Full ACTA Leak Online

An anonymous reader writes "Following months of small Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement leaks, the full consolidated ACTA text has now been posted online. The consolidated text provides a clear indication of how the negotiations have altered earlier proposals (see this post for links to the early leaks) as well as the first look at several other ACTA elements. For example, last spring it was revealed that several countries had proposed including a de minimus provision to counter fears that the border measures chapter would lead to iPod searching border guards. The leak shows there are four proposals on the table."

Comments

Short summary of the treaty

[dkleinsc]

All your files are belong to us.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[commodore64_love]

Naturally. Mmusic and movies and TV shows are the US' only viable industry left. We have to protect it, else we'd collapse even further into AA status.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

/me puts on his anti-static rubber gloves..

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Still exports lot of physical, non RIAA/MPAA, goods

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

If we, as Americans, had a lick of sense, we would stop buying things made in China, Pakistan, India, etc. Everything made in China, and half of everything made in the rest of the third world is junk. Hell, half of what comes from China is actually deadly. But, we keep buying. DUHHH!!!

That would be sensible if we weren't in the worst recession since the great depression. Nobody has as much money as they used to; most of us are just getting by, people are losing their jobs, etc. The choice is third world junk or nothing.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[oldspewey]

The choice is third world junk or nothing.

I've found that in some cases, the "nothing" is actually the better alternative here. Rather than buying a cheap piece of crap that I can barely afford right now, I make a conscious decision to hold off and simply do without for a few months or maybe even forever. It's not always easy, but it brings a remarkable sense of peace when you figure out a way to be okay with less.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Runaway1956]

One or more of you parents and/or grandparents passed a little bit of wisdom on to you. I have to wonder where all the rest of America's parents and grandparents are. No one can "do without" these days, it seems. They can't even budget something down the road a month or two, let alone "do without". Insanity, I say.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Raumkraut]

Passing on wisdom to kids? Isn't that what TV, and now the Internet, is for?

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[schon]

If we, as Americans, had a lick of sense, we would stop buying things made in China

That would be sensible if we weren't in the worst recession since the great depression.

So the solution to the recession is to send what money you do have to another country?

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a date with a sheep to get to, I take it?

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

Yes, maybe in most cases. But if your kid makes you a grandpa, somebody has to buy a crib and baby clothes, and that's usually grandma and grandpa. You can't save up for kids' clothes, or school supplies. And to someone making less than I do, the American made Apple (full of third world parts in any case) is a popor choice when a Chinese model that IBM used to sell costs half as much. A dollar I save is an extra dollar I can spend.

You no longer can buy an American made TV. Do without just because they don't make TVs here? The advice to "buy American" is a bit too late.

It would have been good advice for most people back in the nineties when the economy was good, but people simply can't afford stuff now. And doing without doesn't help me OR my economy.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

So the solution to the recession is to send what money you do have to another country?

The middle class can't solve the recession, only the rich 5% who control 95% of the wealth can do that. The Waltons choose where your goods come from, as do those who own Best Buy, Target, etc.

I'm too old to tilt at windmills. I leave that to the younger folks; I've tilted at anough windmillls in my life to know that resistance is futile.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Runaway1956]

"The advice to "buy American" is a bit too late."

No, not at all. I've been hearing that advice since about 1970-something. I've heeded it as much as possible. These days, it isn't as possible as it was in the '70's and '80's, but you can still go a long way on it. Those things that you can't find made in America, shop around for European, or south America.

But, whatever you do, don't allow yourself to fall into that rut of buying the cheapest thing possible. I've harped on the fact that various countries and/or manufacturers make superb products, if you just know what to look for. Need steel tools, or other products? Almost anyone in the world who makes steel, produces better quality than China. Argentina, India, the Netherlands, Germany - shop around! Computer components? Go Korean, or Japanese. Shop. Know whose families you are feeding with your purchase.

China has really given us nothing - I'm not willing to help feed Chinese children. Korea and Japan, on the other hand, have given back to us. I am willing to help feed some Korean or Japanese man's kids. You've heard the old saw, about voting with your dollars? Stop rewarding shoddy workmanship, and a complete lack of any quality control.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tilted at anough windmillls in my life to know that resistance is futile.

So, the Borg are right?

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Opportunist]

Actually, the US will be the ones that lose the most when ACTA gets enacted.

Let's look at how copyright is enforced (or not). You will notice that in countries like the USA, the EU countries, Australia, Japan, in short, every country that doesn't really have any real problems, you have pretty good copyright and IP enforcement (good from the IP holders perspective). You don't really have a lot of power to get your IP enforced in countries that either have real problems (like, say, most countries ending in -stan) or countries that actually benefit from pretty much ignoring IP laws altogether (like, say, China).

Do you think that will change when ACTA gets ratified?

The US will have to enforce the IP of those countries. And they will, because these countries can and of course will prod them to. Can you imagine getting a DMCA takedown notice from China because they claim the rights to all film shot by a chinese citizen, and that dissident happens to be one? Think that's impossible?

In return you get zip, nada, rien from China. Yes, they'll sign it and yes, they'll even pay lip service to it. Copying is still sky high? Boo hoo. We are really sorry. We will even stage a token sting. And even punish the guy(s) we catch to the utmost extent. Want him hanged? No problem, think we care or what? Satisfied? Ok, now buzz off.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

I am a cyborg, you insensitive clod! Most geezers are.

You will be assimilated.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

If we, as Americans, had a lick of sense

You'd stop referring, thinking and acting as nationalists. The group defined by a national boundary has nothing per se in common. You have more shared interests with members of your class internationally.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[shentino]

That doesn't change the fact that *classifying* the sucker on grounds of national security is a bunch of bullshit.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[517714]

You forgot the part about US $upport for international IP enforcement in the same vein as our current "War on Drugs". Your tax dollars at work!

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[commodore64_love]

I remember when Walmart carried almost-nothing but American. But as soon as he died, that policy ended so now Walmart is just like any other store with no soul.

I noticed the same think happened to JCPenney after Mr. Penney died. He considered his salespeople to be professionals, and paid them commissions, but after he disappeared is slowly-but-surely turned into a soulless entity. Now nobody gets commissions, and the staff is mostly just high school and college kids. The management has devolved from degreed businessmen to merely high school grads.

Corporations have no morals. That's why I think directly-owned proprietorships are a better way of organization, because at least then the company is a reflection of the human being who owns it. He has direct responsibility and the company's reputation is HIS reputation.

In contrast corporate managers don't give a crap. They just count dollars.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[HiThere]

If you're going to count false teeth and hearing aids as making you a cyborg, why not count fillings and glasses?

It's not true that most geezers wear pacemakers. That's definitely a minority.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[HiThere]

It's not true that the managers count just dollars. They count sales, too. But only for the most recent quarter and the current one.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[HiThere]

But we can't have much effect on the members of our class in other countries. Not unless we go there personally.

Besides, there aren't actually members of our class in most other nations. Most nations divide society differently than most other nations.

We can easily and with (almost) mutual understanding talk about nations. Classes within the society are something else. They are a social creation and only exist within the society that created them. Other societies divide the world differently. (I think that's still true. I'm not certain, because there's been a lot of homogenization, but I think it's still true.)

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Thinboy00]

All your file are belong to us.

FTFY.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Thinboy00]

IIRC he had a false eye at one point.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[marcosdumay]

Too bad the laws that are good for RIAA/MPAA aren't good for making a competitive economy. The US risks very soon to export only bad laws, since even RIAA/MPAA proucts aren't made more competitive.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[stuckinphp]

I always thought that the Internet is for porn. (work safe)

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

We export LOTS of arms. We put diplomatic pressure on any country that refuses to buy from our arms corporations.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Opportunist]

The war on drugs has popular support. It's one of those "could affect my child" things that makes parents happy, and conservatives generally because "who needs drugs?".

A war on copyright infringment is something that would probably not really get a lot of support in the general population. I mean, most people don't even grasp the concept of intellectual property, I doubt they'd be happy to see their very real tax dollars being blown on very imaginary goods.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

Corporations have no morals. That's why I think directly-owned proprietorships are a better way of organization, because at least then the company is a reflection of the human being who owns it.

I think you're right about the corporations, and mostly right about privately owned companies; but don't forget, the plant that sold all those poisoned peanut products last year was privately owned. Some sociopaths don't work for corporations. Corporations have no morals, but a lot of people don't, either.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

I'm not counting false teeth and hearing aids, I'm talking about artificial hips and knees, pacemakers, cochlear implants, or in my case a CrystaLens eye implant that replaces the lens in my left eye and is placed on struts so it will actually focus. I have better eyesight than most twenty year olds, and when the patent runs out it will be the standard treatment for cataracts (a non-cybernetic, static, unfocusable lens is the standard now).

I know quite a few folks with artificial joints. They're far more common than pacemakers.

If you have an implanted device that aids your body's functions, you are a cyborg by dictionaty definition. The number of age-related cybernetic devices will only increase with time, but there are a whole lot of them now.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[HiThere]

Even though what you list is becoming common, it's still a decided minority, even among those approaching 90.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[GrubLord]

Sounds to me like you're just importing Oriental philosophy in place of their cut-price electrical goods.

