Slashdot Mirror
US Plots "Pirate Bay Killer" Trade Agreement
An anonymous reader sends word that Wikileaks has revealed that the United States is plotting a 'Pirate Bay killing' multi-lateral trade agreement, called 'ACTA,' with the EU, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland and New Zealand. "The proposal includes clauses designed to criminalize the non-profit facilitation of copyrighted information exchange on the Internet, which would also affect transparency sites such as Wikileaks. The Wikileaks document details provisions that would impose strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods. If adopted, the treaty would impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime imposing new cooperation requirements upon Internet service providers, including perfunctory disclosure of customer information, as well as measures restricting the use of online privacy tools."
Remember when the RIAA shut down Napster and declared victory over the music downloaders? Remember when they started their pathetic little lawsuit harassment campaign? Tell me, is there a single person here who has trouble downloading a pirated song today? Is there anyone here who couldn't start up Limewire right this minute and find a copy of virtually any song they could want? For all their heavy-handedness, they didn't even make a DENT.
Times have changed. No law is going to change that. They're just embarrassing themselves trying.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Whilst I can understand and to some extent sympathise with the desire to take down the PyratByran, Wikileaks is in no way part of the same phenomenon. It's a site exposing what we, the great unwashed, are not supposed to know.
Fuck this!
They say don't feed the trolls, but.. *sigh* .. it's true.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Next step is to tie the passing of this legislation to fighting terrorism or child pornography thus removing the stink of corporate favouritism. Maybe throw in some sort of muttering about intellectual property protecting American workers from having their jobs shipped over seas and this will fly through with barely a comment from most people.
Insert pithy comment here.
The copyright cartels are already broken. Musicians, moviemakers and other participants of creative industries are already exploiting the Internet as a means of distribution. This genie certainly won't go back into the bottle unless another "trade agreement" enacts a system of strong guilds such as that found in Mussolini's Italy.
Besides, one international agreement does not make enforcement any easier. Millions of people just in northern europe have come to accept torrent downloading etc. as an everyday thing; international agreement or not, no country is going to toss even one percent of their population in jail for something that was not previously a crime. Not to mention actually catching and prosecuting etc. those people... matter of scale, really.
Also, trade agreements such as these don't have the power to override national legislation. Even if the EU signs and ratifies this, it will only be at the level of the EU -- i.e. they can pass a directive which EU member nations are perfectly free to implement as laxly as they please. Remember, the EU is not a federation. Not to mention how this would meet rather stiff resistance in the euro parliament, members of which have lately been strongly turning pro-privacy and pro-free culture.
Criminalizing wikileaks is b censorship?!
it isnt' just for the stop downloading copyrighted shit - this can be used and twisted in many diffrent ways..
just the fact that it allows them to get customer info without a court order is sickening..
also the idea that the US would write something that would effect the rights and privicy of people from another nation is also sicking..
there is more than one way for them to get what they want.. and this is the easisest for them and the wrost for us and our rights.
everyday moving onto a sailboat and just live sailing sounds more and more like a reality for me..
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
I thought the idea behind the GPL was the very opposite, that if they want to impose draconian copyright laws on us we can impose GPL on them.
Go ahead and post your name/address/SSN/DOB and mothers maiden name. Since information wants to be free and all..
Information doesn't know or care if it's free or not.
Gone!
First, they killed Napster. So we moved to Limewire. Then we moved to Kazaa. Then, after a bunch of **AA lawsuits, we moved to bittorrent. Now, what in God's name makes them think that we won't move someplace else? They're never going to kill filesharing. What the fracking industry has to do is come up with content that has value and that we actually want to pay for. Piracy will never go away; it's been around in one way, shape, or form since the age of exploration. But, if content is good enough, the majority of people WILL spend money on it. The problem with radio, television, movies, and music today is that they've been feeding us crap since the early 90s, and no one but a select handful of zombies and drones wants to throw their good, hard-earned money at it.
The way copyright law is right now? Yes, it is an attack on free speech. All any influential(i.e. rich) company or person needs to do is state that they have a copyright over something they don't want distributed, and they can stop anything from being put up on the 'net.
"If you want people to respect the GPL then you must respect copyright law in general."
This does not actually follow, or at best is a mis-stated point...
The GPL is an attempt at copyright-jitsu. It is perhaps an attempt to use copyright laws, which you may or may not agree with, but which you have to live with until they change, to undo some or all of the percieved ill effects of said laws.
So, it may actually boil down to this for some:
"I don't respect copyright laws, but if you want me to respect your copyrights, you need to respect the GPL..."
(I am not trying to accurately portray my personal take in the above.)
all the best,
drew
http://packet-in.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
This has everything to do with free speech. The only way to prevent non-commercial filesharing is to impose a police state and inspect all electronic communications. That would have a huge chilling effect on political and other protected speech.
-Esme
"If you want people to respect the GPL then you must respect copyright law in general"
I don't believe this is the case at all, copyright law has been extended and abused by corporations in ways that in no way should be tolerated by any sane society. But because most people are uneducated and are not very tech savvy/overloaded with other issues that absorb their time. Corporations get away with murder in giving themselves special privledges to endlessly protect 'copyrighted works', when's the last time something became public domain?
Next is the issue of NON SCARCITY, in the age of the internet 'consumer socialism' is quite possible because of the non-scarcity.
We use laws and scarcity based economic systems only because of scarcity, when non-scarcity occurs the society reacts with old outmoded ways of thinking (scarciy based thinking).
If food somehow became non-scarce tomorrow and as easily acquired as digital goods, we'd see anyone who tried to protect their special hold over it a dictator. The funny part is we don't see these corporations as political entities they really are.
There is no economy that is not political, all transactions are political transactions, whether one is aware of it or not.
My blog
Doesn't it seem kind of absurd that there is a multinational effort to shut down 1 website?
Really?
Maybe instead of protecting us private media interest we could start protecting private citizen interest; a la leave us the hell alone. There have been few bigger wastes of time this decade.
That would never happen..... oh wait....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This is exactly the problem with the world today, corporations have way too much power. Even when they lose under the law, they simply create new laws to suit their needs. They never lose. Thus there is no balance between any power citizens may have and corporations have.
Let's face it, if piracy is as rampant as the content industry claims, then it necessarily follows that the vast majority of citizens do not want such draconian laws protecting copyrights. Why should corporations, who cannot even vote, have more rights to create laws than the citizens governments are supposed to protect?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
But it will be. Just like the DMCA has been mostly used to shut down what is arguably only free speech.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Many of us didn't vote for them. Some of us recognize it wouldn't be better if we voted for the other guy.
If you want people to respect the GPL then you must respect copyright law in general.
The word "respecting" is such a weasel word, so let's be clear. Conforming with laws doesn't mean agreeing with them. I conform to many laws that I, nevertheless, oppose and want to abolish. Furthermore, copyright law isn't an all-or-nothing proposition; I agree with limited copyright and strong fair use. I certainly do not agree with current copyright terms or fair use restrictions.
So, it is completely consistent to insist that people conform to the GPL as long as current copyright law is in effect, and yet strongly oppose ACTA. In fact, licenses like the GPL are designed to basically make copyright law irrelevant by creating an ever larger body of content to which these draconian restrictions that lawmakers dream up do not apply, precisely because the license itself preserves the freedoms that lawmakers are trying to take away.
And it looks like it's working. With more and more fine tuning of these licenses, big media companies may increasingly find themselves in a situation where they simply can't use the content they want to use because if they do, they have to give up their onerous restrictions on their own content.
This is trying to restrict distributing copyrighted material. This had nothing to do with free speech.
It has a lot to do with free speech, since one of the many things that are bad about current copyright law is that it's being used to restrict free speech.
If you want to say that you think GW Bush likes to have tea parties with stuffed animals nobody is going to stop you.
I can perhaps say that, but GWB might use ACTA and copyright law to keep me from presenting the actual footage proving my case.
As I have been saying all along the WTO is the most insidious thing to come along in generations. This only is another example of why i think this way.
It usurps a countries sovereignty and will force the entire world down to the 'lowest common denominator' in all things, not just the veil of 'commercial trade' that the treaty hides behind.
If we keep pushing this, it will come back to bite us in the end as another country will demand the same thing, and negate our laws.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And it's a country.
Antigua.
Considering how even the WTO considers the US is way out of line, and the US refuses to make the reparations, or hold it's end up of the 'fair rules of trade', Antigua currently has a lot of leeway to act as a hub for this kind of thing. And if the US wants to make a trade treaty that'll stick, first they have to open up a lot of markets to Antigua that'll cost billions.
So, this bill gets put live, and every site suddenly stops paying their local ISPs and relocates to Antigua inside 24 hours.
Net result, no difference to the file sharing, loss of money to US/EU ISPs, and Antigua gets better investment in it's infrastructure.
The usual "big stick" the US uses to bully people into submission on this (the WTO) won't bat an eyelid about Antigua doing this.
