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Leaked ACTA Treaty to Outlaw P2P?
miowpurr writes to tell us that a draft of the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) has been posted on Wikileaks. Among others, Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow has weighed in on the possible ramifications of this treaty. "Among other things, ACTA will outlaw P2P (even when used to share works that are legally available, like my books), and crack down on things like region-free DVD players. All of this is taking place out of the public eye, presumably with the intention of presenting it as a fait accompli just as the ink is drying on the treaty."
Considering it uses p2p for patches.
Sneak it in the back door via treaties that trump sovereign laws.
Im glad our collective governments have all the real issues of the world solved ( like famine, disease, terrorists , etc ) and can focus on such important things as saving some corporate entity from having to adapt to the future.. ( and make us all criminals in the process )
Can you say 'one world government by proxy' ?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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It might well put a damper on piracy efforts that rely on decentralized distribution to stay afloat, but it will seriously hurt the (few) legitimate uses of peer-to-peer distribution. Imagine the strain on software development if the the good will and bandwidth of end users disappeared from their distribution model. At the end of the day somebody has to pay for the $n$ million downloads at 700MB apiece; I seriously doubt the paid development, marketing, sales, and support staff want to see it reallocated from their budgets.
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I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Corporations used to write laws, but that turned out to be really inefficient. Why bother when you can write treaties instead?
And like I've said before, there's no bribing going on: the people writing these laws and treaties believe with all their hearts that the good of the nation -- nay, all humanity is served by maximizing corporate profit through physical force.
I wasn't always like this. And in fact, lest you mistake me for a turtle-suit-wearing WTO protester, I'm actually all in favor of free markets. It'd just be nice if we ever actually saw an actually free market in my lifetime.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I honestly can't imagine what the pretext would be if, asked point blank, somebody needed to justify doing this sort of thing in secret. Obviously, it is secret to keep the dirty proles and rabble-rousing journalists away; but I can't even imagine a plausible sounding excuse.
How could doing this sort of thing in secret possibly be justified?(I'd honestly be curious to hear plausible sounding answers, my usual arsenal of quips is exhausted)
I don't know any of those names but one: Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA). The only 'constituents' that she gives a rat ass about are those that work for the content industry.
This is the woman that pushed the Copyright Term Extension Act through Congress. This is a telling quote: (emphasis mine)
"Actually, Sonny [reference to her late husband, Sonny Bono] wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress."WTF is wrong with our elected officials? IANAL but I've read the Constitution enough times (and paid enough attention in civics class) to understand that the power of Congress to grant patents/copyrights is time limited. Let me help you Congresswoman:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;I also love the bit about what the MPAA President wanted. Care to tell me why his concerns should carry anymore weight then those of any American citizen?
In short, she's a bitch and I wish I lived in her district so I could vote against her. Since I wouldn't live in California if you paid me a million bucks a minute (sorry to my friends on the west coast!) I'll have to be content with donating money to the campaign of whomever runs against her.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
... is that this "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" has taken aim, directly or indirectly, at a number of currently legitimate practices. Of note, I see fair-use being all but completely shut down by this.
Many people even download software to "try it out" before they commit to purchasing a full license. It seems that is about to be criminalized as well...
And what is this *expletive* about ex officio authority to act against suspected infringers? Now we've gone and devolved the international copyright system's legal arena to the level of the Salem witch hunts.
Bravo, society. Bravo.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
If I use P2P of any kind for any reason, legal or not, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
If I get for free, legally or not, what I could PAY for, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
If I don't spend every last penny I make on what corporate America tells me to, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
If I don't purchase a gas-hogging SUV every three years, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
If I ride a bicycle because gas is so expensive, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
If I don't consume, consume, consume, and CONSUME, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
I object to having to live in a fucking nanny-state, so OBVIOUSLY I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
If I don't live exactly like EVERYONE ELSE, then I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
Know what? The fucking bastards can fucking drop me in an oubliette in Gitmo then, because I guess I'm a fucking terrorist. I don't do everything I'm told to do, believe everything I'm told to believe, and keep my mouth shut because my opinions aren't "politically correct", so that makes me an "undesirable", worthy only of societies' scorn, and I should be treated like a dog.
Let them sign their fucking little treaty. It's all paperwork bullshit anyway. I say it over and over again like a mantra: You can't stop the signal, goddamnit! Outlaw BitTorrent? Let's see them try, and if they do, someone will re-tool it into something completely different. Make the public internet unusable for anything other than their corporate bullshit? We'll find a way to subvert it into doing what we need it to do, or we'll tell them to go fuck themselves and go back to SneakerNet -- or maybe we'll just start creating a mesh network of our own and SCREW the ISPs!
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Then you'll need a license to use encrypted traffic. Looks like investing in a good tinfoil hat is increasingly attractive.
Cynical Idealist
I am seriously not trying to troll...
Isn't this how our current government is supposed to work? Corps are people for this discussion. People are supposed to support the representatives that hold the same values as they do. That is all these companies are doing.
Furthermore, isn't a rep supposed to do what the people of his district say? Obviously this crap is going to come out of CA!
All this is... is our system working as we (or the reps, supported by corps) have created it.
At least that is how it seems to me. That is why I support limited/small government inititives. Hell, I might support about anything that promised to actually mix things up a bit.
I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
Just think of Kyoto, anti-personnel mine and Non-Proliferation, etc... I'm sure this is one is even easier to enforce.
Where do you want to run?
