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UN Broadcasting Treaty May Restrict Speech
ashshy writes "A UN treaty under proposal could lead to unprecedented restrictions on free speech and fair use rights around the world. Ars Technica pulls together what you need to know from multiple sources." From the article: "The proposed broadcasting treaty would create entirely new global rights for broadcasting companies who have neither created nor own the programming. What's even more alarming is the proposal from the United States that the treaty regulate the Internet transmission of audio and video entertainment. It is dangerous and inappropriate for an unelected international treaty body to undertake the task of creating entirely new rights, which currently exist in no national law, such as webcasting rights and anti-circumvention laws related to broadcasting."
Rights are by default. "Creating rights" means lifting bans, not the other way around.
First we say the UN is irrelevant and we won't send any of our people to the UN International Court of Justice because the UN has no authority over us.
But, then we say that the UN gave us the ok to invade another country.
However, then we say that the head of UN is corrupt and the whole system needs to be replaced.
But now we're asking this corrupt body who has no authority over us to impose rules on other countries and how they transmit items over the net and elsewhere.
Someone stop the spinning! I'm gonna throw up!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Depends on the state/situation. I'll simplify things because you don't really need to know all the law and only weirdos like me find constitutional law interesting. Some 'international' legislation is enacted immediately (for instance, in France European legislation of a certain type is automatically a part of French law), however for the most part, there is almost no chance that 'International law' (the phrase itself is an anathema and complete and utter crap btw, anyone who mentions it needs their heads examined or their phony law degree torn up) can be relied upon in domestic courts. There are however situations in which some international agreements would have some legal force. For instance, in the courts of England and Wales there is a presumption at law that Her Majesty's government intends to honour its treaty obligations - a presumption relied upon heavily in the past 20 years as the House of Lords has gone about carving its own Human Right's jurisprudence. As for this resolution however, any assertion made that it will be applicable or enforceable in domestic courts is laughable. In the United Kingdom, as I presume it would be in US courts which are markedly slow to consider international agreements as having any legal force.
The traditional mass media is becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing day thanks to the advent of blogs, podcasts, independent music, and films. You can bet your bottom dollar that the conglomerates have been looking for ways to thwart this "revolution" in mass media and get pieces of the pie - albeit unsuccessfully. This is the **AA's "last stand" - if you will - on a global scale because they want that control back and will do anything by any means necessary.
Seriously, how are they going to crack down? File John Doe lawsuits in Albania?
Get real.
This is a real problem. We have to fend off the US Congress, the FCC (they will be back, Congressional authority or no), the EU, the UN, etc. and as soon as we defeat one attempt another is introduced. We have to win every battle, they to win once. One step is to cut the number of fronts. Just oen more reason to burn the UN building to the ground and send those idiots home.
The UN is useless anyway so it isn't like it wouldn't be a good thing all around. The indisputable fact that it is a 'Parliment of Tyrants' where the unfree votes outnumber the Free by a goodly margin is only mitigated slightly by the fact that the instituition is incapable of action on major issues. But as this attempt makes clear they do have a great potential for mischief on less visible issues, especially when you get a perfect storm of agreement between third world pestholes wanting to control their people and the 1st world wanting to let their **AA organizations control their subjects.
Democrat delenda est
It is dangerous and inappropriate for an unelected international treaty body to undertake the task of creating entirely new rights, which currently exist in no national law, such as webcasting rights and anti-circumvention laws related to broadcasting.
It is also dangerous and inappropriate for even elected national officials to undertake the task of destroying rights they are specifically not allowed to destroy (see Constititution, definition of "no law" means "no law").
The rights of the people are best protected when regulations are created and enforced close to home. The International government has no rights to give preferential treatment to one person or party over another. The bigger that government is the, less it should do to try to level any playing field. In the long run, more power at the upper levels of government are almost always abused to create paternalism and cartelization, not to actually protect rights.
Our own Congress in the U.S. has overstepped their bounds with the FCC and the myriad of unconstitutional laws affecting speech. These laws, if wanted by the people per the 9th and 10th amendments, are better suited for the state or the village to create and enforce.
The interstate commerce clause was not meant to give Congress the right to regulate trade or commerce on a control level -- it was written to give Congress the power to penalize states that infringe on a person's right to trade freely with other states within the union of states. Don't read more into simple words than is necessary.
The UN is just as irrelevant in my life as the US is. I'm an Illinoisan first and foremost. Even that group is too big to treat me with respect and to protect my rights from those looking to trample on them. What other people want to do in other countries, states or even cities is none of my business: I have no desire to prevent them from harming themselves or encouraging them to be lazy by paying for their failures. The UN is the epitome of wealth transfer and power transfer, and if you look at the corruption that has occurred that we know about, it only makes me wonder what corruptions have occurred that we don't know about.
