Secret Copyright Treaty Timeline Shows Global DMCA

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist, a leading critic of the ACTA secret copyright treaty, has produced a new interactive timeline that traces its development. The timeline includes links to leaked documents, videos, and public interest group letters that should generate increasing concern with a deal that could lead to a global three-strikes and you're out policy."

Comments

Emailgate

[plopez]

If any organization needed an emailgate, this is one of them. We need to see who is manipulating and bribing who. Just like the open docs. fiasco.

Re:Emailgate

[Spazztastic]

I won't name the manipulators and bribers, but I'll give you a hint: their initials are RIAA and MPAA.

I demand to know why myself, Richard Ingus Alfonzo-Almada and my wife Maria Perez Alfonzo-Almada, are being targeted by this smear campaign! We have done nothing!

Re:Emailgate

[MBGMorden]

Just a note: I don't have six fingers and I didn't kill your father. Please don't hurt me.

Doubleplusnotgood!

[filesiteguy]

I get a very bad feeling about international DCMA. It is bad enough the US citizens bent over and allowed the DCMA to be delivered, but now?

Next thing, I'll be sitting in jail for trying to solve a Rubik's Cube by taking it apart.

Re:Doubleplusnotgood!

[Penguinisto]

Well, any other route to global domination would be a bit too obvious, dontcha think? I mean, why make blatantly obvious laws that everyone notices immediately? Instead, you can make opaque, confusing, and outright obscure laws to sneak in and swipe individual liberty, one piece at a time, just like seawater eroding a sand castle on the beach. After all, it's far easier to point at a pile of obfuscation and say "don't worry - only those nasty artist-raping copyright pirates will have to worry about it - you're fine". Next, you can impose laws in the name of, oh, "the environment", then "safety", then "health", of course "the children", and then... well, you get the idea. Give it a pretty name, gloss over the ugly parts, and market it, one small piece at a time. As long as the proletariat is comfortable, they won't mind the ride until it's too late to actually do anything about it.

Besides, fascism-by-bureaucracy is far less messy to accomplish than staging an armed coup. Certainly a bit slower to do, but far more certain (as a bonus, you can condition the masses to actually be comfortable in the new environment. All you have to do is keep them distracted with neat little toys, lots of sexual entertainment, and the occasional celebrity gossip, just like they did it in the old days of Rome...)

I would propose the public hold secret talks.

[Bottles]

Secret talks to discuss, develop policy for and enact positive action to counter the erosion of our rights as we step into a new global digital age. Only, that's terrorism these days isn't it? Ok. Non-secret talks. Who's in? I'll buy beer.

Bring it on

[frenchbedroom]

The harder they push in this direction, the more people will realize there is another way

Re:Bring it on

[Penguinisto]

Question is, will they care? Most folks consume content, not create it. Also, as we've seen in the whole Microsoft vs. FOSS wars, the closed-source guys seem to have better, slicker marketing.

Re:Bring it on

[Archangel Michael]

There is yet another way. It is called massive civil disobedience.

They can't cut us all off. And I dare them to try.

Re:Bring it on

[Hurricane78]

Of course they will care. Because what is the point of ACTA? More money.
From people who do not have more money.

So it creates financial pressure. And as humans always seek the easiest (most efficient!) way, they will naturally be pressed towards CC and more secretive file sharing (which will become way easier to set up).

ACTA is the classic “tighten your grip, until you are left with nothing”.

There is no way to win this, for the content industry. They can only lose.
They get to choose the way it ends. Nothing more.
If they want to choose the faster dead (ACTA), let them. :)

Re:Bring it on

[macbeth66]

the closed-source guys seem to have better, slicker marketing.

Perhaps.

But when Grandma asks me about this 'new' Linux thing and will it get rid of all these virus things, I know there is hope.

Re:Bring it on

[schon]

Sorry, no.

As admirable as you believe the goal is (and I agree with you on that), the means is just *wrong*.

