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U.S. Announces Global Intellectual Property Plan
Angry_Admin writes "ZDNet is running a story about how the U.S. has announced new plans to expand its crackdown on intellectual-property infringement overseas. From the article:'One program would place intellectual property experts on the ground in regions where infringement is considered a concern. There they would work with overseas U.S. businesses and native government officials to advocate improved intellectual-property rights protection, according to a department fact sheet. Another program, called the Global Intellectual Property Rights Academy, would train foreign judges, enforcement officials and other stakeholders in international intellectual property obligations and best practices.'"
Screw this, I'm moving... oh, wait.
The problem is, other countries have other laws. You can't enforce US law in china. They'll tell us just where we can stick our initiative. I hope that ALL the countries do the same....
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
Yankee go home!
The RIAA/MPAA spokespeople for the US government responded, "We just need some breathing space."
Experts will be sent to Brazil, India, Russia, Thailand, China and the Middle East and serve a five-year tour of duty, the fact sheet said.
You just *have* love quotes like that. Yay! The War on Drugs and now the War on Software Piracy! Tours of duty, lol!
would train foreign judges
Yeah, all those years of school and working as lawyers in the field couldn't prepare them enough.
Trolling is a art,
FTA: "The Commerce Department has recently taken other actions intended to combat international intellectual-property infringement. In July, President Bush created within the department a senior-level position -- the coordinator for international intellectual-property enforcement."
So I guess that would make this guy the Wankfest Coordinator. That has a much better ring to it than CIIPE.
We're basically invading China with nothing but lawyers.
From TFA:
Another programme, called the Global Intellectual Property Rights Academy, would train foreign judges, enforcement officials and other stakeholders in international intellectual property "obligations" and best practices. The academy, overseen by the US Patent and Trademark Office, plans to convene in 24 sessions in 2006, paying all travel expenses for the foreign participants, who will come from many of the same areas where experts will be working.
I don't know what to even say to that.
The US Patent and Trademark Office has their own special issues. We are going to "train" people about their laws concerning intellectual property "obligations" and "best practices"?
Put me in charge of this damn thing. I'll use napalm to train these guys.
I'm speechless. I don't think I really want to live in this country (USA) any more.
Hmm, this sounds more like a world domination plan. So the US-government and US-businesses have agreed that all intellectual-property shall be theirs, and their agents ("... train foreign judges") will do the field administration to assure US interests secured. Why is the US so convinced of it's own legal system. Why should it work for the rest of the world?
-- Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, iuva.
From the article:'One program would place intellectual property experts on the ground in regions where infringement is considered a concern. There they would work with overseas U.S. businesses and native government officials to advocate improved intellectual-property rights protection
*native* government officials?
Lord Blimey, we can't have those nig-nogs and fuzzy-wuzzies running about without proper supervision! They might *violate* our intellectual property!
Send the colonial administrators in to pick out a few of the more obedient and docile wogs and turn them into loyal colonial servants.
(and if you can't spot the sarcasm in that, you'd better bloody well mod me down, hadn't you?)
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I find it outrageous that these countries not only violate federal law, but they also refuse to obey the causes in our constituition dealing with copyright!
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
crappy IP, you damn well
gonna do just this.
I miss the old days
when we could point to something
tangible we made.
Now, all we export
is bad movies, music, and
pain and suffering.
Since Katrina relief is now a French concern, you no longer have to worry about misallocation of tax dollars.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It may not help in the end, but at least you'll feel like you did something while Homeland Security is dragging you away to have a NeuroDongle(tm) installed in your parietal lobe to keep your brain from processing non-DRM equipped media.
...that the US wants foreign judges to consider US law as it judges things in its own jurisdiction, yet doesn't want US judges to consider foreign law as it judges matters here in the US?
E2ST
I'm surprised they didn't mention Canada. See, Canada currently has Life+50 copyright (while Europe, for instance, has Life+70); unless someone leans on them, the complete works of A. A. Milne (d. 1956) will become public domain there on January 1, 2007. So, given that Winnie the Pooh is a particularly large cash cow for Disney, who wants to bet that Canada mysteriously chooses to extend their copyrights to "harmonize" (or whatever the bullshit phrase is) their copyrights with ours, or with Europe's?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
At this rate American's won't be welcome anywhere.
