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Google Pushes Back Against US Copyright Treaty
Hugh Pickens writes "Internet companies led by Google joined groups representing Web users to challenge the Bush administration's bid to toughen international enforcement against copyright pirates. The companies said the US courts and Congress are still working out the correct balance between protecting copyrights and the free exchange of information on the Web and a treaty could be counterproductive. 'There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification,' said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. 'There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google.' The US, Japan, Canada and other nations said last year that they would begin negotiations on an agreement aimed at cracking down on counterfeiting of such goods as watches and pharmaceuticals, and the piracy of copyrighted materials, such as software and music recordings. A leaked draft of the deal showed that the treaty could force Internet service providers to cooperate with copyright holders."
"There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification," said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. "There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google."
What about what's good for PEOPLE????!!!!
That's all the information I need.
They know it won't get passed if it's done publicly.
No sig today...
"Where does that leave its citizens?" $700 billion in the hole
I have nothing compelling to say
Is that supposed to imply that what's good for the economy is good for Ameria? Where does that leave its citizens?
He may have been talking about international copyright violations. International in relation to american copyrights. So presumably, americans would not be included in that because they're not international, they're nationals falling under national copyright.
His interests wouldn't be in copyrights held by people or groups in other countries enforcing their copyrights on american pirates. It's something that would of course be a part of any treaty, but the quote is blurby, maybe he adresses it more later on but it didn't make it into the article.
Anyway, I think the point of his statment was about how american companies enforce their copyrights overseas and was looking at it from a buisness standpoint. American citizens weren't mentioned because that wasn't what he was talking about maybe?
I find myself avoiding products and services from companies that try to crap on my rights. I believe I am not the only one, since over the years many of these companies have withered or died. They can blame piracy, they can make up excuses for their shrinking bottom lines, but in the end the cause of their demise is their hostility to the very people that made them great in the first place.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
The correct balance would cut copyrights back to 14 years, require disclosure of source code to receive copyright on software, ban business method patents, and ban the use of technologies that prevent a work from entering the public domain. The government is going the opposite direction it should if it's interesting in establishing a proper balance.
To play MAFIAA's advocate, America is more and more producing ideas rather than tangible goods. If we want to maintain our trade surplus* we need to protect the value of what we produce. Of course, I don't agree with HOW we're doing it, but I can at least see the reasoning. Imagine if piracy actually hurt the producers, this would be an issue.
*by which I mean prevent further increase to the trade deficit.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Sure, if you define "bright" as "not completely black, but still 99% without any light"
The safe-harbor provisions are still stacked 100% in favour of big-media, and against ISPs and websites (to say nothing of the American people, whom (according to the constitution) copyright is *supposed* to benefit.)
I think you meant, required to benefit. That's why it's in the Constitution. That's why all such laws are completely and irrevocably unConstitutional.
... can any lawyers out there enlighten us as to how the Constitution can be overridden in the case of treaties with other countries?
Treaties now
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The point was that patents benefit rich, developed countries. Ignoring patents and copyright benefits poor countries (who, by the way, rarely have unions, pensions, or all that other first-world stuff you mentioned).
The World Bank and IMF have made up a fairy tale that the developed countries of the world became rich thanks to free trade and patents, which is crap. They became rich thanks to trade barriers, tariffs and turning a blind eye.
They can pass their little secret treaties, but how long and how seriously do they think people who are not privy to these secret meetings will honor these treaties?
If our rights as common people are being so openly snubbed, then this means the end of the copyright, because no one is going to respect it.
This is already happening, but I am surprised these copyright idiots don't see that what they are doing, these secret meetings and taking into consideration only "powerful" interests is destroying what they want to accomplish. They forget that without people getting on board of this train it is going nowhere fast.