True, but "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Doesn't this mean that the Senate shall enact no such treaty?
"It is dangerous and inappropriate for an unelected international treaty body to undertake the task of creating entirely new rights, which currently exist in no national law, such as webcasting rights and anti-circumvention laws related to broadcasting."
So, someone has finally noticed that the UN is unelected. Quite interesting how nobody seems to mention that when they agree with what the UN is doing.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
Without the ability to defend yourself, you have no Constitutionally protected right of self-defense.
Only when they silence the First Amendment, will you need the Second Amendment.
The Internet has been the most democratic invention in human history. Anyone who can get on it has a potential world-wide voice, which is why some countries censor it to heavily. But they can't censor it in secret. So who are these clowns at the UN, and how do we get them thrown out?
[/soapbox]
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In other words, you have rights only when we like how you're using them. I wish I was making it up, but it's in the official text.
The sooner we abolish the UN, the better. If its "peacekeeping operations" and the standard procedures of its international court are any indication, it'd be an organization matched in its evil toward decent people around the world only by its bitter and vicious incompetence. And please, spare me the bullshit about them being hampered by member states. If they can barely ever get anything right with only occassionally being asked to keep the peace, just imagine what their bureaucrats would be like when tasked with doing it as the official, one world body.
What is with you Americans and this view of the UN? It is the only framework we have for having nations try and work together peacefully, and establish the way they'll play together. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than saying "fuck it, just invade anyone you wish".
Well, it was the US who helped to create the UN, after they said the League of Nations was no longer relevant. You can't throw away the only even remotely-functionaly international treaty organization every time you feel like throwing a temper tantrum because you didn't get your own way.
The US uses the UN to give them legitimacy when it suits them, and flagrantly disregards the fact that's a signatory to some of those treaties when they wish.
Walk away from it, and you could find yourselves a pariah state, and your relationships with your allies could become rather tenuous. Although, they've been becoming tenuous over the last few years due to the protectionism/xenophobia your leaders are putting forth to the rest of the world.
Le't hope America doesn't decide it want to go it alone so it can become the asshole/bully of the world -- though we see shades of that now.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If it is just the USA that wants this then Europe should have no trouble getting it removed...
Right?
I just got off the phone with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. He would like me to remind you that he 'kicked their secessionist asses' and to 'not let them forget it'.
Seriously, local government ceased to matter the day Lee signed his surrender at Appomatox.
I guess that's true. Look at Saddaam Houssein. He defied the UN for years and got away with it. A different group of nations (who happen to be members of the UN) finally got sick of it, but the UN itself pretty much did nothing nothing.
Moral: Unless the US gets mad, the worst you have to fear from the UN is talk.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Treaties in the US are of equal authority to the Constitution, according to the Constitution. They cannot, however, supersede it, so a treaty cannot violate the first amendment.
Plus, so far as I know, as with most nation, even once it's ratified, it still needs enabling legislation.
Looks to me like the US is sponsoring a treaty that can never be implemented in the US. Perhaps a way of making sure other nations can't compete with us.
The fact that the UN refuses to recognize a legitimately free nation like Taiwan is evidence enough that the organization is full of shit.
If you think this is unlikely, remember that if you make up a song and sing it without writing it down or recording it, you have no US rights to that song.
Dude, take your chill-pills and review the basic premise of copyright. It is the right to copy something. If you never write it down or record it, there is nothing to copy. Others can repeat your song-passed-along-verbally as much as they want without any promise of compensation to you. Conversely, you can sing any song you want (as long as you don't record it or write it down) no matter who holds copyright for no charge.
In the US the creator of the work holds the exclusive right to copy that work as soon as it is created. The can, of course assign that right to other parties. The established method for letting everyone else know that you created it and care about who copies it is to register that copyright. In other words, creation of a printed or recorded work automatically assigns copyright, however, if there is an argument over who created what (when), you must have registered that copyright in advance to settle a dispute.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
I think this part of Article six applies:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
So yes, once we sign a treaty- it becomes law at the level of the constitution, overriding state laws- not sure about federal laws.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Seriously, local government ceased to matter the day Lee signed his surrender at Appomatox.
Hey, the South will Rise again!
Seriously though, I don't think that's true at all. Damage was done there, but it was really FDR and his New Deal that drove the final nail in the coffin. Income Tax, Social Security, the Federal Reserve. These things all gave the federal government the power and funding it needed to exert greater control over the states.
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