They get their sale, either way.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[GrubLord]

Who really even looks at what their government is spending money on, any more? Unless it's on the cover of TIME, just about no-one will notice.

Parents will cotton on when this does affect their child - junior gets fined $75,000 for downloading a CD, and suddenly Dad is real interested in ACTA... for what it's worth.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

The middle class can't solve the recession, only the rich 5% who control 95% of the wealth can do that. The Waltons choose where your goods come from, as do those who own Best Buy, Target, etc.

I'm sure the middle class as a group can have a significant impact on it, otherwise if their spending power was insignificant why is so much money spent on marketing to them?

If there is real demand for domestic products, to the point where people will pay a premium for them, then the stores will start stocking them.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

YAY! I'm still not average!

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

The middle class as a whole buys what the guy on TV tells him to buy. The average middle class American is nothing like the average middle class nerd. The only one to get the middle class to change its buying habits is the upper class, who control the media.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[l33t gambler]

- I'm too old to tilt at windmills. I leave that to the younger folks; I've tilted at anough windmillls in my life to know that resistance is futile.

Old people are full of wisdom and experience, but unfortunately also prejudice. Don't tell me what works and what is futile. If you have that attitude, and refuse working for a better earth, know that you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. If you are old and tired, psychologically or physically, please don't pacify the next generation.

I remember my dad replied "but that is an utopia, it is idealistic," clearly trying not to be bothered by my preaching. I thought of this and later I realized, utopic and idealism is relative. We have more then enough food, and every single piece of it is wrapped in plastic. Isn't that an idealistic thought a hundred years ago? The world is a better place because of a few idealistic individuals. Be the change in the world you want to see.

http://www.knujon.com/
http://www.kiva.org/

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If we, as Americans, had a lick of sense, we would stop buying things made in China, Pakistan, India, etc DUHHH...

Hmmm.. let me guess. India and China eh? Lets add Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, S. Korea, the whole of middle east nations and what the heck, Japan too, to that list and guess what? You can make yourself a wooden shopping cart and move to the nearest cave. Don't forget the flintstones and some really round pebbles to wipe your behind.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah my ipod and sony laptop have "shoddy workmanship". It must be ! China made it !

Your brain has severe defects in the reasoning and rationality areas. Not unusual for Slashdot, but your schoolboy logic amuses me.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[mcgrew]

If you have that attitude, and refuse working for a better earth, know that you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem.

The world has lots of problems, and I not only can't solve them all, I can't solve many. I don't drive an SUV, I use CFLs, but as to China, it's too late for the middle class. They don't make stuff here any more. If you want a TV, a dishwaser, or anything else with steel or wires you can't buy American.

My car is an "American" car, although iinm Chrysler was bought out by the Germans. The only solution to the problem is if the heads of "American" multinational corporations start making stuff in the US again, and there's nothing the middle class can do to make them.

I'm not any part of the problem; I lack choice.

I remember my dad replied "but that is an utopia, it is idealistic," clearly trying not to be bothered by my preaching.

Idealism is good, but one needs to be realistic as well. "Tilting at wondmills" is referring to trying to solve insoluble problems. Lot of good the Chinese kid did standing in fron of that tank; that's tilting at windmills.

We have more then enough food, and every single piece of it is wrapped in plastic. Isn't that an idealistic thought a hundred years ago?

That's not idealism, that's simply progress, but I believe that we are, in fact, headed toward a utopia and it's technology that will take us there. Computers and robots get smaller and smaller, and it will probably be after I'm dead, but I see a future where robots and computers are the same thing and nanosized, build themselves, and almost everything but food will be constructed out of them, and materialism will become extinct. When that happens, the only thing that will have worth is land.

An environmentalist in the late 19th century foresightedly warned of a coming poluttion crisis. "In a hundred years we'll all be hip deep in horse manure".