You're talking about organizations that think nothing of sending infringement notices for things that are in the public domian, or copyrighted by the people who post them. "Artist's" groups that send DMCA notices against the wishes of the authors they represent for material that is published by the authors themselves under a CC license.

These are people who send infringement notices based on nothing more than the author's name being similar to one they represent.

They are people who send infringement notices to the wrong place, or "link" infringement to IP addresses that are assigned to printers.

You get three of these? You're off the net. Period. Doesn't matter if the stuff is CC'ed or not. Doesn't matter that the notices are invalid. You're guilty until proven innocent. You have to prove you're innocent, and do it without access to the tools necessary to do so.

THIS IS WRONG

"Bring it on" is entirely the wrong way to approach this - we need to stop it before it happens, not try to fix it after.

Re:Bring it on

[aynoknman]

There is no way to win this, for the content industry. They can only lose. They get to choose the way it ends. Nothing more. If they want to choose the faster dead (ACTA), let them. :)

The problem with letting them is the collateral damage. I'm reminded of the cartoon of the criminal holding a child's head next to his with a huge pistol pointing at the two of them. "Stand back or the kid gets it!"

Pro-ACTA arguments are disingenuous

[TechForensics]

If one follows the link in TFA to Michael Geist's interactive timeline, there's an element that leads to a short video of a debate in the Canadian Houses of Parliament-- one member says ACTA is a tool of US corporate interests and will lock millions of users out of the net; the government minister who responds says anything in ACTA is "subservient to the acts of this Parliament". What he DOESN'T say, and what the member is not sharp enough to pick up in the swift give-and-take of debate, is that *once the treaty is in place*, there is NO more subservience to *anything* (short of something on the order of a US Constitutional Amendment". This is the point: the people and even those of their representatives who want to derail this blindsiding juggernaut *will be able to do nothing* once the treaty is signed, and *saying the treaty is subject to US or Canadian law* is a pure, cynical smokescreen. An ounce of prevention here can accomplish what no amount of cure can fix. ACTA negotiations must be transparent. If we don't fight for that the corporate interests will do an end run around our rights.

Re:Pro-ACTA arguments are disingenuous

[Abcd1234]

If one follows the link in TFA to Michael Geist's interactive timeline, there's an element that leads to a short video of a debate in the Canadian Houses of Parliament-- one member says ACTA is a tool of US corporate interests and will lock millions of users out of the net; the government minister who responds says anything in ACTA is "subservient to the acts of this Parliament". What he DOESN'T say, and what the member is not sharp enough to pick up in the swift give-and-take of debate, is that *once the treaty is in place*, there is NO more subservience to *anything*

Clearly you have no understanding of the role of treaties in Canadian law.

Unlike our American neighbours to the south, treaties have *no legal force on their own*. That's right, they do *not* become the law of the land. Rather, once a treaty is ratified, it's up to the government to then pass laws which harmonize Canadian law with the treaty provisions. But that's *not legally required*. ie, there's nothing stopping the house from simply refusing to pass laws to harmonize Canadian law with our treaty obligations.

and this changes what?

[girlintraining]

Intellectual property is an invention of the rich countries to force the poor countries into an economic model that benefits them. Knowledge has always been power, and the developed countries of the world realize that by locking up their books and restricting the free trade of information and knowledge, they can effectively keep those countries enslaved -- producing real, material goods, in exchange for imaginary ones.

That, people, is the true objective of intellectual property. You people think they care about you making pirate copies of CDs and DVDs? How pathetically self-centered! The truth is much bigger than your hard drive contents.

Re:and this changes what?

[babblefrog]

What? An idea is yours so long as you keep it to yourself. Once you tell me your idea, you want to be able to control what I can do with it? By force, of course. How can you own something which is now in my mind? This is one of the most perverted discussions of "the rights that men were born with" that I have ever read.

Re:and this changes what?