I'll repeat it again;
Way to legislate special interest!
What fuck-asses. I cant wait to see the nepharious two-fisted bullshit these content-holder hitmen are going to try to pull on the rest of the world. Once you get past the sickening reality, it should be downright fucking hilarious. They wont exactly have all that much leverage, they're just some random joe show shows up claiming to be defending some other nations interests. Surreee, we'll listen to you.
The US remains the only place in the world where law enforcement considers 100% enforcement their duty. Less barberic civilization seems to have realized that the purpose of laws is for the general goodwill and fortune of the populous, and laws should be enforced or not enforced as such. Its called humanity you nincompoops.
Its kind of scary to think nations might willingly forfeit the sovereignty of letting someone else come in and demand that they start enforcing their laws better. There's cases of defunct government where such aid is needed, but its pathetic that hte only place the US is going to start leveraging such direct extra-national influence is to the cock-sucking lobbyists that've completely monopolized the entertainment sector. Its even more terrifying to think that any self respecting international body would let agents of a single nation impose this policy.
Little more ire than usual, but whatever. "Sometimes you know, I get so pissed off,"
Myren
Myren
[sarcasm]
Well, now that we've captured Bin Laden, resolved all of the problems from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, finally got out of Iraq and solved our crime and unemployment problems locally, I'm glad to see that our country is putting our over abundance of tax dollars to good use!
[sarcasm]
Homer no function beer well without.
I've already seen hundreds of "The US is a dictatorship based on world domination, RIAA MPAA Microsoft Bush corporations hate hate hate" comments as a result of this article. Before everyone starts screaming about the same thing in a frenzy of knee-jerk reactions, keep in mind that many developing nations run factories dedicated to producing illegal copies of software, mostly American, Japanese, and European. In Indonesia one used to be able to find whole software stores with not one legitimate copy of a product in them (probably still can; I was there about six months ago). Lawmakers and judges in these countries officially support intellectual property, but wink at it in practice.
I don't know, let me put this question up to Slashdot's tender mercies: Do we advocate illegal copying of commercial software, and if so, why? Although I know we're supposed to be for the "little guy", and against the corporations, these guys aren't Johnny Downloader; they're companies that make their living solely from copying the products of other people's labor. Is it because "information wants to be free", and that the very idea of exchanging money for software is evil? Is it because Microsoft or Redhat or Oracle are evil, and they should be punished for their crimes by the piracy of their software?
The United States has a big software business. It has copyright laws that are, on paper, agreed to by other countries by international agreement. So why the big fuss when they want them to be enforced?
A quick side note: The availability of illegal proprietary software hinders the adoption of open source in developing nations because Windows is so readily available (about $3 in USD per copy). In addition, the GPL is an intellectual property agreement. If we stand for the violation of commercial intellectual property, we must allow for the violation of open-source intellectual property. Legally, they are no different.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
'Intellectual Property' is nothing more than a big American fantasy invented to compensate for the fact that they don't make anything anymore except ultra-high-tech death machines and recycled entertainment products.
And frankly, killing can be done, when needed, with the tried-and-true low-tech methods and the recycled entertainment product can all be easily copied by anyone with a $100 PC.
IP is what you use to try and convince people that you are still relevant in the world when you don't make anything anymore, your people are buffoons living on borrowed money from everyone, and you still have enough hydrogen bombs to make it awkward for anyone to point out the obvious fact that you are nowhere near as important as you were fifty years ago.
So all this effort to metamorphize a concept like 'intellectual property' into the legal equivalent of actual physical items that have intrinsic value is bound to fail internationally. In more ways than one, people just aren't going to buy it. They'll give you lots of lip service, sign your treaties, stay in expensive hotels for endless international conferences (as long as you pick up the tab), and then, just ignore whatever it was that you were getting so upset about.
The Americans thought they were so smart by trashing their industrial base, shipping all of their manufacturing jobs overseas, and laying off (or never hiring in the first place) all the people that comprised the only real asset that they ever had...smart people willing to come to termperate North America from all over the world in order to get away from the assholes that were making it impossible to make a good life in the old country. Now the Americans have fucked up their physical country, their economy, their good name, and their middle class.
So what's left? Intellectual Property! And just what exactly is that? One more illiterate, psychopathic 'rapper'? One more $100,000,000 buddy-cop movie?
