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Anti-Counterfeiting Deal Aims For Global DMCA
An anonymous reader writes "Negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement continue on Wednesday as the US, Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, and a handful of other countries secretly negotiate a copyright treaty that includes statutory damages, new search and seizure power, and anti-camcording rules. Now the substance of the Internet chapter has leaked, with information that the proposed chapter would create a 'Global DMCA' with anti-circumvention rules, liability for ISPs, and the possibility of three-strikes and you're out requirements."
This is your fault.
It's such a great idea for each country to give up it's sovereignty for copyright infringmement.
See ya, unencrypted Internet, good riddance.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Why is it that if I butcher a human being, it's possible to get out of prison in a few years if I show that it was done in a mad emotional state or attributable to some psychosis driving me to attack, but if I butcher a book for a page or a CD for a song in a mad emotional state or neurotic urge to share, I'm likely to be fined into bankruptcy, and potentially imprisoned for *longer* than if I'd attacked a person?
Oh. Money. That's why.
Silly me.
I think not...(*poof*)
wouldn't any signed treaty also have to be made law in each respective country?
I've never understood how countries can be bound by a treaty through ratification (Kyoto protocol?) without it going through a country's law-making body...
Because perhaps the "laws" that are bringing an end to the lawless period only represent the views of a very small and select group and are almost entirely out of phase with the established but non-codified norms?
What are these Intranets you speak of? I hand deliver 80GB+ of iPod movies and TV Shows right to my friend's cubes on flash, hard drive, or burnt DVD files. Sneakernet, get to know it. Encode once, share many. RIAA/MPAA? Never heard of them. Do they make any good movies or TV Shows? HA!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
their complaints against filesharing eroding their bottom line basically amounts to a coverup for what is the real problem, a crappy business model.
The brainiacs that run the movie houses continually fork over huge amounts of cash to persons who had one hit that made money, and who continually bomb after that.
In what other business realm is failure so grandiosely rewarded? In what business school would they teach this sort of practice?
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
So, are you saying if I went to a library and copied text and images from a random assortment of books and made a book from it, and called it my own, I should get nailed with something like the DMCA? That is completely ridiculous. It IS my own creation, and there are ALREADY laws saying I can't claim the actual text/images themselves as my own. How is a web page any different?
I wonder how much the RIAA/MPAA and their international brethren had to pay to buy that many countries... I mean, seriously - not a single one of the delegates sitting at the tables is willing to speak up and point out how these concepts are not good for the populace of their country? You know, the people our politicians supposedly represent.
I am so utterly sick and tired of politicians turning their backs on the people they represent and bending low before corporate interests. It's even worse, as a Canadian, when I see my government bend over and take it for FOREIGN corporate interests. Were it at least for the betterment of Canadian corporations, I'd at least be able to justify it as "they're doing what they can to keep our businesses profitable" but when they sell out the people of my country so some corporation in another country can pad their bottom line, it simply infuriates me.
I keep holding out hope that somebody will eventually develop some morals and put a stop to this madness but I know that the money has spoken and thus change is coming.
If anything it only brings the Internet under the rule of law and in line with most other social mediums.
And, you know, this could alleviate a lot of the "bring iTunes/Amazon MP3/Hulu to the rest of the world" complaints we get so frequently on Slashdot. Hell, I'd like to see Spotify in the US myself. But all too often you see labels balk at foreign markets and a lot of time (though not always) they cite lack of copyright control and enforcement in these countries.
So, yeah, it's horrible that we're getting ACTA/DMCA the world over but at the end of the day, the countries participating in this may actually think that they are doing something good for their constituents as consumers. And you know, they might be right. For people living outside the United States, would you put up with stricter DMCA-like rules if it meant massively more purchasing options for you? I can't say I would opt for this (as I'm living in the US) but I imagine if I were living in Korea I would support this if it meant I could purchase Amazon MP3s instead of relying on less than reputable sites for acquiring music.
While this global system for enforcing copyright may be initially overly harsh, I think we have to recognize copyright law enforcement in other countries needs to be increased before publishers, labels and film studios become comfortable with digital mediums as an equal and fair distribution method the world over.