Better to attack the problem politically, which is to vote against any candidate from either corporatist party, which is what I do, despite the fact that people tell me I'm "wasting" my vote.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

It Does .. It Does. That is the way , the way that is asked of us to our benefit and as stated above by that individual it harbors for you a fine sense of reward like little else on the other side of the method, aside from several obvious instances. If you find yourself arguing to do X in light of X and not wanting to do it, do it anyways, stop buying crap and make your own wonderful tools or steal them from the batteries displayed near manyfold living corporate projects, go to town make a product and sell it from whatever national standpoint of self reliant pride you will soon stumble upon , AGAIN, but this time with something better than bitter to bring to our life.
    I know, sometimes you really WANT that cheap peice of crap. And highly enough its those asians and dutch and swedish and germans and indians, well for incenses, that make some really swell technology that you should already have. Aside from that, its not a very bright point to make while in a "recession" that blithely buying crap against some will or another is the way to go .
Just sayin, I am not an anonymous coward, my email adress is nomadik and _ and 9 and V at one or another popular email host I gladly fill in part with spam, I dont feel the call to duty at this time but Pirate Bay and the spirit and living in a hell we couldve avoided easily for decades is awesome !!

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

So moderation is not a Christian virtue any more?

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

... The Waltons choose where your goods come from, as do those who own Best Buy, Target, etc..

I disagree with this, they only have the power that the consumers give them. If you choose to spend your dollars elsewhere their power evaporates. I urge all people to think about where you spend whatever you have. If you just pay the big supermarkets because you don't bother to look elsewhere you'll get the economy you deserve. There are local shops which stock local produce. I buy fairtrade coffee from the Oxfam shop because I know where it comes from - and also because the East Timor organic coffee is at least as good as anything else I've tasted. I have found a shop that sells underwear not made in China - and it lasts much longer.

You the consumer have the power. The big companies want to keep you ignorant in order to gather as much of this power as they can.

Re:Short summary of the treaty

[shadowbearer]

I'm too old to tilt at windmills. I leave that to the younger folks; I've tilted at anough windmillls in my life to know that resistance is futile.

  I've been responding to the latest AGW article elsewhere tonight, and at this point, I find I agree with you completely, not least in the "too old" part. But Bog help us all if all us old geeks quit the fight. ;-)

  At least on this website...

  Cheers

SB

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_text

[ciaran_o_riordan]

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_text

I'm typing up the whole thing, for easier reading, searching, copying

Capable?

[symes]

It is the idea that all border guards will be able to easily discriminate the legality of content even if they were allowed access. Seriously, would I have to carry receipts, license docs, original packaging and so forth?

Re:Capable?

[HungryHobo]

no no.

all your content should of course be DRM'd.
No need for receipts then.

(who wants to bet someone actually proposed this at some point)

Re:Capable?

[Jenming]

Section 2 Options 1,2,3 state that personal baggage of a non-commercial nature do not need to be searched.

Later in that section the only things Border Guards would have control over are items where they have been provided with accurate enough descriptions in order to identify them.

It doesn't look to me that this guards searching your iPod for illegal mp3s. Rather I think this is a truck full of burned DVDs, knockoff designer items, etc.

Re:Capable?

[geegel]

No you wouldn't. Usually I'd say RTFA, but given the size of the thing, it would be a bit inappropriate.

Please look over Section 2 (all the options have a similar provision)

Where a traveler's personal baggage contains trademark goods or copyright materials of a non-commercial nature within the limits of the duty-free allowance {Aus: or where the copyright materials or trademark goods are sent in small consignments} and there are no material indications to suggest the goods are part of commercial traffic, Parties may consider such goods to be outside the scope of this Agreement.]

Re:Capable?

[Bob9113]

It is the idea that all border guards will be able to easily discriminate the legality of content

"Article 2.7: Ex-Officio Action" [presenting just the US version here]

"1. Each party shall provide that its customs authorities may act upon their own initiative, to suspend the release of ... suspected pirated copyright goods..."

The content need not be illegal (nor easily discriminated as such), the guard merely needs to posit suspicion.

Re:Capable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, would I have to carry receipts, license docs, original packaging and so forth?

I can see where this is going: encrypted storage for an e-receipt for a media and a device. The store signs the receipt and can provide customer service even without the paper receipt. Of course, it will be cracked but so are the paper receipts copied as well. Then again, if the content licence forbids transferring the content to another storage by any means the customer is screwed anyway as the receipt would provide unique product type id to ensure the product would be in the proper (content) configuration (media) as (semi-) automatically inspected by the border officials. In my dreams, this post provides a prior art so that nobody can extract any additional licence profits from something possibly included in everything sold.

Re:Capable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Later in that section the only things Border Guards would have control over are items where they have been provided with accurate enough descriptions in order to identify them.

"iPod" sounds like an item that could be accurately described.

It doesn't look to me that this guards searching your iPod for illegal mp3s. Rather I think this is a truck full of burned DVDs, knockoff designer items, etc.

That they would limit their actions to quantites like "a truck full" is wishful thinking.

Re:Capable?