[Omestes]

Government is created to try and preserve the rights men were born with.

We're born with rights? I wasn't aware of any viable a priori or empirical proofs towards that conclusion. What the hell is a right, where the hell do they come from? Neither of these questions have been answered to any degree of certainty. Generally all they are is convenient slogans used to make an emotive argument towards their own agenda. Functionally they are nothing more than a social construct. All persuasive descriptions of rights are merely normative proscriptions (Kant's Categorical Imperative, the various social contracts, etc...), and not descriptive systems of actual innate rights.

Also who is to say who owns what? Do you own your land, the land that someone stole from the Native Americans?

s the idea of ownership is the most fundamental concept of a free man [certainly, a man must be allowed to own himself! another idea that is unique amongst world governments to the US constitution...]

Personally ownership/property would be secondary to the basics of survival, since the latter necessarily precludes the former. Looking at the history of society, the so-called "innate right" to personal property is a relative newcomer, with early communities being rather communistic (i.e. community property), and much of the time after the widespread advent of "private property" much of the population didn't actually have this right, being that all land/property was the Crowns. For an innate right, it springs up REALLY late in the game.

Also, how can we say that the US Constitution "allowed a man to own himself", and was "unique" in this? We were one of the last countries to realize that a large segment of the population WASN'T property. In half of our history I could claim ownership over you, based solely on your level of melanin. Hell, we didn't even realize that women had rights until rather late in the game, and they were over half the population.

The US was a backwards country based off of economic exploitation and not any conception of "rights". In some regards we still fall into this mold.

Intellectual Property is the basic realization that ideas are the most valuable things in human history, and that a man ought to be free to own his ideas -- just like he is when he's alone on an island.

And your own holy Constitution craps on that idea. Governments exist for the good of society (a collective entity of individuals), and not for YOU, or any other person. Copyright, and IP in general, exists for the benefit of all members of society, and not just you. Thus the idea of a limited monopoly on your intellectual creation. The only reason you get this small monopoly is to sucker you into creating more stuff (using your greed for the benefit of the society as a whole), there is no high-falutin' "the effluvia that flows from your brain is sacrosanct" clause in the constitution. There is two reasons for this; the first being that there is no proof that the founding fathers were rugged individualists (in the sense we mean today, they probably would have giggled madly at Ayn Rand, and the modern libertarian party), and that it is incredibly naive to think that any individuals ideas came from a vacuum, you owe your great idea to great ideas before that. If all individual ideas were walled off, there would be no progress since without the old ideas, there are no new ideas.

Not "humanity, the pool of humans", but "humanity -- the essence of what a man is".

Featherless bipeds? There is no "essence", people are free to create their own essence. My idea of what I would probably piss you off, and visa versa. Human nature, is by nature, almost infinitely malleable. Personally I do think that IP is largely meaningless, outside of a way to blackmail creators into creating more. I can't smell, see, or measure IP, therefore it is no more real than any other mere idea. Ideas should always be subjugated by that which exists

Not jail, the wilderness

[Wrexs0ul]

This isn't a jail policy, they can't imprison you on allegations yet.

Unfortunately they can kick you off the internet for a period of time by allegation alone. You know, that little novelty some of us run hobbies off of, or maybe send the occasional "electronic" letter to our hip friends in other cities through Prodigy.

Let's get real about this. Internet for many people is an integrated part of daily life, you wouldn't cut power or phones from people who allegedly do bad things with it without proving guilt first (or in the rare case preventing immediate harm to someone else). This isn't any different; sure I can survive just fine without internet or power (for a while), but the consequences to my life and livelihood would be apparent pretty quickly.

Worse yet, the authority for removing essential services has an established track record for casting really big nets. The American cousin of the CRIA uses big lawsuits to make up for inadequacies like a city-bound guy with a Hummer... We already have enough issues in this country with a self-governed federal police force, thank-you. Let's sort those bumps out before putting law in the hands of the private sector.