To reiterate, I don't agree with some of these laws they are discussing. I hope that's why they're holding the discussions. But do not overlook the benefits and fail to weigh them against the costs as you consider this discussion.
However, I still feel that 75 years is way too long of a copyright term.
Emphatically agreed. While I'm being overly optimistic, hopefully the global community can influence the US positively in this respect.
My work here is dung.
Here in Canada we recently finished a national copyright consultation. I can't wait to see how our government fucks this one up.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Clearly you haven't been paying attention to how the DMCA has been used in the U.S., rarely has it been used to stop actual theft, more used to control. You know those science fiction books and how they paint the future as being very dim, well that future is already happening and this would give it a real big push. Personally as a Canadian if the PC government signs this in anyway then good luck on them ever being re-elected again.
These meetings are held in secret. Now, one could understand countries meeting secretly for reasons of war, in case possible plans fell into enemy hands. But this isn't war against nations.
This is subjugation of the citizens. These meetings are secret simply so the populace don't find out what's being planned--for the same reason the American South made teaching slaves how to read illegal--the information is too much of a threat to let out. The whole myth of government for the people, by the people, is just that, a myth, a cultural fable told to instill flag-waving patriotism in the citizenry. Nothing shuts up dissent faster than "my country, love it or leave it" and the nationalistic fervor that accompanies it.
PEOPLE DO NOT REALLY CONTROL THEIR GOVERNMENTS, AND THE STRUCTURE OF LARGE-SCALE DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS NATURALLY LENDS ITSELF TO OLIGARCHY. Democracy is like communism--SUPPOSEDLY "good in theory" but it doesn't actually work. Whenever someone says "we just need more education!" or some other reform, they are trying to save democracy and insist it can run as planned just like the communists that claim that widespread communism can exist without degenerating into USSR-style totalitarianism. The only difference is is communism is generally someone else's myth and not your own, so you can't see it.
What works? Nothing works. You're on your own, buddy, you're gonna have boots stomping you no matter what. Such is life...
Hahahaha. Do you seriously think that the corporations will let that happen? Watch for a new section banning "unlicensed" use of encryption software to be added to the treaty.
I guess this means a return to sneakernet? That might improve local communities, not a bad thing in itself...
Every great new movement in any art (cinema, music, painting, etc.) is done by people who just do these things because they want to, not because they are looking for millions of dollars.
So the paid, restricted content will continue to suck donkey balls, as it has for years. And the next big thing will be given away or shared for free or for donations.
Sure, it will eventually be co-opted and sanitized by the corporate culture, but by then it will be time for the next new big thing.
So this is a good thing.
And, you know, this could alleviate a lot of the "bring iTunes/Amazon MP3/Hulu to the rest of the world ... hopefully the global community can influence the US positively in this respect.
That has to be the longest "I welcome our new robot overlords" speech I've ever read.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Kiss it goodbye.
But do not overlook the benefits and fail to weigh them against the costs as you consider this discussion.
You do realize that this essentially allows corporations to write law. This is some real scary shit, and I'm amazed that it finds cheerleaders among ordinary people.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Imagine some malware which randomly downloads a dozen copyright mp3's - instantly making millions of unsuspecting users instant criminals - potentially with a 3-strikes liability. Insane.
that our elected officials would do something that isn't in the best interest of their citizens while handing over the keys to the castle to the corporations...
The problem is that all of the media industries concerns are being met, yet consumers are ill represented, which only guarantees we will not abide by their treaty. What about protections for fair use? Or protection against drm locking legitimate customers out? Or how about portability of our files between devices? We, the consumer, are far ahead of and laws they can legislate. We can break DRM, we can file-share, we can encrypt. They can try and stop us with these three strikes laws and whatnot, but I'll just run down to the library and read a nice book while I download the newest movie. I sure as hell can cover my tracks better than they can uncover. Respect is a two way street. If they want us to respect their IP, they need to respect us as their consumers.
Nothing prevents the next president from revoking\backing out of a treaty.