[TubeSteak]

Parties may consider such goods to be outside the scope of this Agreement

"may consider" doesn't sound legally binding.
If the treaty doesn't explicitly say "don't do XYZ" or "you can only do XYZ" then it'll get used to the full letter of the law.
That's usually how these things go.

Re:Capable?

[shentino]

And being in a hurry and having business to attend to at the border often makes it profitable to surrender your goods and just move on.

Re:Capable?

[marcosdumay]

International treaties are not legaly binding. Most are worded that way.

Re:Capable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are if they are decided to be borged accordingly. There are many options for the said borging, one of them being a direct inclusion of the text of a treaty into a law, the second being a transformation of the existing law to accommodate the principles and the requirements to be borged and the last being borgin by a reference, that is, the relevant law is using references to the treaty being borged. Some treaties may require designation of a national entity to perform activities of the borg and by the borg. Many require the signee having "full powers" (that's like the 'warp speed - execute' command from the captain) from the head of state, government or foreign ministry to sign a treaty to be borged.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Anonymous Coward]

Use OCR, much faster.

Origin of the file (kinda)

[kemenaran]

By the way, the file was released by the french association "La quadrature du Net", which is quite active as a defender of Net freedom and neutrality in France (they fought against HADOPI and the LOOPSI-pedo-filtering-and-blocking laws).

I don't know if they got the file themselves or if they just released it.

Re:Origin of the file (kinda)

[FriendlyLurker]

Link: http://www.laquadrature.net/ They also have a great political memory section plus current news:

Brussels, March 22nd, 2010 - With the current debates surrounding the Gallo Report on "Intellectual Property Rights" (IPR) enforcement1 and rumours about an imminent revival of the IPR criminal enforcement directive (IPRED2), a holy war is taking place in the European Parliament. Members of the Parliament are being flooded with false figures and statistics from the entertainment industries' intensive lobbying. They are also being heavily pressured by the French authorities.

Re:Origin of the file (kinda)

[Aceticon]

I actually used their political memory section in deciding who to vote for in the last EU Parliement elections ...

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Paul server guy]

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_text

I'm typing up the whole thing, for easier reading, searching, copying

Cool, Thank you. - And yes, please keep all of the original errors and typos, Law droids have all sorts of fun with those. "For lack of a comma the land was lost" and all of that..

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Pojut]

Thanks very much! Glad to know the Internet isn't all 4chan trolls and hot grits chasers

Full Consolidated?

[Mrdzone]

Come on now... at least take 30 seconds to read the story before you publish it. It's either Full or Consolidated.... not both

Re:Full Consolidated?

[Cimexus]

As I understand it, it can be both.

Full = the entirety of it (i.e. not missing any sections)

Consolidated = in one piece, with up to date edits and amendments included.

The latter is typically used with legislation that undergoes amendment. You have the amendment itself, which says thing like "in section 3, omit the words blah and replace with blah" or "section 82(b) is hereby repealed". The amendment is what gets passed, and either a ~consolidated~ version of the full legislation is made (with the changes from the amendment effected), or it's not, and you have to read the original text + the amendment ~together~ to get the full meaning.

So in this case we have the consolidated version (no reference to external modifying documents needed), which is also the full text.

One Small Leap

[sonicmerlin]

I'm just happy *someone*, *somewhere* had enough moral integrity to defy their corporate-led masters.

Re:One Small Leap

[Anonymous Coward]

if you believe in corporate-led masters and there abilities to manipulate, why do you not believe they allowed it to be leaked?

people are jerks, whether they're judged as good or bad is besides the point.

Re:One Small Leap

[mcgrew]

So you're rooting for China?

Re:One Small Leap

[BlueParrot]

I'm just happy *someone*, *somewhere* had enough moral integrity to defy their corporate-led masters.

I'd say you are naive. Leaking is frequently used as a political tool. Much more likely than some noble individual leaking this is that one of the countries involved didn't want to piss of the US by taking an official stance against it, and hence they leak the document instead.

"OF COURSE we agree completely with you on this treaty. It's just SUCH A SHAME it was leaked. We couldn't possibly accept it with all this negative press and all. You understand that, right ? "

Re:Canada

[Ironhandx]

Modded off topic, too bad theres not a -1 Wrong moderation.

Back on topic: There are SOME decent provisions in the ACTA, however on the whole the entire thing needs to be torn up and burned. Start over with something reasonable and above board rather than having all this secrecy surrounding it. Even with leaks we can't trust our governments to continue in this despicable fashion.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[kemenaran]

I guess the quality of the scan is too poor and the language/typography too complex for decent OCR recognition.