Actually it's now EASIER these days to get what you want online LEGAL or NON LEGAL. Killing napster just made people find new and creative ways to juke the system. Napster made way for Morpheous. Morpheous made way for Kaaza. Then new technologies like *some based on old* Like limewire and bit torrent came about. Then came rapid share *groans* and all it's cousins. Not to mention technologies like Hotline and IRC trading. When Supernova was shut down that was the DEATH OF TORRENTS. Yet look what we have now. There is always someone willing to step up. It's never going to go away. The best way to curb it is thru using technologies for better legal distribution. Set a fair price for your product. Then let the public pay. Look at Itunes and even Amazon now.
The groundwork was laid the first time one person handed another person a floppy to make a copy. Online distribution made way the first WAREZ BBS came to be. I just wish they could accept this. They never will. As long as CEO's see this as LOST MONEY instead of, they were never going to pay in the first place. I am sure the actual losses *People who would have paid but didn't* are something like a percent of a percent of the Statistics tossed out by the MPAA, RIAA, and every software company on the planet.
Let me show you an example... RETAIL STORES. They know shrink is part of the game. They do everything reasonable they can to stop it. Failing to stop it, doesn't cause them to strip search the patrons. It's written off every quarter at inventory.
In closing *because this is becoming rambling* Yes it's stealing, yes it's wrong, and yes I am as guilty of doing it as EVERYONE of you. If I was them I would be pissed too. Though I would take my lumps and do the most sane things to stop it. Learn to live with some loss. Then live happy on my big damn pile of money.
Democracy HOWTO:
1. Soapbox (i.e. slashdot and write your congressman).
2. Ballot box (i.e. vote dammit).
3. Cartridge box. (i.e. ctrl+alt+boston-tea-party).
We still need to complete steps 1 and 2 before 3.
Actually, there is an important relationship here between copyright and free speech. There is one argument out there stating that current copyright laws are incompatible with democracy and free speech. Democracy, which relies heavily on free speech to function properly, requires that citizens be able to have private communication between each other, free to say whatever they want. However, to fully enforce copyright law as it is now, all communications must be monitored and searched for possible infringement, hence there can be no private communications.
This would be a weak argument and a fallacy here if I was saying that we have to choose either one or the other, that you can't have both at the same time. No, I would say that you can, but copyright law needs to be turned way, way down from where it is right now. The terms are ridiculously long, the restrictions are overly extensive, and the fines dangerously large. In the end, copyright is supposed to be serving the public, not individuals.
What a load of tripe.
Sorry but good software is scarce. How many really good Operating systems are out there? Not that many. How many programs as good as Photoshop, Autocad, or even Office?
Dang few.
The talent and work to make programs of that quality is scarce. Yes once they are made it is easy to reproduce them. But the same is true about books and has been true about books for around 200 years!
This load of dung is simply a want for free stuff that others work hard to make.
IF you don't like copyrighted works like movies, books, and software then.
a Don't use them EVER.
b Create your own and release them under Creative Commons, GPL, or the BDSL.
But don't go around and justify taking away the right of authors.
If I write a program I have just as much right to sell it for $1000 dollars a copy and not allow you to make copies of it as I do two write a program and release it under the GPL.
So cut out this subterfuge. You think because it is easy to copy that you have a right to free stuff no matter what.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Now, if you keep voting for (D) or (R) and expect things to be different, you're clinically insane! Both of those parties are for bigger government, just differ on which parts to make bigger.
Between the two of them, both sides are getting the big government they want, while bemoaning the big government they don't want. Convenient.
Want to make a difference? Send a statement you don't like who is running. I don't like BHO anymore than JMC, and as far as I can tell, neither one is going to do anything but screw this country more!
I'm not voting for either.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
This very site you are on, Slashdot, has been forced by the Church of Scientology to remove comments because the CoS has draconian copyright laws at its disposal. The Church also forced Google to remove sites critical of it from its index, again with copyright law.
Not to mention the fact that sometimes copying is necessary to make a point. That's one of the reasons fair use exists, yet it is constantly being eroded. Point out defects in a book by providing an excerpt and currently fair use will protect you. Do the same for a DVD, and you've tripped over the DMCA because you bypassed copy control encryption to obtain the excerpt.
The boundary between copyright and freedom of speech is a lot more blurred than you seem to think.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
So keep your movies and music and books private.
See how much money they bring in.
They only have value because of letting people know. Your SSN/DoB/etc are only valuable because you can keep them mostly secret.
See the difference?
No, probably not.
Governments (Well, mostly the US right now) pull this sort of stuff all the time. Come up with a "noble cause" to push through a bill which purportedly can further the noble cause, and bring perpetrators to justice.
In fact, as many here have pointed out, there are a huge number of reasons this won't work. However, the MEANS by which it is supposed to work, that is the tools it places in the hands of the government, will have been put into law. This is how every anti-terrorism bill has failed to prevent terrorism, but has succeeded in reducing civil liberties.