Noting prevents the next congressional session from re-writing\repealing\altering existing law.
Nothing prevents a SCOTUS member from being removed from their position via an impeachment. Their life time tenure is contingent on "good behavior" and as such any high crime should apply including Treason, Sedition, Perjury, etc.
Anyone could levy a charge that signing secret Treaties with foreign powers is Treason, but that is a long shot at best.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
And, you know, this could alleviate a lot of the "bring iTunes/Amazon MP3/Hulu to the rest of the world" complaints we get so frequently on Slashdot. But all too often you see labels balk at foreign markets and a lot of time (though not always) they cite lack of copyright control and enforcement in these countries.
You are confused. The reason streaming services aren't globally available has nada to do with lax copyright controls and everything to with licensing rights. The system was created decades ago when information flow across borders was 100% physical and thus cumbersome. The copyright cartels exploited that fact by partitioning each country into its own licensing region and then created a market to buy and sell international distribution rights. In many cases there were no buyers for distribution rights in certain countries for reasons like the asking price being too high. The only people who felt inconvenienced by this arrangement were aficionados of foreign culture and ex-pats, everybody else didn't even know what they were missing.
The internet changed the awareness of the people so that today a hell of a lot more people are aware of what they are missing. The copyright cartels have not kept up with the increased demand, instead resting on the easy money of their monopolies, and the market for international distribution rights has not significantly changed. Stronger copyright controls won't enable increased foreign distribution, if anything it will just reinforce the status quo.
In contrast, piracy has actually provoked studios into more rapid foreign distribution - it is now common place for official DVDs of Hollywood productions to be released in countries like Russia, India and China day and date with theatrical release in the west - one recent example is District 9.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
This doesn't match up. In effect, the DMCA showed ISPs a clear path how to avoid liability. This is what makes services with rampant infringement possible (like Youtube).
No, it won't. Global draconian copyright laws will allow them to do MORE of that sort of thing, not less. Piracy is not the reason those things aren't available to the rest of the world (or at least Europe). They simply feel (probably accurately) that they can make more money by distributing separately in each region.
You'd be AMAZED at how far you could over-subscribe data connections if there were no multi-media files flying around. Funnel the music & video thru "approved" delivery channels and edge cache them at the mega-ISPs and you'll find that the rest of the Internet hums along nicely at 20-50:1 oversubscribed endpoints.
Look at hard drive usage. Take your average PC, remove any music, video and installed games and they'll probably have less than 2 Gb of total data. Probably FAR less. The same thing goes for network bandwidth. Get rid of a lot of the media flying around and EVERYONE can have a 100 Mbps link. Mostly because no one ever honestly USES a 100 Mbps link for more than a few seconds of burst.
Yes, there are exceptions. Think of the Bell Curve model. The vast bulk are in the middle, not on the far ends.
http://classes.kumc.edu/sah/resources/sensory_processing/learning_opportunities/sensory_profile/bell_curve.htm
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I really don't know why the Canadian government is involved in these negotiations at all as the treaty doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of being ratified. Mostly because it would require an admendment to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to become law as it will be kicked out of court on it's ear otherwise. Also, the Copyright Board of Canada would have to be disbanded in spite of having a Royal Charter. We're talking a great big messy Constitutional crisis over file sharing. Not a good idea at the best of times and for a minority Conservative government it is tantamount to political suicide. Should be fun to watch, though.
Does this mean our government will stop counterfeiting 'money'?
You know, maybe it's time to publicize the issue as much as possible. The easiest way is to do it by calling it stuff like "the anti-iPod law". (Let's not get pedantic with law/treaty/etc crap - it serves to divert attention).
There's a lot of things that ACTA makes illegal that common people do daily, so a big publicity campaign can cause people to get agitated. Stuff like singing in the shower (not too farfetched) or humming a tune. Recording a TV show to watch later. Ripping a CD for your iPod.