Safe Harbor Provisions

[snsr]

Most concerning to me is that this bullshit may effect safe harbor provisions for service providers.

Re:Safe Harbor Provisions

[Ant P.]

It may effect them? I thought they already had them.

Re:Safe Harbor Provisions

[guruevi]

It also circumvents current laws that most countries have regarding home copies (either subsidized through taxes levied on blank media) and fair use by stating that all copies (regardless of commercial gain) are 'illegal'.

Re:Safe Harbor Provisions

[Runaway1956]

Most concerning to all of us should be, the fact that a separate group of "rights" holders are being defined, and that governments are going to sign away authority and sovereignty to those "rights" holders.

You think you've seen some crazy shit in the past? Just wait until half the nations on earth are subject to the whims of some greedy sumbitch with a blockbuster movie or two to his name.

Understand that a treaty supersedes a nation's sovereignty - in effect, you've signed away the right to abjudicate disagreements according to your own law. Those "rights" holders are attempting to dictate to Moscow, Washington, London, and Beijing, just how "intellectual property" will be handled in the future.

Farewell, Public Domain. From now on, it will all be pubic domain, because those "rights" holders will be sticking it to all of us.

Re:Safe Harbor Provisions

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Understand that a treaty supersedes a nation's sovereignty - in effect, you've signed away the right to abjudicate disagreements according to your own law. Those "rights" holders are attempting to dictate to Moscow, Washington, London, and Beijing, just how "intellectual property" will be handled in the future.

A treaty does NOT supersede a nations sovereignty. A treaty is an agreement between one or more countries (there have been single nation treaties signed) where all parties agree to do something. There is not force behind that agreement, each country has to decide that they want to follow the agreement and then do so.

There is no force behind the treaty other than the other nations would be upset. Japan ignored several treaties (and then broke them) prior to WWII. The United States ignored many, many treaties dealing with Indian nations. Both Britain and France have a long list of treaties that were ignored.

The most famous treaty not worth its own paper, would be that acknowledging Belgium's neutrality, signed by Germany (Treaty of London 1839).

If you are a US citizen there is a concern that a signed treaty is a way to side step Constitutional protections. Under the Constitution a treaty has more weight under law than one of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights for example. This is of course subject to interpretation by the SCOTUS.

However even in this situation you would still have to have agents of the Government choosing to act on those treaty items. There would be no force of law requiring them to do so. If the President issued an executive order to not-enforce that provision of the treaty there would be little to no consequence (barring political backlash).

In addition, at any time, a nation can withdraw from a treaty. It is sort of like standing up and saying, "hey fellas, I don't care anymore."

I would suggest at least reading the Wikipedia page on treaties for a better understanding of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty

Re:Safe Harbor Provisions

[Anonymous Coward]

What's legally stopping your country from altering the constitution to say "$mycountry can unilaterally resign ny treaties by 5/6th vote on parliament"?

Re:Safe Harbor Provisions

[Runaway1956]

If you read through that document, you will see that signatories are agreeing to rules for abjudication which may or may not comply with national laws. Alright, to be more fair, the nation isn't exactly signing away sovereignty - they are abdicating their sovereignty, and licensing the "rights holders" to take over the administration of law.

Re:Safe Harbor Provisions

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Except that your statement is still not true. Any nation can sign the document and then DO NOTHING. This happens all the time. The signatory still needs to CHOOSE to act upon the treaty, something they could do even if there were no treaty.

Your argument is that a government can do something bad but only if they sign a treaty. The truth of the situation is that, at any point a government can do something bad.

In this case there is nothing stopping any nation from just enacting all the provisions of ACTA into that nations law without ever signing ACTA. In the U.S.'s case that would require a Constitutional Amendment or two, however that is entirely possible.

In short, a treaty is just meaningless paper unless the country decides on its own to act in that manor. It never gives up its sovereignty. It makes a sovereign choice to act in a certain way. At any point it can choose to stop acting in that way. In addition at any point a nation can repudiate a treaty. Again, sovereignty is in no way threatened by a treaty EVER.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason to ever draft laws in anything but plain-text is obfuscation. I'm sick of trying to read the actual text of legislation and only finding PDFs of scanned images of typewritten papers. Seriously, who the fuck still uses a typewriter? All legislation should be written in .txt files, and placed in a web-accessible revision control system. That way, it becomes trivial to discover who is responsible for each and every line of treachery.

a companies bad busines model

[Dan667]

is clearly not a government's problem. The ACTA needs to be stopped.

Re:a companies bad busines model

[SilentSandman]

"clearly"? ... considering how far this has already gone, I am guessing it's not quite clear enough.