Furthermore, by signing an international agreement they can then pressure other signing countries to limit freedoms of _their_ citizens, and also use that as a stick against non-signing countries. ("Your policy doesn't match international standards--fix it, or we'll all have to impose sanctions.")
Pirate Bay, wikileaks, any of these 'undesirable' sites are merely (a) the excuse, and (b) collateral damage.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Considering how many people worldwide are involved not just in the actual downloading/uploading of such material, but also the number of folks involved in indexing P2P, writing software for same, and creating and marketing those "online privacy tools," if they are going to criminalize such activity, I hope this treaty makes provisions to allocate funds for a whoooole lotta new prisons.
That's why this is a quixotic fight. When you have so many people involved in an "illegal" activity, any attempt to enforce laws against it becomes a lost cause. But then, such logic has yet to mitigate the "War on Drugs"(TM) -- yeah, how's that working out for everyone? They'll make a few high-profile busts of Pirate Bay-ish sites here and there (and those will probably just relocate their servers to a country that is not a party to the treaty), and maybe hit a few random private citizens to try and throw a scare into everyone, but most file sharing will go merrily on, unimpeded. What's that quote about insanity consisting of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Glass houses, my simpleton friend. A trade agreement has no power without the buy-in and cooperation of the signatory nations involved. Ergo, look at your own twits you voted into office.
Oh, for the days when sig's didn't have to be cute...hey, wait a sec.
Unfortunately, this trade agreement....will pretty much do just that, it will unify laws to what the US, and the other top IP countries want.
In THHGTTG trilogy, there is the "third ark" ship with its hairdressers, fashion designers, telephone sanitizers, and other useless members of Golgafrinchan society who crash land on prehistoric Earth. They decide to use tree leaves as money, making all of them incredibly wealthy. However, it causes a huge inflation problem, which the Golgafrinchans solve by burning down the forests.
A digital file is like a tree leaf. They cost nothing. To pay for one is madness, to try to use them as a medium of exchange (trade for other goods) is even greater madness. The only sane use of digital sales is sale of the physical medium the file is stored on - like a CD or DVD.
For a country to base their entire economy on digital files is supreme madness, as stupid as the Golgafrinchans' use of tree leaves as money.
The heavy handed attempts to stop the sharing of something that is entirely cost-free to everyone is as stupid as the Golgafrinchans' torching of the forests.
MP3s didn't and couldn't kill CD sales, but the switch from CDs to "selling" DRM-infested downloads instead of physical media certainly might.
My legislators are morons and my country is on its way down.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
There are thousands of variants of Homer's Iliad alone (as each translator/transcriber added his own alterations). In fact we do not even know that Homer was the one who wrote it originally.
Given that he was very possibly just an embellisher of a previous text, that would make him a crook, no? Also you exposed yourself as a complete liar, which destroys your credibility on other issues, by claiming that "he got paid for it". No such data is available to historians. You just made shit up to make yourself look more assertive and picked the wrong dude to try this crap on. But I guess this is par for the course with the defenders of copyright laws.
Lies. I gave you mathematical (as in scientific) demonstration which obliterates your entire bullshit line of reasoning. You responded with hot air in the vain of "I can't hear you over the noise of my greedy entitlement to stuff being so awesome!".
Which again, is par for the course. When faced with undebatable logic, your kind will always resort to screams of "But we made a law against it! See! See!".
All of which is utterly irrelevant for this simple reason: you cannot take information. It is impossible due the nature of information itself. If you disagree, demonstrate a way in which I can "take" the integer number 1 from someone. Or any other integer number or a sequence of thereof. This is not a realm of some make-believe bullshit based on your desire to own crap, it is the realm of hard science. If you want to own information, you must first demonstrate that information can be owned.
The best way to defeat these thugs is to adopt encryption tools to make our file transfers invisible. Tools like Tor are a good start. But we need to get enough people using secure protocols that the government won't be able to single out and prosecute individuals for using them.
So if you care about your rights in the future, start using secure protocols. Contribute code to open source projects. Make these systems work. Use it or lose it!
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Yes; my point is that the US of today is not the US of 1961. The current government has damaged foreign relations and the internal economy, and other countries and the EU are now holding stronger global positions.
Unlike in 1961 with the cold war looming overhead and the US dominating the world militarily and economically, nowadays the approached nations can just say "no".
This treaty doesn't really benefit anyone to any great extent except for a few corporate interests in the US. It is fighting against public opinion world-wide (unlike the drug convention) and is a further erosion of sovereign laws at a time when other countries are starting to get annoyed at the US government and the corporations they are representing.
I think this comes under the "fool me once..." category.