First we should call it something catchy. "The Anti-iPod Law" is pretty good since practically everyone knows what an iPod is and what it does. Then alert them to everyday activities that would be banned, or they can be sued for doing. Public doesn't care about RIAA suing filesharers. They do care if the RIAA starts suing people for ripping CDs to their iPods, though. Or if the MPAA sues people for recording that movie off of TV onto their VCR/DVR. Or singing in the workplace (sure it happend in the UK, but it isn't a big stretch in the UK). How about having your iPod searched at the border? They keep saying they won't force iPods to be searched, but there's no guarantee.
Start campaigning on how it will impact the common people. Pro-ACTA will have to campaign how it will benefit people, but that can be turned around quite easily ("poor starving hollywood actors need more money to pay for their gold faucets" and the like).
Heck, I've seen newspapers publish about the "Is your iPod illegal?" law.
We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
/. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the
Signed
The Pirate Bay Crew – Now until needed.
Blatantly pirated from thepiratebay
Just make everyone a criminal, search everyones houses on demand. We don't need any personal freedom or rights anyway do we? Some stupid *media company* is more important, right?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
STOP BUYING THEIR CRAP.
If they cant afford to buy the laws, we the people get them back.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
According to the article, fair use would be eliminated because circumvention devices would be illegal. If you are allowed to make a copy, but the program to do it cannot be traded/sold/distributed, you essentially are barred from doing so. It's a nice loophole in the law that the media companies are quite happy with.
Exactly. The region codes had nothing to do with piracy. That's just revisionist history. The region codes were put in because different regions of the world operate at different financial scales. This allows the media giants to set a lower price in countries where the median wage is much lower without worrying about cannibalizing profits in countries where the median wage is higher. The theory was that without region codes, DVDs sold in countries with a low wage level would get bought and reimported into the U.S. and sold at a significant profit, and they would still undercut the price of DVDs sold in the U.S. Because of the huge difference in those economic tiers, it would not be practical to eliminate this in any other way. Raising the cost in impoverished countries would kill sales there, and lowering the cost in the U.S. to levels where reimporting isn't feasible would kill profits here.
Instead, in practice, DVDs sold in countries with a low median wage get copied, stripped of their region codes, and sold in the U.S. The result is that the studios make even less profit than they would if region codes weren't around, but at least they can get criminal prosecution in some cases. In short, region codes were pretty much a failed attempt at curbing reimporting, and as a result, there are far fewer regions in Blu-Ray, and most Blu-Ray discs aren't region coded at all. If they thought it would curb piracy in any significant way, every Blu-Ray disc would have region codes. It's pretty clear that few, if any, industry leaders actually believe that.... :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
would you put up with stricter DMCA-like rules if it meant massively more purchasing options for you?
Stricter protection of monopolies always lead to fewer options, not more, just as it leads to higher prices. Piracy is essentially the only thing that acts as competition in this market, and the last few years piracy has already shifted, for example, TV shows from being broadcast two or three years after the US broadcast, to virtually synchronized release (because otherwise everyone's seen it already).
The best way to ensure rapid evolution of alternatives would be to simply discard copyright law altogether, then we'd get any number of easy and cheap delivery forms.
Actually, article six says that treaties become part of the "Supreme Law" regardless of whether they conflict or not, which is to say a treaty can supercede the Constitution simply because the article was badly written (or, after further research, apparently intentionally written that way to protect an existing peace treaty. Go figure).
That amendment in the 50s to fix that did not pass.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Take it a step further ; who can actually use that much data (again, with the exceptions). I see people whining on about being unable to use their 20Mbit/s connections at full speed 24/7 ; so let's try and extrapolate what they are using it for.
20Mbit/s 24/7 is 216GB per day.
Music? Even FLAC is only ~ 1.4 Mbit/s, so even if they have found an internet radio station founded by a generous billionaire who doesn't have to concern himself with his bandwidth charges, there's no way one domestic subscription needs to listen to 12 channels simultaneously.
Games? Most "big" games these days are around the 5GB ISO mark. I don't know anyone who could play 43 "Dragon Age" or "Mass Effects" per day. (and certainly no-one who could afford to pay for them).
Video? If it's raw DVD ISOs... 20. At about 90 minutes each, you'd have to double up some of the movies, and display a certain willingness to be catheterized and have your meals delivered by a nursemaid. Oh, and the benzamphetamines to stay awake so you could keep up would be pretty expensive.