Mirrors, in case it's slashdotted

[mariushm]

Here's some mirrors of the original document, in case the original site is slashdotted:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28853862/201001-acta

http://www.mediafire.com/?wdnjg2nrmne

http://rapidshare.com/files/367572656/201001_acta.pdf
http://hotfile.com/dl/34373604/038b957/201001_acta.pdf.html

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Abstrackt]

I guess the quality of the scan is too poor and the language/typography too complex for decent OCR recognition.

Wouldn't it be possible to do distributed proofreading of the OCRd text like they do for Project Gutenberg?

Am I reading this right?

[Rivalz]

On page 6, article 2.3 paragraph 2: Where it says materials and implements does that mean if i use a infringing line of code or part to make a product like a Ferrari, then the whole item can possibly be forfeited?

Re:Am I reading this right?

[HungryHobo]

if it's brutal enough I might not be against this one :D
Some Microsoft programmer grabs a small chunk of GPLed code and well...
But it probably doesn't mean that since that would be the most dangerous to companies which create large monolithic expensive projects.

Re:Am I reading this right?

[djnforce9]

Border searches would take an eternity if the guard has to conduct the search in THAT level of detail. Even with iPods, I'd say good luck having someone verify ownership of every single file on it.

Re:Am I reading this right?

[Mindcontrolled]

As I read this, not only the product in violation, but also the means of production which are predominantly used to produce the product in question can be forfeited. This is not exactly new, at least in the area of patents. If you build a machine the primary purpose of which is producing something that is patented by someone else, you are indirectly violating that patent. The weird thing is that every other paragraph of this article contains the provision "at the conclusion of civil judicial proceedings", which is missing here.

Re:Am I reading this right?

[Runaway1956]

That is how I read the thing. All your "poisoned fruits" are belong to us!

Re:Am I reading this right?

[Lostlander]

That would be entertaining if Microsoft or Apple added GPL code without sharing derivative work and ended up handing over their entire products to the writer.

Re:Am I reading this right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly rabbit, laws like these are for the powerless! If Microsoft adds GPL code, an army of lawyers keeps them from harm. If Linux adds code even in the slightest bit tainted by MS, the same army of lawyers now goes on the offense.

Re:Am I reading this right?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if a line of infringing code is used in, say, a pacemaker.....

Re:Am I reading this right?

[stuckinphp]

offense to attack who? exactly.

Re:Canada

[Sockatume]

"-1 overrated" is meant to be used for mismoderated comments, in much the same way as "+1 underrated", isn't it?

iPod searching border guards?

[Anonymous Coward]

What for? If I wanted to hide data on a device, you would need a computer forensics expert to find it. Border guards are doing well to find their dick with both hands, never mind uncovering evidence of encrypted data hidden in executable code. The obvious workaround is storing your data on a server and sftp'ing it across geographic borders and anyone can manage that.

What is the exact problem that would be solved by permitting border control staff to rummage through peoples private data?

Re:iPod searching border guards?

[BlackCreek]

What is the exact problem that would be solved by permitting border control staff to rummage through peoples private data?

The "problem" of a citizen's privacy. Or at least the "problem" of a citizen's perception of having the right to any privacy. I think that is the "problem" they are aiming to solve.

Re:iPod searching border guards?

[PopeRatzo]

Border guards are doing well to find their dick with both hands

Man, I've traveled in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans where the border guards are fucking animals.

The last time I traveled from Sutomore to Sarejevo by car it was less bad, but they still seem to be actively recruiting sociopaths.

Re:iPod searching border guards?

[Comboman]

Border guards have always had the right to dig through your luggage and look at your underwear, even strip search you if you look at them the wrong way. How is there ANY expectation of privacy at a border crossing?

Re:iPod searching border guards?

[BlackCreek]

Ok. You are right, they always had strip-search rights. But it was only from a few years ago, from the terrorist scare, did border guards start caring about the content of a computer. If it was terrorist material.

Now, I will also need to worry about copyright claims over the files I carry. Or if my phone is claimed to infringe on someone's patents.

Re:iPod searching border guards?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

largely because they don't actually use them very often, people assume that use of such power is properly regulated. In some countries, it probably is.

Re:iPod searching border guards?

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd all like to think there is, but in reality, there's not. And sadly, reality is defined by laws, which in this case, are completely gray.

Re:iPod searching border guards?

[Anonymous Coward]

DHS has been snapping up all the really bad ones for the interior posts.

"Yes, it is 75 miles to the border, but I'm going to search your car anyway. Would you like pepper spray or poutine flavored mace today?"

then theres only one thing to say

[unity100]

Viva la france !

