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Secret Copyright Treaty Leaks. It's Bad. Very Bad.
Jamie found a Boing Boing story that will probably get your blood to at least a simmer. It says "The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to 'national security' concerns, has leaked. It's bad." You can read the original leaked document or the summary. If passed, the internet will never be the same. Thank goodness it's hidden from public scrutiny for National Security.
at least here. I don't know in the US, but here in Brazil (and I guess in most countries) it is simply impossible to have a "law" or treaty be secret and have any legal value. Of course, given enough money, these laws might be approved anyway, public scrutiny and all, and that is the sad part.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
"I'm agreeing with most of the intent, and certainly all of the purpose. Supporting copyright is far more importantto me than supporting fair-use, and I'd certainly sacrifice the latter entirely in order to improve the former."
Sorry. You are a minority. A corporate drone without creativity and/or life. Please, move along. Don't let the door hit you.
And yes, I'm a corporate owner with intellectual property to protect. No, I do not support neither software patents (even though I hold some), nor this treaty. My software is sold as a service and as a product, I do lose some sales due to pirates (not much, really). But I would rather lose more sales than lose more freedoms.
If there's a new way, I'll be the first in line.
But it better work this time...
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
I'd say 95% of the population can't be made to listen to a 90-second dinner party discussion of ACTA, IP laws, and internet freedom. How do you expect to whip significant numbers of people into an indignant frenzy?
The government(s) know they have a yawner on their hands here, and they can operate behind a cloak of indifference. Don't make the mistake of assuming prevailing opinion on a technology discussion board mirrors prevailing opinion in the population at large.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Well you can stop using the Internet, right? I mean we weren't born with it.
Well, if you're less than 40, you were born with it.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This sounds tongue-in-cheek, but is really a serious question. On one hand, you have the notion of ignorance is no excuse although there are precedents now stating if you're famous, that's okay. There are precedents for secret treatises for national security, like the withdrawal of missiles from Turkey at the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But how would the mechanics of enforcement work?
Will the FBI kick in your door, shoot your dog, and haul you off for breaking a secret law?
Would they need a secret warrant?
If you ever got your day in court, would that court be secret too, to protect that law?
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Now for Canada: A judge last year tossed out a RIAA style copyright suit because the defendant had made CDs. As everyone knows, Canada has a special tax on blank media to reimburse the copyright holders for piracy that may or may not happen. Kind of like paying a partial speeding ticket before you get into your car each day. Since this implies guilt, the defendant was deemed to have been punished already, and was so exempt from being convicted again.
How would the secret treaty work in Canada? Change the laws secretly?
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
I was wondering why he didn't just type up the text of the document, but realized they could put unique, subtle word changes in each copy, still tracing it back.
The whole point is that there are precious few details about any of ACTA because nobody outside of the governments involved, their lawyers and a few high-paying lobby groups have been allowed to see any of its contents.
*Everything* about it is hearsay until either someone succeeds in getting an FOI request honoured or the thing gets ratified and it's too late to do anything about it.
There is a section in the agreement allowing the RIAA or MPAA to confiscate all of your possessions if they find a single infringing item on any PC you own. If you don't believe me, just ask the government to show it to you and prove me wrong. Tell all your friends.
No, this is the same people / same industry lobbyists / same secretive, greed-crazed financial companies who control our health insurance *already*.
If we had a system of publically accountable, transparent entities running health insurance (as we do with health *care*, thank you very much the hospitals are mostly fine,) then it would be crazy to propose a federal takeover. But the groups presently running the insurance scam in this country are the same financial institutions responsible for all the worst excesses of the commerce department.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I create intellectual property as well. Every day. Furthermore, I work in a small enough company that copyright is a critical issue. And you know what we found? We can't afford to pay every single idiot who thinks that what they created is so special and unique it cannot be put into the public for 75 years after they die. What do we do? We use stuff licensed under BSD, GPL or CC terms. And we're able to create far more stuff than if we'd have to pay someone like you because it just so happens that what we create might be close to what you created.
What you're doing is nothing more than locking up existing content and ideas. Because if you think that what you create is unique - you're deluding yourself.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
There is a section in the agreement allowing the RIAA or MPAA to confiscate all of your possessions if they find a single infringing item on any PC you own.
No, that's not true.
The section you mentioned allows them to confiscate all your possessions if they suspect there might have been a single infringing item on any electronic device you own.
...the wars (US involvement anyway) would be *over*, and the troops home.
Those ripoff investment banks would have been forced to eat their own capitalist dogfood and would have been allowed to go bankrupt,(no multi trillion dollar bailouts required) and the financial industry would have realized (like warren buffet has said out loud) that 95% of the derivatives market is pure snakeoil crap, they are "weapons of mass financial destruction". As in who cares if they want to play those games, but they should be allowed to fail when they get too greedy and too stupid. That's *real* capitalism, not this "socialism for billionaires, privatize the profits and socialize the risks and failures" nonsense they keep pushing now.
GM and Chrysler would have gone through normal bankruptcy, as they deserved, and there would be a ton of fresh blood and new ideas running those various factories by now and it would have also nailed Unions with a wakeup call that they need to get real on their economic demands and expectations, along with the stockholders. Something about mules and a club to get their attention comes to mind there.
We would have gotten a major shakeup with the Fed and their insane never ending boom and bust cycle whacko junk science currency theories, along with a vastly streamlined and more fair IRS federal tax structure, both seriously needed, as anyone who cares to look can plainly see they are "epic fail" right now.
And he would have repeatedly vetoed Congress's usual bloated, overly complex, pork laden and mostly out to lunch legislation that couldn't be paid for at all, even theoretically, or wasn't legal under the Constitution, stuff that the Federal government is not supposed to have control over. My guess is he would have outright closed down a lot of agencies as well, as not needed and not legal, and turned those aspects back over to the States where they belong.
And a lot of so ons there, whatever is legally possible at the executive branch level.
Certainly better than what we have received under both the Bush admin and now the Obama admin. Sure there would have been a rough transition period, to be expected when you are lancing boils and cutting away decades of pure rot and corruption.
Ron Paul is the one guy in both houses who *really* understands the Constitution, and that if it was REALLY followed, not just mumbled lip service but truly followed for the well thought out document and plan it was and is, things would be a lot better, as in "all your rights, all the time, and no fed gov tax and control freak big brother BS".