Pr0n? Well, most people do skip through most of it, but then you lose interest after you get ... excited. It's a subset of video, and again, you really have to try hard to consume 20Mbit/s constantly watching it. And I think the catheter would chafe.
Text? You can download the entire Project Gutenberg archive in less than 2 days.
Software? The chunkiest meatiest Linux distributions are still a single-layer DVD ISO, 4.7GB. Oracle 11g is ~2.5GB. The entire MSDN reference is 2GB.
Combine all this with the necessity to sleep, work, and eat, and it becomes even more incredible. I'd actually like to see the figures for how much data the media industry actually releases in terms of DVD and CD each day ; and I'm willing to bet it's not an order of magnitude different from about 200GB a day.
It's still a big load of crap using "national security" as an excuse to classify it.
Something that nefarious only means that someone's up to no good.
This is beyond run of the mill political corruption with politicians getting bought off.
For them to stoop so low as to invoke state secrets is downright scary, and is damn close to the sort of thing they do in China and the old USSR.
Almost anonymous is interesting. ..
Have you seen footage of how a police state reacts to a lot of people in a park ect if they are doing something other than walking to work with their heads down?
An unmarked van or car picks up a spike in BT v 3.0
Too many people in one place just standing around?
The area will be surrounded and random people asked for ID, protest permits, bag searches.
Your in a park, children are around, you have a camera phone you might be a danger to others
"Can we see your media files?"
Then random snatches into buses and vans down side streets.
You drop your cellphone, is it found? Do they have your International Mobile Equipment Identity number and call record?
If you keep your phone on you, you where linking with bad people, if you drop your phone, your a terrorist.
When the van pulls up and your at booking, they will offer to look after your mobile too, real nice like.
http://tinyurl.com/y9lh6wq [nydailynews.com] "NYPD tracking cell phone owners, but foes aren't sure practice is legal"
The best place to fight new this global DRM is in the courts before its passed in your country.
Expose any politician who supports it.
Go to their mall walks, town halls, sporting/community photo ops and be visual and vocal about their support for new search and seizure powers.
Have a few cams filming you, the supporters will get physical.
Then upload to yourtube a few 100 times.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Who owns culture? That's what this is all about. The five global entertainment companies claim that they do. They own all the recordings. They own all the video, all the film, all the books, all the comic books, all the whatever. Sooner or later, they are going to claim to own the ideas and stories behind the 'product'. Then they will claim to own things like the C#minor chord or the plot device of a simple hero driven to vengence by a dastardly crime.
So their lawyers tell them. And their lawyers will have no trouble buying politicians to pass laws supporting these fantasies. Especially in countries that are totally corrupt and owned by corporations, like the USA.
But owning culture is like owning air. The ability to enforce ownership is dependent on the ability to use violence to force people to give you their money. Sooner or later, everyone will realize that all copyright is nothing but extortion. And they will realize that they have done nothing to morally justify the extremely harsh verdicts imposed upon them for so-called copyright crimes.
Historically in situations like this, people fight back. Someone gets a notice that they 'owe' $100000000 for being overheard humming a copyrighted tune in the park by a secret microphone. They track down the person who sent the notice, pay a fee to get background on this person and his family, and kidnap one or all of this bozo's children. Ransom being equal to the amount 'owed' for humming a tune in the park.
All you end up with is a lot of dead children and lawyers who aren't worried any more about making child support payments. What? You assumed that an entertainment industry lawyer had the ability to actually love somebody, like a family? No way.
All copyright is stupid with the technology available to us in the 21st century. Accept it. Don't let these assholes steal your money. Don't give them any of your money. And don't kidnap and kill their children because it's bad for your karma.
Stupidity passes in time: evil remains. Don't let entertainment lawyers trick you into transforming yourself into an evil person. I keep telling myself this over and over.
Hope that it works.
but I'll just run down to the library and read a nice book while I download the newest movie
Libraries? Those all closed down in 2020.
... and then they built the supercollider.