-Matt

Re:Not jail, the wilderness

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately they can kick you off the internet for a period of time by allegation alone. You know, that little novelty some of us run hobbies off of, or maybe send the occasional "electronic" letter to our hip friends in other cities through Prodigy.

That also means anyone could remove any other IP address simply by accusing them of copyright infringement.

By simply sending 3 letters I could remove the computer running RIAA.COM or WHITEHOUSE.GOV
Sure they can move it to another IP address but the time and effort to do so makes printing a few cut & pasted letters seem
worth it. What would happen if a group of individuals got together and started a letter writing campaign claiming copyright
infringement by a whole block of addresses. I cant wait to see how these laws will be abused.

If they add something allowing the person disconnected to sue the accuser (effectively requiring you to pay to prove your innocence)
then set up a limited company and fold it right before any lawsuits start.

Re:Not jail, the wilderness

[HungryHobo]

Simply put

1: Your letters will be ignored if they're accusing someone important.
If you accuse a senator there's no way in hell they're getting disconnected.

2: If the RIAA accuse everyone in a network block of copyright infringement with no proof then so what?
In theory there are penalties for sending fraudulent DMCA notices but you have to have deep pockets to make it stick and there's probably some crap whereby they only have to prove that they *believed* you were violating copyright because the magic 8 ball said so and hence were acting in good faith.

3: the penalties if you do make it stick are probably a drop in the bucket for the RIAA/MPAA etc

4: If you try to turn it against them and serve notices to them then they will have deep pockets to make it stick to you and will make an example out of you.

5: the penalties which would be a drop in the bucket for the RIAA/MPAA etc will make you bleed out your ears.

read your history books, corporate goons

[circletimessquare]

technology tames the law

the law never tames technology

not for want of trying of course

Re:read your history books, corporate goons

[Yvan256]

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

sneaky...

[gedw99]

Lets face it. The "authorities" have now realised that the internet allows people to collaborate and learn openly whats really going on in the world, and how the puzzle fits togther. this to them is danderous. the cat is out of the bag, and now they are trying to gain control over it so they can manage the leaks as it were. Its crucial that the internet remain fully open !!!! Its thats simple. More groups that support open information should be targettting these groups hard. This is the type of thing that the authorities will try to slide in to legislation as part of trade agreements like they do with all the other things. Dont support treaty x, y and z - Sorry you cant trade with us. Its really insidious and smart tactic they use.

Re:sneaky...

[Hurricane78]

Its crucial that the internet remain fully open !!!! Its thats simple.

Nah. Not even. If only one single stream of communication remains open, that’s enough to pipe the whole internet trough. If we have, we pipe every tcp/ip packet trough twitter. If we have, we form direct wlan-to-wlan nets. We do not even need providers in any city of reasonable size. Soon with mobile phones, this will even become bigger. In theory, you can use any mobile phone as a gateway.

The can/box, and it won’t ever close again. It’s that simple.

Re:Wow.

[StreetStealth]

Normally I'm against captain-obvious troll-feeding, but this is one case where I think a response is merited.

ACTA awareness needs to reach as far as it possibly can. We are, quite literally, talking about the future of the world here: A global treaty that promises to have a profound effect upon the freedom of all of us is being negotiated in secret.

The maximum must be brought to light before the widest audience. If that means dupe stories, then I'm all for dupes.

Re:Yes, help creative commons, open source etc.

[filesiteguy]

Currently, OSS distributions cannot send out - for example - CSS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Scramble_System) code in many countries due to things like the DCMA. However, it can easily be downloaded from other countries, where the DCMA is not in effect. This allows one to play DVD's using MPlayer or VLC without worrying about the local authorities knocking on one's door.

Given this bastard law, one wouldn't be able to download code regardless.

Re:Wow.

