Slashdot Mirror
Politicians Worldwide Asking Questions About ACTA
An anonymous reader writes "Legislators around the world are demanding more information on the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. US Senator Ron Wyden demanded answers in a letter to the USTR (PDF) this week, ACTA arose in the UK House of Commons yesterday,
and French Deputy Nicolas Dupont-Aignan raised ACTA questions in the National Assembly late last year. All of this comes on top of earlier efforts from Swedish Member of the European Parliament Jens Holm, as well as New Zealand MP Clare Curran, who has repeatedly raised concerns about ACTA, and NDP MP Charlie Angus, who posed questions about ACTA in the Canadian House of Commons late last year."
Even though the spotlight's being shone on the dodgy practices behind ACTA, what's the bet that this will still result in just plain old stonewalling until the final agreements have been ratified by treaty, and all is needed is legislation in each member state?
ACTA comes from utterly fraudulent governance, and not from the public's mandate.
Thankfully, it's not just Ron Wyden (OR), either. Yesterday, I was present at a meeting between two of Al Franken's (MN) staffers and a number of DC-area IP experts. A Wyden staffer was also in attendance. This means that in the current session, at least Bernie Sanders (VT), Sherrod Brown (OH), Wyden, and Franken have expressed concern about ACTA. Franken's staffers seemed particularly bothered by the fact that since ACTA is being negotiated as an executive agreement, they neither see negotiating texts (which are being done in secret) nor have any chance to review the agreement before it has the force of law. The U.S. Trade Representative's office keeps telling them that such secrecy is par for the course, and one of the questions they were asking us was whether this is true (it's not).
I've also heard mention that Ben Cardin (MD) may have some concerns, though apparently he is more 'conservative' on IP issues than the above senators. In any case, I would urge Slashdotters to learn about ACTA, call their senators (especially if you're in one of the above states, and if you're not, tell your senator that these other senators are looking into it, and they should too), and ask them to grill the Obama administration on it's complete and total lack of transparency on this issue. Ask them why the few public-interest groups who have been permitted to see negotiating texts have been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements, why not a single academic or law professor has had an opportunity to see any of the drafts, and why Ron Kirk has said he believes the agreement will fall apart if it becomes public - while at the same time claiming that it does not go beyond the bounds of current U.S. law.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
From what I've seen, multilateral treaties are difficult to pass. That's not to say that they're impossible to pass, but the fact that you have N number of countries with N number of political calculations to make (even if they're not democracies) makes it difficult to come to a solid agreement. That's why the FTAA seems to have failed. There was just too much disagreement.
Exceptions are whatever copyright treaty got passed, WTO, etc)
(BTW, slightly off topic, I saw a Blu-Ray movie with the FBI copyright warning in French, which I had never seen before on any DVD. That was a little creepy and funny at the same time.)
The U.S. has been much more successful by pushing its agenda through bilateral (U.S.-Canada free trade agreement) or trilateral agreements (NAFTA).
My guess is that instead of the ACTA passing, there will instead be a series of bilateral and trilateral agreements with various countries, such as how the U.S. pushed Singapore to adopt DMCA-like laws in a "free trade agreement".
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Franken's staffers seemed particularly bothered by the fact that since ACTA is being negotiated as an executive agreement, they neither see negotiating texts (which are being done in secret) nor have any chance to review the agreement before it has the force of law.
I thought that the US Government had a system of Checks and Balances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checks_and_balances#Checks_and_balances), where each branch of the Government (Legislative, Executive, Judicial) was supposed to keep an eye on the other ones. The above sentence seems to imply that the executive branch can make laws without the approval of the other branches.
Can someone explain this to me? What exactly is an "executive agreement?" Could this be challenged by the Supreme Court? It seems like Congress has no say at all in the matter.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Yes, multilateral treaties are hard to negotiate. That's exactly why the U.S. et al. are not pursuing ACTA's provisions in the proper forum - WIPO. They know there is too much opposition from developing countries at WIPO, and such proposals would go nowhere.
Their solution has been what is referred to as "forum shifting" - all the like-minded governments (US, EU, Japan, plus some other who want to play ball - Mexico, South Korea) are taking their marbles and finding somewhere else to play. For the most part, these states agree on basic IP policy. Sure, there is disagreement on specific details - sui generis database rights in the EU, for example. But on the whole, the parties negotiating ACTA are much less diverse when it comes to IP policy than we might think.
