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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.
Background info: :)
1. I am NOT an American, I know four other languages, so be mild on the typos.
2. I DO work on a plan for a new government that does not ignore the the conflict between personal interests and interests of being a leader of people.
3. I AM trying to mobilize people, so I am allowed to ask others to do it too.
4. I do not plan to do anything evil like hurt people or similar stuff. Only losers do need that. Professionals use psychology.
5. I'm just learning this style of psychology right now. So I'm not good at it *yet*. What are you doing?
6. I see you as my friend in the first place, no matter who you are, and even if you do very stupid things.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I just cannot understand what possible rationalization there could be for ACTA not being worked on in the open(yeah, yeah, obviously I know why working behind closed doors would be what they want; but I'm talking about justification here).
Even by the bizarro world standards of something state doesn't like = terrorist threat and camera in same room as child = pedophile menace, I can't think of a good justification for doing a copyright "harmonization" treaty in private. WTF.
"beloved Apple"? Apple has more taste than most of the rest of team evil; but they play at least as mean as anybody else on that list, and meaner than some. I don't expect that to get any better, now that the majority of their money comes from a) selling the only computers on which they allow their OS to run, b) selling phones heavily locked in various ways and cashing in on those who profit from the locks, and c) content sale and rental on DRMed platforms.
The one on that list that surprises me is Intel. They make very little software, other than drivers and compilers, and their hardware isn't exactly easy to clone. There are already special restrictions in place for reverse engineering ICs, and the world isn't exactly bursting that the seams with sleazy back-alley 300mm wafer 45nm process fabs.
Most of the rest of the list is the usual BS(A)ing suspects, or at least, like cisco, in the business of making hardware that is pretty clonable. Anybody have any ideas about Intel?
The "special interest" groups - like the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA - have far too much money, and in a capitalist society that leads to far too much power. We, the minority voice, cannot match the buying power these groups have, nor do we have enough political power to sway votes.
And believe me, no matter what your little nerdgasm makes you believe, we are a minority voice. We're such a small voice that my senator actually laughed at me when I called him up to complain about his support of FISA, as he assured me that the majority demanded this legislation be passed.
Quite frankly, there's nothing left for geeks to do but wait and watch as all of our freedoms are stripped away to protect the special interests.
Oh sure, some geeks will post bullshit about having their own revolution, but they're too close-minded to own a gun, and too lazy and distracted to actually get anything done.
Oh wait, those geeks are talking about a peaceful revolution, the kind we have every 4 years. The same "revolution" that is carefully controlled and manipulated by two (illegal) political parties. Yeah, great idea there. Or you could vote for the miraculous third party candidate who - thanks to his radically different views from the two parties in control of the house and sentate - will basically cause government to come to a standstill and get nothing done, assuring that another 200 years will pass before a third party candidate is ever elected again.
Quite frankly, I'm just damn tired of these stories and of the comments. "Write your senator" doesn't work. "Call your congressman" doesn't work. We're tried to get organized and fight these abominations of our rights as human beings, and we continue to fail. In fact, we've yet to even eat away at aging laws like the DMCA and Patriot act, yet we yammer on and on about how we can stop laws like ACTA.
Face it, fellow geeks, we have no chance. so, I beg you, slashdot, stop posting these stories, because they mean almost nothing now. Unless someone comes up with a way to organize a para-military force through an anonymous service to physically stop these kinds of atrocities, I see no point in discussing this stuff.