Clinton and Bush administrations prompted the flight of American jobs overseas. They also said the labor rights provisions in CAFTA were too weak to protect workers in impoverished Central American countries from exploitation.

More jobs to go overseas, to someone making 50 cents a day. In the mean-time, the products will remain the same prices...this extra profit will go to the company owners. So yes, people will benefit - they tend to be the upper crust who are anyway very well off.

In this trade agreement they should say "You have to pay your employees the same wage that a similar employee in the US makes." and if they do not, they get the difference taxed. The money can then go to the people of our country.

Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

The man has an excellent point. The grandparent does as well, but both views are needed.

You do own the copyright

[jfengel]

Sure you get the copyright. You just usually turn around and sell it to a large corporation in exchange for them publishing it. If you want the copyrights for yourself, by all means keep it, and publish it yourself. You just don't get the resources of a mega-worldwide-super-uber-dooper bit ass company to publicize it to get anybody to care.

C = Central?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither the original item nor the comments (and this is the FIRST time I've ever see that NONE of the comments was expanded!) indicate who's involved in CAFTA and I've never heard of it.

FTA is Free Trade Agreement, of course, but is CA Central America?

Enquiring minds want to know!

276 comments so far

[Anonymous Coward]

and not one has a score above +3!

Scary.

Our own legislation

[Silkejr]

Like I said before, the countries of the world need to stop being on the defensive about these corporate strategies to control everything, and start drafting legislation that permanently puts a block to software patents and the like.

Even if the corporations don't win on this, they'll continue to keep trying. We need our own legislation in countries to keep unhealthy laws like this off the books- permanently.

Laws, damn laws, and agreements

[Kaseijin]

Those links are for the final votes on CAFTA not on the resolution to include DCMA in CAFTA.

CAFTA was a congressional-executive agreement; the language was agreed by the Office of the United States Trade Representative and submitted to Congress for an up-or-down vote, no amendments. Also, amendents to a bill don't make law, the objectionable provisions aren't limited to mirroring the DMCA, and calling it "DCMA" doesn't help you to sound knowledgeable.