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A Look At ACTA Wish Lists For RIAA, BSA, Others
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property brings us an analysis of several organizations' goals for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which we've discussed previously. In particular, he points out the anti-privacy views of the Business Software Alliance: "While the ACTA itself is not public, the US Trade Representative has at least released the ACTA comments. While many of them are to be expected, such as the RIAA & co. wanting copyright filters, one item on the BSA's wish list really stands out: 'In a number of European countries one of the biggest impediments to efforts by rights holder to enforce their IP rights on the Internet is the overbroad interpretation of privacy laws by some European authorities.' They want ACTA to 'fix' that by neutering the privacy laws. Given the BSA's other questionable activities, it couldn't hurt to tell their member companies what you think of their participation. After all, organizations like the BSA exist in part to shield their members from bad PR."
Full documents of comments from the various organizations are available at Public Knowledge.
They want to "fix" privacy in the EU to fix the industry they are killing all by themselves, no problem, the EU = EUSSR. There is no democracy in the EU.
Under bullsh*t of terror, privacy, freedom, and democracy has been rapidly hacked to pieces at the hands of the EU, it makes for a very unpleasant place to live. Hell, to can't even elect the rulers of the EUSSR, so they are free to pass whatever law they like, with impunity.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Voting doesn't do much good when the EU government isn't elected by the populace of it's member nations. Look how little it does here in the US, then imagine how much worse it could get if Congress (both houses) were appointed by the various State governments and not elected, and if the President were a rotating chair that round-robined between the Governors of various States.
In theory, you're right. In practice, you should note the difference between the promises made during the election campaign and the actual behavior once elected. If there is no electoral backlash, democracy breaks down.
> Its called voting. Check it out.
Yeah. Right. Let's see:
- Vote for candidate A. See candidate A taking a bribe. Be too weak to start an uprising and rip him out of his golden throne. Get told by an idiot to vote better the next time.
- Vote for candidate B. (May not avaliable in your country.) See candidate B taking a bribe. Be too weak to start an uprising and rip him out of his golden throne. Get told by an idiot to vote better the next time.
- Vote for candidate C. (May not avaliable in your country.) See him not getting enough votes and screaming of what he will change when it is his turn. Watch him become candidate A in the next vote.
Caution: Depending on the country, you can get shot for voting for someone other than candidate A.
Do I have to say more? As long as you're not in a revolutionist (aka "terrorist" aka "pinko" aka whatever) group, planning to overturn this non-working system to replace it by something better (hint: NOT another revolutionist who becomes corrupt too), you are responsible for your leaders. Come on. There are what, 250 million of you? Against what? 250,000? For ONCE be a real american, have something to be proud of, and be a leader. :)
P.S.: Cue the excuses for not acting, so you can accept your own self, in 3... 2... 1...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
When's the next trip off this rock?
1984 was not supposed to be an Instructable dammit. B-(
The problems that I see though are:
1) People won't get off their butts to protect their rights. I'm just as bad - frankly because I'm afraid of losing everything. And with FISA in place disappearing when you disagree with the government is becoming more of a possibility every day.
2) Corrupt corporations and corrupt government are hand-in-hand. And due to the previous problem that likely won't change.
3) People growing up now think that's the way it has to be because they don't know any better.
I just wish someone had a good solution but I think if it existed someone would have used it already.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Both Orwell and Marx would be surprised how right they were. A world governed by the watchful corporate eye, the same corporations that also control the voice and contents of information. Still, the EU, or at least Northern Europe with Scandinavia at the top (literary and figuratively) are more democratic, less corrupt and directly controlled by commercial interests than America, but we too are getting there. Sweden is a prime example of this. The current liberal (in the European sense, that is right-wing market liberals) have excelled in demolishing unions (which increases the relative power of producers), privatise public sectors, have deep tie-ins with commercial interests (f.i. Carl Bildt, the former Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister, couldn't understand the conflict of interest in possessing a huge portfolio of Russian oil and natural gas stocks AND residing over the political negotiation on Russian pipelines); and of course, pushing through the FRA legislation.
For us, though, there might be a few things to do.
Switch over more and more to copylefted and FOSS operating systems and software. No copyright or financial interests, no interest for BSA or (maf)*IAA. Of course, the same interests groups have identified this as a potential thread and tried legal and FUD campaigns against it (associating FOSS with communism, and trying to declare FOSS illegal, etc.).
Boycott the increasingly meaningless blockbuster production of Hollywood and the musical cultural industry. I have stopped watching TV and buying music since there simply isn't anything worth the money. Frankly, it is not even worth downloading.
Freenets, darknets and stronger encryption. However, this will mean a rat race where the outcomes may be a larger and growing portion of increasingly controlled population; an increasingly isolated cliché of technologically savvy individuals retaining integrity but being exposed by their very anonymity suspicious black holes in an ocean of whistles; or the death of the openness and accessibility that has made the Web the revolution it was.
It is a horrible situation, and the only hope we have is that younger politicians will have a more vested interest in net neutrality etc. than the current cadre that is old and often criminally ignorant about the consequences of their actions in an informational world. Fat chance.
For Swedes, voting for the Pirate Party for them to gain seats in the EU parliament is one concrete thing we can do now, and let's work to increase awareness of the problem so more pirate parties will emerge.
This is turning more and more into a world I do not want part of.
Free communication (read: the internet) is a direct threat to scarceness of immaterial goods. Our economy is based on resources being scarce and that is being undermined by the internet. So, basically, they want us to be unable to communicate freely to get back to the times were flow is controlled top-down. However immaterial goods never can be contained in the long run. This fact has apparently not arrived at our treasured politicians (not even after 500 years). Corporations will always try to keep the status quo because they have a hard time to reinvent themselves.