By they way, the U.S. has also been pushing its IP policy through practically every bilateral free-trade agreement at the same time. The EU is doing the same thing. Both have decide that IP is important enough to warrant its own agreement. Initially ACTA will be between these like-minded countries, but after it is passed, we can expect it to become a necessity for future bilateral agreements. New FTA between US and country X? Sure, but on the condition that you join ACTA, which means reforming your IP laws to TRIPS-plus, "first-world" standards. Want to become a member of the OECD? Sure, but you also need to join ACTA to show us you're ready.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I've posted most of this before on slashdot; This is just a cleanup of previous posts -- it has details of why the ACTA is secret.
A Private War
I used to read stuff like this and get upset. But then I realized that my entire generation knows it's baloney. They can't explain it intellectually. They have no real understanding of the subtleties of the law, or arguments about artists' rights or any of that. All they really understand is there is are large corporations charging private citizens tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, for downloading a few songs here and there. And it's intuitively obvious that it can't possibly be worth that.
An entire generation has disregarded copyright law. It doesn't matter whether copyright is useful or not anymore. They could release attack dogs and black helicopters and it wouldn't really change people's attitudes. It won't matter how many websites they shut down or how many lives they ruin, they've already lost the culture war because they pushed too hard and alienated people wholesale. The only thing these corporations can do now is shift the costs to the government and other corporations under color of law in a desperate bid for relevance. And that's exactly what they're doing.
What does this mean for the average person? It means that we google and float around to an ever-changing landscape of sites. We communicate by word of mouth via e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking sites where the latest fix of free movies, music, and games are. If you don't make enough money to participate in the artificial marketplace of entertainment goods -- you don't exclude yourself from it, you go to the grey market instead. All the technological, legal, and philosophical barriers in the world amount to nothing. There is a small core of people that understand the implications of what these interests are doing and continually search for ways to liberate their goods and services for "sale" on the grey market. It is (economically and politically) identical to the Prohibition except that instead of smuggling liquor we are smuggling digital files.
Billions have been spent combating a singularily simple idea that was spawned thirty years ago by a bunch of socially-inept disaffected teenagers working out of their garages: Information wants to be free. Except information has no wants -- it's the people who want to be free. And while we can change attitudes about smoking with aggressive media campaigns, or convince them to cast their votes for a certain candidate, selling people on goods and services they don't really need, what we cannot change is the foundations upon which a generation has built a new society out of.
Culture Connection
Just as we have physical connections to each other, we now have digital connections to one another. These connections actively resist attempts at control because it impedes the development and nature of the relationships we have with one another. People naturally seek the methods which give them the greatest freedom to express themselves to each other. That is a force of nature (ours, specifically) that has evolved out of our interconnectedness. Copyright law has been twisted to serve as a bulwark against the logical result of increasing social interconnectedness between people and computers: Access an ever-increasing amount of humanity's history, knowledge, and culture. Ultimately, this is a battle they cannot win -- they can only delay, building dams and locks to stem the tide, but they will fail. It's how, when, and where it fails that will decide the fate of economies worldwide.
Every law advantages one group while disadvantaging another. And every engine, be it physical or social, functions because an energy imbalance exists and by moving energy from one potential to another, we can skim some off to do useful work. Laws work the same way -- by creating artificial differences between groups of people, society produces goods and services. This is why we will always have new Prohibitions. It's not a comfor
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
And which public would that be? The one's that take their civic responsibility seriously, or the public that yells at their politician through the TV? Your complaints about "fraudulent governance" or "public mandate" would actually mean something if people were actually participating and the entire failure was they were simply being overpowered. But it's rather hard to be sympathetic over someone who simply lies there and takes it. Get back with me on "fraudulent governance" and "public mandate" once the global public grows a backbone and actually starts understanding that mandates don't come from silence, but faulty governance does.
Canada recently had an open consultations about the direction of copyright in the future for Canada, where the public was invited to town hall meetings and to participate in web forums, and to contact their MPs.
The response was huge, and the overwhelming majority wanted copyright to be limited, no anti-circumvention laws, no penalties for non-commercial infringement, abolition of crown copyright, a promise that copyright duration would never be extended beyond life+50, and for fair dealing (what we call fair use) to be expanded greatly.
The Canadian pubic participated, and made their voices heard.
The whole time, ACTA was being negotiated in Seoul, and another trade agreement equally as ridiculous was being negotiated in Europe (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4627/125/)
The entire public consultation was a sham. The whole thing was just a big distraction so the government can do whatever the hell it wants, directly go against the will of the people, and still say "you had your chance to speak up, you spoke we listened"
We might as well stay home and yell at the TV.
Going out and talking to our elected representatives is equally ineffective, so why waste the gas to go out?
-I only code in BASIC.-
World fascism is about three years away, and there's nothing we can do but watch
Speak for yourself. Here in the US we still have our firearms ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.