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Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
SpaceAdmiral writes "The Canadian government is secretly negotiating to join the US and the EU in an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The agreement would give border guards the power to search iPods and cellphones for illegal downloads, as well as to force ISPs to hand over customer information without a warrant. David Fewer, staff counsel at the University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, characterizes ACTA this way: 'If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas what would they look like? This is pretty close.'"
go together?
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
I can't wait for the baby boomers to die so we can take our damn country back and start thinking logically about copyright law.
I mean, all the standard talk about Big Brother and the futility of fighting music piracy and the ethical problems of fighting the means of music piracy etc. aside...
IPods full of American music smuggled past Canadian customs? I'm sure that's exactly how Canadians are getting illicit copies of American music. (And vice versa.)
How would border guards be able to tell an illegal song on an iPod (i.e. downloaded without buying it in any form), from a song ripped from your private CD collection (which as the RIAA would have us believe, is illegal too), from a song bought from the iTunes store?
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
The third page of the article explains how the US is able to get away with such outrageous requests:
So the proposal is, "surrender your citizens rights or we will make it cost you." The answer should be, "without rights, you will just take our money anyway, no thanks."
So when I travel, do I have to carry proof of purchase for all the stuff on my iPod? How exactly do they plan to enforce this?
how will they manage file encryption.
Just one more excuse to induce more fear in the normal population.
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
Copied disks sold as retail are counterfeit. Copying disks breaks copyright. But it is a stretch to see how you could tell if the stuff on an MP3 player came from counterfeited or original sources.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
--
make install -not war
ISP records don't have anything to do with it either. This is naked imperialism - a power grab without disguise. It's not about "protecting" brand names, it's about silencing political dissent.
A couple of these links are several months old; this has been brewing for awhile, and action needs to be taken now to stop it.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I say let'em review every single electronic device we have, ipods, computer, phone, hearing aid, pace maker and watches. It will take a week to cross a border or take a plane -- the economic reality is a far greater deterrent to this kind of ludicrous action than all the belly-aching complaints. Mule
Someone who's been blinded by the IP propaganda term might confuse "fake" handbags with ripped music. The confusion is intentional and it's designed to take rights away.
Even given that, the demand for ISP logs and invasion of Canadian and EU citizen privacy is ballsy.
Intellectual property was the desert property of the twenth century.
It is just more stupid American foreign policy.
Just today I read that the the drug war fuelled by America's love of cocaine and marijuana is resulting in thousands of people getting killed in Mexican gang wars over smuggling routes, yet the US War on drugs policy persists, keeping the black market trade the biggest and bloodiest industry in the world.
On the north border they want to remove the rights of people just to make a few cocaine snorting media exec's happy.
And we have seen what US foreign policy has done to the middle east.
Its no wonder so many people hate the US, their politicians have systematically contributed to most of the crap that is currently going on in the world all in the name of consumerism and captialism. Its not about democracy at all, its all about how cheap their gas is and what boat they can buy with their annual bonus.
> I'm guessing you're a member of "Generation-Me"
You mean the baby boomers?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Think of it like speed traps. You, presumably, sped. The speed trap captures this, takes that moment-in-time shot, and you get the bill in the mail. You are, at this point, guilty until proven innocent. Yes, you are guilty, you were speeding; (important) technicalities such as calibration times of the speed trap, etc. aside... you were speeding.
Now it's up to you to 1. challenge this and 2. provide evidence that either you were NOT speeding, or that you were speeding for a damned good reason which exempts you from getting a ticket.
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So to get back on-topic...
"How would border guards be able to tell an illegal song on an iPod"
If it's in the AAC format with Apple's Fairplay DRM - which they license to nobody and all that.. then it's probably legit.
If it's an MP3, it'll get added to the list of 'probably-illegal' bits of music.
"from a song ripped from your private CD collection"
1. Challenge it, 2. provide evidence that you, in fact, are in posession of that CD.
"(which as the RIAA would have us believe, is illegal too)"
If that is indeed the law - which, last time I checked, it's not - yhen you're screwed even in the above case regardless.
"from a song bought from the iTunes store?"
Presuming you purchased an unprotected MP3 - that purchase should be listed in your iTunes Account. 1. Challenge it, 2. provide the evidence - name Apple if you want.
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Now, personally, I don't think this will actually be checked all -that- actively. Lines at airports and the like are queued enough as it is and they're strapped for money just to check for things like, you know, actual terrorists, drug smugglers, etc. That's not to say I'm complacent - I already sent in my letter of protest several weeks back, but we're not exactly part of the G8 countries so that's probably going to do fook all good - but I don't think that the first kid with a few MP3s on his system is going to be shipped to Gitmo either.
Now, with that out of the way, the clauses regarding the restrictions of privacy tools use online (and, possibly, offline; that TrueCrypted drive you've got and such) I find far, far more unsettling (and was the majority of the body of my protest letter; personally I can't really justify saying "I'm only downloading a movie! What's the harm!?", but I did point out the ridiculousness of involving law enforcement officials in this, never mind the penance, and my disagreement with those clauses on those grounds).
