Adding Up the Explanations For ACTA's "Shameful Secret"

Several sources are reporting on a Google event this week that attempted to bring some transparency to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that has so far been treated like a "shameful secret." Unfortunately, not many concrete details were uncovered, so Ars tried to lay out why there has been so much secrecy, especially from an administration that has been preaching transparency. "The reason for that was obvious: there's little of substance that's known about the treaty, and those lawyers in the room and on the panel who had seen one small part of it were under a nondisclosure agreement. In most contexts, the lack of any hard information might lead to a discussion of mind-numbing generality and irrelevance, but this transparency talk was quite fascinating—in large part because one of the most influential copyright lobbyists in Washington was on the panel attempting to make his case. [...] [MPAA/RIAA Champion Steven] Metalitz took on three other panelists and a moderator, all of whom were less than sympathetic to his positions, and he made the lengthiest case for both ACTA and its secrecy that we have ever heard. It was also surprisingly unconvincing."

Comments

I still don't see...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell a trade treaty is secret. From anyone... let alone the people of the countrys involved in the agreement.

If you can't tell people what's in it. It's most likely not a good thing and we'd like to hang you for it.

Avoid Snake Bites

[b4upoo]

These creeps are not dead and they will try other approaches to take away freedoms that we should all have and cherish. They have redefined piracy in order to make normal and usual human activity a crime. Unless copying is blatantly commercial in nature it should be permitted. The notion that because it is easier to copy because we use computers is no excuse for the current plague of laws. This is almost as absurd as telling drinkers that they could not use a device to lift a drink to their lips because it makes getting drunk easier.

The most disturbing point

[jwinster]

The most disturbing point in this article, for me, is that the US may be the sticking point on allowing the discussions to be more transparent (link contained in TFA) http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4693/125/ I find this to be disgusting as we have yet another example that transparency TRULY being brought to Washington to be a farce.

Industry lobbyists hint at the truth of ACTA?

[NimbleSquirrel]

This only goes to prove that ACTA is utterly driven by lobbyists for the entertainment inductry (MPAA, RIAA and such). Politicians aren't doing this for the people, just big business, and keeping this secret is really about hiding their shame. If people knew what was really going on, talks would probably break down from public outcry alone.

...it's clear that many governments don't actually want their own people to see the proposals being made and to shape their outcome.

It goes to show that it really pays to be a lobbyist:

Keeping negotiations secret is how "you get big fees to be a lobbyist," since only the "insiders" have access to the process.

Re:Industry lobbyists hint at the truth of ACTA?

[PopeRatzo]

This only goes to prove that ACTA is utterly driven by lobbyists for the entertainment inductry (MPAA, RIAA and such).

It also demonstrates that transnational corporations have been more powerful than any government(s) on earth for some time now.

Really, it's too late to expect government to help us when it comes to standing up to corporate power, because money trumps votes every single time. Any time someone who might pose a threat to corporatist hegemony even comes close to running for national office, they are immediately painted as being nutty, fringe, dangerous (pick your negative smear of choice).

It happened to Dennis Kucinich most recently, and Howard Dean a few years back. If you bring up his name, lots of people will immediately start to say that stuff about him, but if you ask them for an example of a fringe or weird policy he has advocated, at most you'll get "his wife is a hippie" or something equally inane. Howard Dean had his candidacy destroyed because he hollered. Remember how that one noise he made was used by every mainstream media outlet to indicate he was crazy?

There are others: Ralph Nader, even Ross Perot, who, while a businessman himself, had a distinctly populist approach to the balance of government and big business. The press had a field day tearing him up.

In Europe, the situation is just as bad. If you can't demonstrate that you're going to be very friendly to the transnationals, you'll never get near a national election.

Any international trade agreement is going to be a disaster, just as NAFTA, CAFTA, and all the others have been. Poor countries will stay poor and the citizens of rich countries will get poorer.

It almost makes me a little optimistic about the teabagger movement in the US. If you can get these people to come out and express their anger at "big government", all you have to do now is fill them in on who the real enemy is and then you've got something. Once they figure out that nobody in government so much as scratches their ass without the corporate elites giving them the OK, and no amount of partisan politics is going to change their situation until there is a big thick wall put up between corporate power and government. There is something very transgressive about going out into the street with a sign and hollering, and it's a waypoint on a continuum that ends up with lighting a torch and a molotov cocktail. The trick now is to dissuade them from their hatred of educated people and their racism, and you've got a group that could be a great ally in what will ultimately be a fight by the working class against transnational corporations who are the real "New World Order".

draft on wikileaks

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

For handy access:

• A draft that was leaked via Wikileaks (actually, it's offline until Jan 18th, but that's where you'll find the link when they're back to usual business
• A few links and bits of info about the patent provisions (not the focus)
• Have others got links to concise analyses from other angles?

Of course, this draft is from last year.

Re:I disagree

[biryokumaru]

No, this is like telling drinkers that they cannot use a device that duplicates the beverage to give to their friends.

For most American beers, this process is referred to as "pissing."

Re:I disagree

[cstdenis]

At the other extreme we are moving towards, technologies like restrictive DRM will also make literary and artistic works become lost in the future.

Interesting Bits for those that won't RTFA

[BJ_Covert_Action]

This particular bit made me snicker and reminded me of, "Thank You For Smoking:"

"Steve's embarrassed by the content of the negotiation or he would be more supportive of transparency," said Love, not one to hold back in his rhetoric. Keeping negotiations secret is how "you get big fees to be a lobbyist," since only the "insiders" have access to the process.

That came from one of the panel members calling for more transparency to the ACTA negotiations.

However, I must say that this next part struck me as extremely interesting:

But he also made the fair point that he's not the one doing the negotiating. The US Trade Representative, which handles ACTA, is ultimately responsible. Though it has repeatedly pledged transparency, none has been forthcoming

The he referred to is the MPAA/RIAA lobbyist: Steven Metalitz. Now, it's important to remember that he is just a lobbyist, so shifting blame away from those he represents is his job. That being said, I figure we should all still cheerfully hate on the IP MAFIAA's. However, he did bring up the fact that the USTR is the one handling the negotiations. Currently, that position is held by Ron Kirk, a fella from Texas. Looking at his Wikipedia article, he doesn't appear to have anything particularly outstanding, good or bad, in his political record. That being said, perhaps he is playing in a league (international politics) that he is not quite up to snuff on yet. I would wager that people could contact his office en masse (if we could find that info, I haven't found a lot with a few simple Google's) and show him just how important an issue this transparency is. In other words, he may still be new enough at these games that he hasn't completely grown callous to the American Public. Then again, this is all just guess work on my part.

One other thing to keep in mind is that he doesn't seem to have been in the national spotlight all that much, at least not that I can find. Maybe if we put him under the heat lamp of mass public disclosure regarding these meetings he will comply with public demands to avoid a serious burn. /shrug

Re:I disagree

[CorporateSuit]

Can't be a very successful band without some form of digital media, whether you're signed or produce it yourself.

Bands earn money by performing and touring.

99.9% of the world gets by on getting money for continuing to work, not by forcing everyone to pay them for something they did 20 years ago. The entertainment industry will soon realize their draconian "get rich quick!" schemes are dead. Their creativity-killing "sell-a-single-never-work-again" methods are finally dying. It's tragic that if someone actually releases 3 albums in a year, they are viewed as a hack. That's how bad it's gotten, and it can and will change -- soon.

"But that will kill the creative industry and entertainment industry!" you might say. Hooty tooty. If I ask you to name the most brilliant English writer of all time, and then the greatest, most creative influence on music of all time, and you are over the age of 12, you will name two people who did not operate under a "publish today without having to perform tomorrow, and you will still eat" creed. They will be people who starved if they tried to sit back and watch money roll in for Romeo and Juliet or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Copyright is ruined. It was ruined by those who thought they could get away by expanding it to infinity. Their greed has turned on them, and when the camel realized he doesn't have the carry the straw anymore, he won't sit and wait for one more to break his back.

Does this mean that small development houses are going to have to change the way they operate? Most likely. They'll still have many years until the laws change -- but those who change earlier will be the ones who make insane amounts of money on lifeboats while the great ships are all sinking.

We need to slander ACTA

[mykos]

Let's start making stuff up about it, saying that it will require that every human being on the planet register on a global network and that it gives copyright protection organizations the right to install kill switches in everyone's brain.

They will be so afraid of the pitchforks and torches generated from this that they'll be forced to do what they should have done in the first place: tell us what it actually contains.