Do you think that European governments aren't listening in to everything you do or say? British police records and retains license plate information all over the place, as well as having installed massive video surveillance. Germany has passed a data retention law, and the main German phone company (and possibly some other companies) have been using stored data to spy on their employees and journalists. In addition, they tried out massive facial recognition screening in public places. It's pretty much the same thing in all Western nations.
And European governments have been falling all over each other trying to pass DMCA-like laws. That's in addition to already fairly draconian copyright laws and more limited "fair use" provisions.
And in the others? They screw you the old way: secret police, secret evidence, secret trials, informants, etc.
I guess one minor advantage of Europe is that they can't pass the death penalty for copyright infringement (since they don't like the death penalty) and that the prisons are apparently cleaner. And in Japan, at least you'll be bigger and meaner than everybody else. Beware of caning in Singapore, though.
But, really, you can't run away. The only way to fix this is to fix it at home.
Technological innovation in communication by definition expands the ability of the people to freely communicate as they wish. If we accepted your argument that P2P does not expand one's ability to express himself, then what is to prevent government from outlawing any form of technological innovation? Imagine if the internet, radio, television, telephones, etc. were all made illegal. Would this not constitute an abridgement of freedom of speech rights? Why is P2P any different?
Soon we'll know who's running against these dicks. PLEASE DONATE AS MUCH MONEY AS YOU CAN TO THEIR OPPONENTS IN THIS YEARS'S ELECTION!!
In the Congress, money talks; bullshit walks. All this discussion about "IP rights" and "Constitution" is pure bullshit to these leeches. All they care about is money. Well, put your money where your mouths are and donate liberally to their opponents come November. If we can just kick a couple of these bloodsuckers out of Congress, then we'll send a message to the others that these shenanigans won't do.
On the other hand, if they win again, then you might as well kiss the Internet (as we know it) goodbye....
Loose lips lose spit.
EXACTLY. It will criminalize unauthorized information exchange on the internet. Sounds all fine and good until you start thinking about who gets to define what constitutes "unauthorized." A legislative body with proper representation drafting the definition after careful consideration, input from constituents, and an informed debate on the issue? Hardly. "Unauthorized" will be at the sole whim of the MAFIAA and whatever political party is in power at the time. This will be used to squash differences in opinion from those in power. It may take down Wikileaks first, but who is to say if it will stop there? What they're trying to do with this is no less than pulling the wool over everyone's eyes until it's too late to do anything about it. They're going to try and present it fait accompli because they know it won't stand up if they actually ask people what they think.
Face it, power no longer rests with the people, and hasn't for some time. It all resides in the hands of the corporations with money to buy votes. The oil, content, and software industries are the ones ACTUALLY running the US. So when does everyone decide to use what little power they have left to say "That's it, you're ALL fired. Every single one of you. Get the HELL out of Washington and find a REAL job, while we vote in people who actually have a spine to stand up for those that they represent!"
I know, I know. It's a pipe dream that won't happen in my lifetime, or even in my grandchildren's lifetimes (I'm 26, single, no kids. Typical Slashdotter, but there's an idea of the timescale I'm talking about), but can't a man dream?
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
A deeper, less hysterical, and non-intellectually dishonest analysis than Doctorow's chicken-littling is at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080602-the-real-acta-threat-its-not-ipod-scanning-border-guards.html
Have you ever considered why those are your only options? (And, btw, isn't law in the US made by more than a single person?)
:-).
I am pretty tech-savy (having a Ph.D. in Computer Science helps), and I am also active in politics, both national and local (I am a member of my city council in DK, approx. 45000 residents, and was a candicate for the last national election). And, while one of my major motivations for joining politics was to work for better laws in the tech area, I quickly realised that in order to have any influence, or getting elected to anything you need a much wider scope. Tech stuff simply does not interest enough people to get you any votes. This is OK, by definition, the voters have a right to focus on what interest them. The problem with that however is, that in order to stay sharp on the issues of "the masses", in order to get any votes at all, you lack the time to work on/stay updated on "fringe" issues. But I digress.
Now, what pisses me off in your sentiment, which is echoed by many, is the inherent "it does not matter anyway" attitude. It does freaking matter what you do. But laying on the couch, waiting for a perfect candicate to get enough exposure that you discover him, and can vote on him, will never help. For the candicate it is a chicken and egg problem: As long as he can not demonstrate that tech issues has the interesst of a sufficient number of voters, he/she gets no leverage on the party. For fringe candidates (and most that are tech savy are that), you simply can not get any leverage on these issues. The candicate needs you to get off that couch and take part in the public debate (and, no, that is not Slashdot, believe me) and make this an issue that engages influential people or the media. Then, you will see tech savy candidates to your elections. So, get off that couch right now. Find the local candidate that are tech savy, and support the one that matches your overall political profile best. And by support, I mean: join his party, call him, go to meetings, write letters to the newspapers, let your neighbours, friends and coworkers know that this is something that matters to you. Join your local branch of whatever passes for a digital rights group in your area (EU: http://www.edri.org/).
As long as the political parties are made up of people that couldn't give less about IP and tech stuff, it is simply to hard to get any leverage for these issues, and the companies that are able to post large amount of money into professional lobbyists will get their way. Sure they will. But, you _can_ make a difference. And if you do not try to make a difference, quit complaining - you are wasting bandwitdh, really. (On satelitte here, btw, so I am entitled to complain about bandwidth
The problem is the huge difference in financial abilities of the likes of Time Warner or the Walt Disney Co. and private citizens.
The difference becomes even larger when considering what's at stake here. I'm sure big media will pay out billions if they can extend copyright duration, enforcement and broadness for significant periods; to counter that the populace would need tens of millions to donate large sums in a coordinated fashion. Which won't happen.