[Lumpy]

I agree, problem is most of us here in the USA are already used to the oppressive laws against consumers so we already do our DMCA violations in secret.

I have to live as if the SS will come smashing down my door in search of contraband. All because I'm a wierdo that wants to have his own Video on demand system with a server full of my DVD's, HDDVD's and Blu Rays, ready to play in any room.

I'm evil, destroying all that is American by not being patriotic and switching discs and cluttering up my living room with cabinets full of discs (Destroying the economy by not buying furniture to hold them! OMG!)

Honestly I took the stand that I don't give a rats-ass what laws are passed and what they say. The laws are un-just so I not only ignore them, I am in contempt of them. I'll do what I want, if I have to design in a system to automatically destroy "evidence" when they storm the house, then so be it. It's the price I pay for living in a country where we gave up being by the people and for the people.

The USA is for the Corporations and by the Corporations....Anyone saying otherwise is either blind or watches Fox News too much.

Re:Wow.

[Hurricane78]

My view is, that the Internet by its very definition does not make it possible for such a treaty to be any more that a pipe dream.

We already have darknets, wich are way beyond the grasp of any legislation. They would have to literally shut down the internet, to even stop it for more than a month. After that everyone would just have a personal net with all the wlan nodes around, completely and literally routing around the net. Everyone who knows how to do it, will do it. And everybody else will ask those, to do it for them. Even if that becomes illegal, it will become like selling weed. (A war long lost.) But it won’t ever stop.
Because inside, everybody knows what is right and wrong. And that ACTA is not right. Even the hypocrites who say the opposite, secretly use Bittorrent.

Until there is nothing else left for them, than to give up.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.

Democracy no?

[patrickthbold]

A lot of us live in "Democracies." Maybe some of us who don't suck should run for office. And maybe some others could help them out. I don't thing voting for change is enough in this day of age. We need people who are different that we can vote for first. Any takers?

Re:Yes, help creative commons, open source etc.

[schon]

The license under which they are produced allows collaboration and distribution in spite of craziness in other copyright laws.

It doesn't matter - all it takes is someone who is willing to say "hey, that code infringes our copyright". The "offending" code gets removed, and (after the third time) the person who posted it gets kicked off the net.

Good luck trying to clear your name when you don't get to use the internet, and you can't sue to get reconnected because the company that made the claim is in another country.

And if you *do* manage to get it cleared up, the company just says "whoops, I guess I was wrong", and it starts all over again.

Re:You sound like Fox Mulder...

[girlintraining]

The truth is that the developing world would benefit from greater IP protection, as IP currently has functionally **no** protection in most of it.

The developing world would benefit more from spending all of their money developing infrastructure instead of licensing and importing it in exchange for their natural and human resources. Their economy is not like ours: The multiplication effect is such that for every dollar they invest in infrastructure, the return on investment would be three, even as much as five times. The multiplication effect is lower in developed countries because we are operating close to or at the production possibilities curve. Although it seems like only pennies on the dollar to license these technologies, for them it represents a major investment rather than part of the aggregate cost.

It's not just RIAA/MPAA

[microbox]

Our economic system is predicated on perpetual growth -- and business interests have talked about IP as the new "gold" for decades. It is not an evil conspiracy, but rather, politicians and business leaders believe that they need to enact these laws for our system to continue to grow. It's not just the RIAA and MPAA, it's also the big phama and agricultural firms.

Personally, I think it is bullocks dreamed up by people who never created art in their entire lives. Nobody is going to pay for "IP" when they need food on the table. Furthermore, these laws will be used to silence the critics of political interests.

It is precisely the free exchange of ideas that creates intellectual wealth, which is why these laws are fundamentally counter-productive in their goals.

Re:Wow.

[interkin3tic]

The USA is for the Corporations and by the Corporations....Anyone saying otherwise is either blind or watches Fox News too much.

I object! Blind people have a physical handicap, not a mental handicap, and should not be lumped together with Fox News viewers!