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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.
crap, the list contains pretty much every company that I know of, including those that I work for.. Alright, Google is not there, but our beloved Apple is in, so what's up with that?
From the wiki:
* Adobe Systems
* Apple Inc.
* Autodesk
* Avid Technology
* Bentley Systems
* Borland
* CA, Inc.
* Cadence Design Systems
* Cisco Systems
* CNC Software/Mastercam
* Corel Corporation
* Dell
* EMC Corporation
* Entrust
* Hewlett-Packard
* IBM
* Intel Corporation
* Intuit
* McAfee
* Microsoft
* Monotype Imaging
* Network Associates
* Oracle Corporation
* PTC
* Quark
* Quest Software
* RSA Security
* SAP
* SolidWorks
* Sybase
* Symantec
* Synopsys
* The Mathworks
* UGS PLM Solutions Inc.
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
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.
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.
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.
The European Parliament is elected by the citizens, not the member states, and the President is largely a figurehead whose powers aren't comparable to those of the US President. There's a lot I don't like about the structure of the EU (such as the fact that only the Commission can propose new legislation), but your comparison with the US system is way off target.