Grow up, fools!
Karma be damned!!
Look, W. I voted for you not once, but twice! What the hell are you trying to prove with this latest shenanigan? The U.S. already has a reputation for being a global bully who pushes its views on others. I don't agree with that across the board, but now you're doing nothing more than adding really flammable fuel to that particular fire.
Let me get this straight. We're going to train foreign individuals who are not in any way U.S. citizens or have any direct link to the U.S. in order to protect U.S. media corporation interests?? And exactly WHY are *MY* tax dollars (as well as the tax dollars of those who already hate you) going to protect the intellectual property of corporations that have enough money to do this on their own?
The simple fact is that if those other countries gave a rat's rear end about the IP rights of U.S. corporations, they would already be doing more to protect those rights or they would have come to us by now asking for help in accomplishing that task. It doesn't take a brain surgeon, which you are proving more and more that you are not, to realize that they most likely don't care. The only reason why they might care is that they wanted to avoid what you're now doing, thus making this whole thing out to be quite disingenuous.
We already look like selfish bullies to the rest of the world. This is just going to make it worse. Thanks a lot. I really hope that those other countries tell you to piss off with respect to this particular issue.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Bingo! What authority does the US (or US corporations) have over how law is interpreted or executed in a foreign nation? None whatsoever! In fact, a copyright or patent filed in the US only has effect in the US! Any country that has a shred of independence or self respect would condemn the mere idea of this plan. Normally, in order to dictate policy and law in a country, it requires "boots on the ground." Apparently, these days it only requires "briefcases and fat wallets on the ground."
Since you think this is such a marvellous plan, how about this... Dutch / European IP law works quite well and hasn't as of yet created the mess that the USPTO has for you. I think we should send some Dutch advisors over and tell the American companies exactly how they should apply *our* IP laws as universal guidelines. This will be very beneficial, especially for European companies who have a head start. I'm sure that will be very well recived over there, right?!? No?!? What a surprise...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Western civilization is the worst thing that have happened to the earth during the last million years. The human species wiped out all the big mammals in all parts of the world except Africa when we spread across the globe 10.000 years ago. Then, when the industrial revolution came about a mere 300 years ago we started wiping out entire habitats and broad ranges of species more effectively and now, today, species are going extinct a thousand times faster than they did before humanity came along. And we are felling trees ten times faster than they are being reproduced. Sorry, but in my humble opinion western civilization was a extremely bad idea and I am, sadly, sure I will be proved right in a mere generation or two. I know this has nothing to do with the US imposing their ridiculous software laws on the free world, but so sorry, it had to be said.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Since the USPTO is playing the honest, I'll be frank too.
I don't observe anyone's intellectual property (the shortening of my constitutional rights (I'm Non-USA before someone cites the USA's constitution for me)), period. I would like to encourage others to protect their own rights too.
The best thing that could have been done to the patent system is to scrap the whole thing. Those who created it didn't go past modern economy 101, because, well, it was created 200-300 years ago (in a much more applicable form than it is in today, if i may add).
It's one thing that the intellectual property system reduces my right for freedom of speech (why can't i "say" data sequences on the net?), but it is also bad for the economy. It is a forced, artificial restriction much like prohibition was. Society can be interpreted as a continuation of evolution on some level. This means, that societies which made murder a "crime", survived better, for example. As a general rule of thumb, while respecting a few basic things, the less restrictive a society is, the better. Creating artificial restrictions is making a society function less optimal. Applying restrictions on computers, which eventually boil down to mathematics are:
a.) Not precise. (I demand to know the sequence of those base two numbers which you hold the copyright/patent on. If you can't reproduce those numbers, your copyright doesn't stand.)
b.) Because of a.), defining a copyrighted work is ambigous. Since what we define those copyrights on are very precise, creating a relation between the two sets are almost impossible. (Could you point me to the database where i can look up a copyrighted set of base two numbers, please, so that i can verify that i can make sure i don't infringe upon someone's copyright?)
Apart from these natural necessities, even if i were to accept the unfair artificial restriction placed upon me by society, i flatly refuse to accept to believe in the pack of _lies_ copyright and patent holders spread in order to protect their own selfish interests against society as a whole.
