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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."
The harder they push in this direction, the more people will realize there is another way
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.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
technology tames the law
the law never tames technology
not for want of trying of course
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
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.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
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?
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
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey