Another ACTA Leak Discloses Individual Country Data

An anonymous reader writes "On the heels of the earlier leak of various country positions on ACTA transparency, today an even bigger leak has hit the Internet. A new European Union document [PDF] prepared several weeks ago canvasses the Internet and Civil Enforcement chapters, disclosing in complete detail the proposals from the US, and the counter-proposals from the EU, Japan, and other ACTA participants. The 44-page document also highlights specific concerns of individual countries on a wide range of issues including ISP liability, anti-circumvention rules, and the scope of the treaty. This is probably the most significant leak to date since it goes beyond the transparency debate to include specific country positions and proposals."

Comments

Fascinating

[NeutronCowboy]

I can understand why diplomats tend to like their meetings and discussions to be private. It's a hard enough dance between a few select people in a government that it doesn't need to be complicated by the public getting involved.

However, in this case, this is hardly a private conversation. Business is involved, pretty much all the world's governments are involved, and the only group not at the table is the largest and the one with the most to lose: actual people. I'd like to see what kind of justification politicians will come up with to argue that corporations can make suggestions, governments can provide input, but god forbid the people actually have a say in the way this sausage is made.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that the end of the Internet as we know it is near. Too many organizations with too much clout have too many reasons to see the current Internet go away. I don't know what will come in its place, but I'm pretty sure I'll look back at the 90s/early 00s with nostalgia.

Re:Fascinating

[Spad]

On the upside, it could finally reverse the effects of the Eternal September by dramatically upping the level of technical knowledge required to operate anything interesting on the Internet.

Re:Fascinating

[rtb61]

That these documents have been purposefully leaked and there is indication of opposition to it's content is proof of the exact opposite. It is pretty much certain that in most modern democratic countries that most of the conditions of ACTA would be opposed by the general public and result in disruptive public opposition.

The reality is, it is too late to try a force this through, to force the will of the corrupt minority against the will of the democratic majority. Not that this effort should be ignored or the the perpetrators of it should be publicly exposed and called to account for their corrupt activities, their intent to purposefully subvert the growing public expression of democracy.

A full public investigation should be made of who was involved, who sponsored and supported that involvement, who actually wrote up those bits of proposed corrupt legislation, what private interests were involved whilst 99.99etc percent of the electorate were specifically excluded and, of course what criminal prosecutions need to be considered.

Re:Fascinating

[DaveGod]

I'd like to see what kind of justification politicians will come up with to argue that corporations can make suggestions, governments can provide input, but god forbid the people actually have a say in the way this sausage is made.

It's all secret so everyone gets to blame unspecified others. When it comes to publish this thing governments will be disowning provisions they worked very hard to put in place. Why couldn't the public participate? Well YOUR government fought hard for that but the others wouldn't let them, of course.

Governments are supposed to have power because they also have accountability, but that requires transparency. Even if all the politicians really were doing their very best with only our interests at heart that would not be good enough. They must be seen to be doing so, just like justice must be seen to be done, an agent must be seen to act on behalf of his principal and a professional must be seen to be independent.

We give them some room for national security and so on, in the hope that the bond of trust is so sacrosanct they would be unable to break it, or at least that someone would feel it and the truth would come out. Naive perhaps, but it's happening right here with these leaks. There's a good egg somewhere.

Re:Fascinating

[drsmithy]

I'd like to see what kind of justification politicians will come up with to argue that corporations can make suggestions, governments can provide input, but god forbid the people actually have a say in the way this sausage is made.

Easy - the people already had their say when they elected said politicians.

I do love the title though

[Saishuuheiki]

"Special Measures Related to Technological Enforcement Means and the Internet"... ...really? the internet too? I thought it was just gonna shut down my warez BBS, but now they've gone too far

Eh?

[algormortis]

This is probably the most significant leak to date...

Seems like people have forgotten about the R Kelly incident already.

hmm

[Sumbius]

Time to slashdot some diplomat's webpage? "We have taken your homepage hostage. Surrender your ACTA and come out of your meeting room hands up."

Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid?

[tlambert]

Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid?

Basically, they are saying:

"We can't write working code because the only people willing to write this kind of code are incompetent morons. Skilled engineers think this type of code is a bad idea, and won't touch it. Rather than rethinking our position to be more in line with reality, we want laws that make illegal to circumvent the swiss cheese code that we can actually hire someone to write." ...and now we are trying to foist this stupidity off on the rest of the world?!? No wonder they get upset about their dirty underwear going public.

-- Terry

Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid?

[Spad]

Anti-circumvention is a necessity because unbreakable DRM is an impossible dream; there simply isn't any way to give the user a lock and let them open it without also giving them the key, no matter how much you try and hide it.

Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid?

[Spad]

Because without it they couldn't stop you from breaking the DRM and disseminating the How-To to a wider audience, who would then be very hard to catch actually infringing. With Anti-Circumvention laws you can both discourage people from breaking the DRM (or at least telling people about it) and take legal action against anyone who does, whether they've actually done anything "illegal" beyond circumventing the DRM or not.

Anti-Circumvention laws are "Attempted Copyright Infringement".

Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid?

[langelgjm]

Anti-circumvention provisions, particularly as they have been applied in the US, are often used as an anti-competitive device to block legitimate competitors from making interoperable or replacement products. Anti-circumvention provisions also effectively make legal tasks illegal. E.g., ripping a portion of a DVD for commentary or criticism is allowable under fair use, but the process by which one would do so is illegal because it involves violating the DMCA, even though the end result is not illegal.

Besides, do such provisions actually add anything useful? In order for anti-circumvention to be violated, the underlying work must be copyrighted. In any case of real harm, then the underlying copyright would be infringed as well, in which case you could sue for infringement. If an access control was circumvented but the copyright was NOT infringed, then what harm could there be? On the contrary, it is precisely those situations that we would want to allow for interoperability, etc.

If the argument is because it stops the spread of anti-circumvention tools, it doesn't. Dozens of DMCA-violating tools are a click of a mouse button away from being installed.

Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid?

[causality]

If they haven't done anything beyond circumventing DRM, why should we care? The harm comes from infringing copyrights, not from circumventing DRM. Anti-cirumvention provisions are an "attack the tool" approach that's both ineffective and misguided.

Agreed, but unfortunately that won't stop them from financially (and/or by incarceration) ruining the lives of anyone they can catch doing it. Things like justice and sound policy are the least of their concerns.

It's like the way the Inquisitors obviously did not believe in the power of their religious message, but that didn't stop them from threatening and torturing (and worse) anyone whom they found inconvenient.

Oregonians, call Senator Ron Wyden

[langelgjm]

Any Oregonians, call Senator Ron Wyden. He is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, and the US Trade Representative Ron Kirk (lead US man behind ACTA) is scheduled to testify before the committee this week, discussing the US trade policy agenda. In January, Wyden sent a letter to Kirk inquiring about the lack of transparency and questionable provisions in ACTA. Ask Wyden to grill Kirk on ACTA!

Re:Oregonians, call Senator Ron Wyden

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the complete list of Senate Finance Committee members:

http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/committee.htm

Unfortunately none of them are from my state.

Just walk away

[TSHTF]

I don't think there's much chance of changing the American negotiators views on this, but I'm still going to contact my representatives in Congress. Nothing will likely come out of it. If you are a /.er in a more reasonable country, say New Zealand or Canada, I beg you to contact your MPs and demand transparency in this process. We shouldn't have to find out about the progress of negotiations through leaks.

Re:History being made.

[TSHTF]

I think people are upset because this accord is being hammered out in secret behind closed doors, and citizens of the affected countries are only aware of progress on the treaty through leaks.

There's a correct way to "come to grips" with these problems, and that way is by discussing these issues in the open, and allowing for review and comment on what's going on.

The irony of trying to keep ACTA secret

[drDugan]

does anyone else find it comic and rather ironic that almost exclusively
because the countries involved have tried to keep this a secret, that ACTA
negotiations now get far more attention than they would otherwise?

I feel this needs even more attention, and more clearly explained and broadly
disseminated explanation of what is at stake both for individuals and for
emerging cultures as they join the ranks of "western" strong-copyright regimes.

Re:History being made.

[ciggieposeur]

For good or ill, I sense history being made here, folks.

Me too. This is the DMCA all over again.

Basically the multi-national corporations are coming to grips with a global communications system, and is hammering out an accord on how it can be used.

FTFY.

Government is run too much like a business

[Anonymous Coward]

Business culture has saturated government to the point where it can only communicate via the means established by business. People in government are more comfortable in business meetings and negotiations than they are listening to and communicating with the electorate.

When they have to communicate with the electorate they resort to pure pr or advertising strategies.

Boycott

[korpenkraxar]

I fear this is the only action that content owners will pay any attention to, and I do not mean, stop buying and continue pirating the media. Ignore their new products, on the Internet and in real life. Put pressure on your favorite artists and writers. Tell your friends.

Am I the only one pleasantly surprised by this?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I've been following the whole ACTA fiasco for a while, and was getting increasingly nervous about the whole "behind closed doors" thing. Of course, many of the proposals, particularly from the US, are obviously big-corp-funded crazy talk, and the secrecy of the whole process is abhorrent. However, now that I've seen an official document for the first time, I'm actually pleasantly surprised, in that it's not as bad as I expected.

I find it reassuring that there are quite a few notes where the EU has explicitly disagreed, apparently even indicating that this is not a point on which they will give way in some cases, e.g., on restricting any damages for infringement to actual damages and rejecting any notion of punitive damages entirely, or where they want to insert wording with the anticircumvention provisions to provide for safeguarding the benefits of certain limits on IPR (which would presumably leave open the door to excluding otherwise fair use from the anticircumvention protection).