The dreaded day when someone copyrighted a mathematical expression happened decades ago, when someone decided that people should pay someone for copying specific binary bits apart from the ISP. There is a huge difference between paying for someone to create the knowledge about a sequence of specific bits (writing source code, translating that into binary executable) and for paying someone for the reversal of the artificial restriction of being denied the right to copy already known binary bits from one storage to another.
The paying for copying part is gravely vague too. What constitutes as copying? Installing an operating system is surely copying? Am i not allowed to copy then or not?
Modern communications require freedom of information. On communications i mean digital communication which is starting to gain strength lately, and will hopefully cleanse the world of this medieval copyright nonsense.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Isn't it ironic...that the US wants foreign judges to consider US law as it judges things in its own jurisdiction, yet doesn't want US judges to consider foreign law as it judges matters here in the US?
That's an issue with the Supremes - and the appointment and confirmation process - right now.
Some of the "Consititution is a Living Document" crowd - who want to bend the protections into any convenient shape so they can be conveniently ignored - DO want the Supremes to "consider foreign law" when they make their decisions.
The problem is: that's ILLEGAL. The US government has ONLY the power granted it by the Constitution, and the whole POINT of the Supreme Court (in the current operation of the country) is to hold it to those limits. All US law derives from the Constitution. Giving foreign law ANY input into the decision-making at the judicial level risks breaking the single defense of citizens' rights (short of violent anti-government action.) Then you get to knuckle under or fight a war, probably lose, and end up broke and exhausted even if you DO win.
Foreign law properly gets incorporated through legislation to fulfill treaty obligations. Then the judiciary determines whether the chosen implementation is within the government's limits and sends it back for a rehack if not. Citizens and lawyers only have to deal with the law of the US.
In the absense of adherence to that set of limits the President can do anything he pleases and the Congress can pass any law they can get the President to enforce. Tyranny with a capital-T.
The Supreme Court puts the brakes on that by knocking down laws, regulations, and executive excesses when they exceed the constitutional bounds. (It keeps working over a significant time because the main source of their power is knocking down improper laws - and being seen as reasonably consistent and true to the meaning of the constitution when doing so.)
But recently a supreme court justice mentioned foreign law in a decision - in a way that makes it appear that it influenced that decision. Now whether new appointees are going to stick to the constitution or "legislate from the bench" by ad-libbing and/or giving foreign law some standing above portions of the Constitution itself is a big issue.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well, the current administration really formalised their plans to build a world-wide empire in 1997, when they founded the Project for a New American Century. Here's their policy statement:
Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:
we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
If it sounds like a bunch of nutbars running the organisation, take a look at their founders and board of directors. I'm sure you'll find some familiar names.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
We can't stop a rag-tag band of thugs from high-jacking our planes. We're helpless as kittens for two weeks dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane. We can do nothing to generate energy but burn more dead dinosaurs. But rest assured that if you try to hide in a hole in the Antarctic ice and play 1 $14.99 CD illegally on your Linux box, our Goon Squad will be all over you like ants on a donut.
You can't enforce US law in china.
Why not?? We westerners have always done this kind of thing to Asia!
Another word needs to be added, opium. Because the British imported so much tea they had a serious trade deficit so to even out the imbalance they imported into China opium, thus started the Opium Wars. The Chinese emperor tried to stop the opium and when he did the British sent in troops and they roundly defeated the Chinese and forced the emperor to allow opium. Therefore the saying that the queen was a drug dealer was correct. At the same tyme Britain also forced the lease of Hong Kong.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I agree with all your specific observations, western civilization (itself a loaded term) has made a lot of mistakes. If, however, we'd seen the rise of Eastern Civilization (or some other nonsense term) instead, it would have made its fair share of mistakes also.
Importantly, most - actually probably all - civilizations have borrowed from each other, improved on culture, knowledge, etc etc and at some stage passed it back.
Anyway, as a first generation Westerner (there's another weird concept for ya), I prefer what I'm comfortable with. I'd prefer to improve Western society, with all its ills, than swap it for a cultural framework that in offers liberties where we have strictures and strictures where we have liberties, etc.
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will! - Antonio Gramsci.
I hate to nitpick, because I totally agree with the gist of what you're saying, but the GPL is only possible BECAUSE of copyright law. Copyright law is the only thing compelling companies to release the source code for their improvements. Now the BSD license on the other hand...