I'm still waiting for them to hook this into a "That way we'll get the terrorists, too!"-type defense argument.
But maybe they're not, and they're expecting people, to just fume at the worst bits, then blank those out and just leave it with the anti-piracy bits which might be grudgingly accepted.
The baby boomers built the country? Please! They were sitting around protesting, free-loving, and smoking dope while their parents and grandparents actually built what we have today. No one on this planet has the same entitlement mentality as United States baby boomers. No one.
You don't know me. I do like my life, I work hard, and I also vote. Forgive me for expressing dismay over the possible adoption of ridiculous policies.
Where do you draw the line between whining and merely stating one's opinion? Seems to me like you are a whiny baby-boomer who can't handle the criticism of younger people (I'm 27). See how easy it is to flip that around? I can argue with you and make up negative things about you, rather than actually attacking your opinion with logic.
I got it though, you have enlightened me. The baby boomers were here first so they deserve the chance to not only gobble up the world's resources and pollute the environment, and to write up some draconian laws that will persist and cause the next generations to suffer for decades after they are dead and gone. All so that a few large media corporations (run by baby boomers) can get wealthier and the CEOs can be entombed in large structures with their luxury cars and secretaries.
I got news for you old man, you're gonna die, and your country will be ours. So long. We won't miss you.
GWB and his parties aren't smart enough to understand what they are doing. What they understand is they have power and that it is valuable... they have made it available for sale and there are ample buyers out there buying their piece of the government and by extension, control of the world.
I doubt any explanation could be more accurate and simple at the same time.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Oh come on. Just because something doesn't work the last twenty times you've tried it doesn't mean it damn well shouldn't.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
I understand IP. I understand what is theft, and what isn't. I don't abide by customs searches for somebody's IP. I bought and paid for every single piece of music I have. None were torrented, or obtained through nebulous means from a copyright respect perspective.
And the music moguls now want to enforce the ability to check on me. With WHAT??? How can a customs agent possibly determine the MP3s that I have are, or are not purchased with validity???? THEY CANNOT!
IP protection isn't the backbone of the US economy. It's an intangibles-fantasy to think so. That's not what my father built, his father built, my mother built, and so on. It's the asset protection mechanism of the nonsensical. It's not innovative, it's not producing return on the intangible asset, it's as flimsy as derivates. Yet I respect the concept of asset ownership, and my rights under the law as a consumer. Now some nitwit's pressured various treaty signators to look at my damn MP3 player-- where's the justice in that??????
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Maybe it's the product of growing up under the red scare, but between the anti-Vietnam movement, the war on drugs, "Family Values", the war on terrorism, and the bare minimum of environmental laws/cheap gas/tax breaks for SUVs, the boomers' voting record will probably cause them to be remembered as the most cowardly and coddled generation in history.
"Generation-Me" indeed.
Why yes, I do have karma to burn.
Software patents are one small but important piece of the IP Empire which demands universally oppressive laws.
The list goes on and on but it has one common theme, your rights mean nothing, shut up and get back to work for the man.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
I seem to recall that Alan Cox, and probably others, were so disturbed by the DMCA in the US that they vowed never to visit the US again. So, the Linux Symposium has been held in Ottawa for some time.
Will this force Linux conferences to be held outside the US, Canada and the EU? Of course Alan Cox lives in the EU. It really makes one not wish to even travel through the region, which is pretty difficult if you think about air travel hubs, etc.
When will we get a notion of priority in this sick world? We've got so many issues in this world, much to do with security and protection; Please tell me why pirated music will take priority when our current ACTUAL border security is a joke? I'm imagining a scene where some guy is getting shook down for copied music while hoodlums rape a woman nearby unquestioned. Lets get a list of frikkin priorities here.
16 hour work days, food that's poison, obesity, insurance and medicine they can't afford. At some point it collapses on itself because there's only so much greed an economy can stand. We are entering a recession exactly as predicted by Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz in 2006.
There's already a system for dealing with illegal material, and there are very good reasons for requiring a warrant for such searches. The issue in question is already covered. Is this nonsense really necessary?
Repeal copyright. All of it. If they want to fight, give 'em a fight. Let us not piddle about minor interpretations of legalisms. Let's gut the whole thing. Patents too. Both of them were designed to promote progress and now the serve the opposite purpose. They should be done away with.
Patents shall not issue. Copyrights shall not be granted. All patents and copyrights are void. (New amendment)
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Paragraph 1 of the Charter says that The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. and Paragraph 8 says that Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. This is definitely unreasonable search and seizure, and there's no way you can justify searching private devices without cause for copyright infringement. Also note that this paragraph says "everyone", not "every citizen of Canada".
It is all stupid anyway. I work in Azebaijan (lots of restrictions on P2P and VOIP) and before that I worked in the UAE (where VOIP is illegal). Several other crazy places (like Thailand where they banned YouTube) before that. I am used to crazy laws. I now use a proxy in Switzerland that costs me $5 a month because it gets me through the censors anonymously using SSH. As these stupid laws proliferate the anonymous proxies in Switerland will have a golden era. US, Canadian and EU citizens will now need them as well so that they can carry their iPods empty through customs and go online and fill them up the other side. If you want to avoid the eyes of the MAAFIA use SSH to a proxy in Switzerland (land of the free).
Avoid the proxies in Sweden etc. as they are subject to EU law, Switzerland is not subject to EU law and do no reveal your identity to anyone.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
"How would border guards be able to tell an illegal song on an iPod"
If it's in the AAC format with Apple's Fairplay DRM - which they license to nobody and all that.. then it's probably legit.
It's pretty unlikely that any border guard is going to be checking the format of any random song on any random traveler's iPod. Most will most likely happen in the worst case is that the border crosser will have to get a 'certificate of compliance' from a record store or Apple store. You'd bring your iPod to the Apple store, they'd run a check of the DRM on all the songs, seal it somehow (maybe in a plastic bag), and then give you a 'certificate of compliance', all at a hefty Apple fee. You would show this to border guard. They might or might not let the iPod through. They might or might not let you through. You might have to pay a supplemental fee (in cash of course) to get either you and/or your iPod through the border.
Then you would do all the same routine on your way back home.
Please don't tell me I'm crazy. My friends and I have had a lot of experiences with the US/Canada border and the meatheads in uniform who work on it. Nothing is too weird and crazy to not be true. Especially now.
One thing that may develop is a program that takes standard MP3 songs and reformats them into the Apple configuation, along with the Apple DRM signatures on the files and reloads them onto your iPod. Everything is now 'legal'.
My gut feeling is that the Border guards will just start charging an iPod fee of $50 or so to bring your iPod across the border. Then the Border Patrol will work out a certain percentage of this fee that would go to the American RIAA, a percentage to the Canadian RIAA, and a majority of it kept by themselves for adminstration costs.
This idea of selling bits is a dot-bomb era fallacy, much like the 99.9% of business plans during hat time which failed, and which you seemingly have bought into.
Cory doctorow does a good job of tearing this apart in this talk
Copyrights are imaginary, they are a concept which anyone can readily ignore, and which those with current military parity DO ignore (china, russia).
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but Swiss VPN offer PPTP VPN for $5/month. I can't vouch for the service as I haven't used it, but the price looks good.
Hey, don't pin the blame just on Bush. The democrats have been in the pocket of the entertainment/media industries for years. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid stand up there and shill for every new copyright enforcement law that big media writes for them.
Pay attention to this shit, because party politics is just another big, fat, red herring the corporate drones are waving in your face. Neither party has your interests at heart.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
The baby boomers built the country? Please! They were sitting around protesting, free-loving, and smoking dope while their parents and grandparents actually built what we have today. No one on this planet has the same entitlement mentality as United States baby boomers. No one.
I thought that WE had little respect for our elders, but you punks take the cake (and eat it too). We didn't "sit around protesting", we marched around protesting. And what we protested was what the previous generations had fucked up.
We were being drafted to be cannon fodder for a useless war. Some of us volunteered for that useless war out of patriotism (I did). The protests finally eneded thath war. Meanwhile you little whiners are too busy chasing filthy lucre and getting your nipples pierced and foreheads tattood to care that an oil man becaise President and started a useless war for the sole purpose of enriching himself. At least my dad's generation's rich people who starte dthe Vietnam war thought )prehaps correctly) that they were fighting communism, a laudible goal to them.
My generation's protests stopped the war and made the President resign. Where are your protests of the Iraq war? Your stupid generation doesn't even have to be drafted!
Some of us protested the rape of the environment. We got the Clean Air act and teh Clean Water act passed. We got CFCs banned. What are you gutless wimps doing about global warmning? Buying SUVs!
My generation built sna is still building houses, like the one you live in. The parts of the electrical grid my dad din't build were built by those who followed him.
My dad's generation invented computers, but my generation pur those giant building sized machines on your desktop. My generation put VCRs and CDs and DVDs on the narket. My generation made the entire cell phone infrastructure.
My dad's generation smoked cigarettes. My generation smoked pot. Your generation smokes crack.
Your generation uses my generation's music in their fucktardedly stupid commercials. Neither my nor my dad's generation did that.
My generation was pretty ignorant of history, but we were pikers when it comes to your generation.
What has your generation done, except invent internet trolling?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Those are exchange rates, not relative purchasing power.
The exchange rate has little to do with purchasing power, since it is heavily dependent on trade. The exchange rate has gone up because the US has a trade defecit, which is flooding foregin markets with dollars. Add to this the fact that the dollar has long been overvalued, and it's not hard to understand why the exchange rate is falling. It is basically a market correction, which should utimatelly ballance out our trade defecit (as exchange rates fall, imports will decrease and exports will increase).
Relative purchasing power must be determined by compairing some kind of price index (such as the CPI). Sorry to burst your bubble, but that's simply the only way to compare relative purchasing power. The exchange rate only effects the price of imported goods, and therefore does not say a lot about price levels in general. Especially when you consider that China fixes their exchange rate to the dollar, and all petrolium is sold in dollars.
This is a very interesting point, actually... under which nations laws are the legality of the copyrighted materials determined?