Re:then theres only one thing to say

[MrNaz]

Viva la surrender monkeys!

Wait, are we for or against the French today? Man, posting on Slashdot has become a minefield of post modernism these days...

Scanned With Free Software

[Anonymous Coward]

The PDF was scanned using XSane version 0.996.

Re:Speaking of leaked treachery...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're referring to the health care bill, it went online last Thursday at the latest, and he signed the bill on Tuesday. That's five days on my calendar.

I just thought you'd want to be accurate.

Will Someone Please!!!?

[Pitawg]

Someone with some music talent should put out a song with the text of the agreement used as lyrics, and charge the negotiators with international copyright infringement and distribution! NOW!

Re:Will Someone Please!!!?

[burkmat]

You've misunderstood things: The law doesn't apply to the people writing it.

Re:Will Someone Please!!!?

[Pitawg]

You do not believe the copyright laws on the books, now, in all the nations negotiating this agreement cannot be used to pursue infringement violations against these negotiators, if the words were in a copyrighted tune? Someone is misunderstanding, but not I.

Re:Will Someone Please!!!?

[HiThere]

Those laws could be used against someone who was powerless, but the current negotiators could not be touched, and neither could their governments, agents, assigns, etc.

Who'd bring the prosecution? Who'd pay for it? Who'd hear the case?

If you expect any justice, go read the history of the SCO vs IBM case, which is currently on hold until the SCO vs Novell case is settled. Notice how much it has already cost IBM, and calculate how much they will recover in damages.

Re:Will Someone Please!!!?

[Pitawg]

I know what you are saying, but I still think it is a threat to some, and undesired leverage when used appropriately to others. Justice is not always the goal of these laws.

Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I can't use my iPod to search the boarder guards anymore?

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[0100010001010011]

Searchable text mirror: http://www.exstatic.org.nyud.net:8080/201001_acta.pdf_as_text.html

Rehosted on my website and then put into the nyud system, should be able to handle it.
I just hate hotfile and rapidshare type sites. No I don't want to wait 30 seconds or become a premium member.

PETITION EU PARLIAMENT - NOW !

[unity100]

https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/petition/secured/submit.do?language=EN

if you are living in an Eu member country, Eu member candidate country, or a resident of an Eu member country, or working for a company that has its quarters in an Eu member country, you have the right to petition European Parliament.

This is not your ordinary online petition page - this is an official petition page, petitions of which are each processed by real bureaucrats and acted upon, if you give your credentials correctly. (Name surname and so on). Its serious shit.

As of this moment, the affiliates of american media cartels are flooding Eu parliament members with the falsified and baseless statistics they have been using to fool the senators in united states. Eu parliament members are generally much more informed than u.s. senators, however it is much better not to leave anything to chance.

So, if you fulfill any of the above conditions, you should fill a petition urging European Parliament to side with the people rather than the corporate interests, and you should inform them about the falsified statistics that media cartels are using. If you have any links to the various realistic statistics that were made by independent organizations, you can also forward the information to them. (like the p2p research done in netherlands a while ago).

Eu parliament already basically blocked some draconian items in the acta treaty. they did it with great majority. so they DO listen and heed people. If Eu parliament shoots acta down totally, then there is no way in hell that it can come into being, because since china and russia would never accept and enforce it, (and noone can force them to do so), if you add europe to that it basically makes approx 4/7th of world population.

Go for it. time is now.

Re:PETITION EU PARLIAMENT - NOW !

[Spyware23]

This works, people. I've used the EU parliament's petition page before (regarding pricing issues with Valve) and I got a three-page semi-personal response. Like OP says, take the time to fill out a petition!

Re:PETITION EU PARLIAMENT - NOW !

[delt0r]

I have been living the EU for 4 years now. But i don't think i can fill in a petition.

Re:PETITION EU PARLIAMENT - NOW !

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American I envy you members of the EU who have something like this. In the "land of the free" we get to write our Senators, and promptly get ignored or at best a generic e-mail in reply that ignores the points we argued entirely. Take advantage of this! The apathy I am surrounded with is bad enough but we really don't have any means like this that is set up and taken seriously! Use all the tools in your power to prevent this and anything else that would strip away your rights from being enacted into law.

This is why you need version control on laws

[jonaskoelker]

You have the amendment itself, which says thing like "in section 3, omit the words blah and replace with blah" or "section 82(b) is hereby repealed".

If you squint hard enough and replace the arbitrary words with intuitively selected symbols (plus, minus, at, comma), it looks almost like...

A diff.

So... a consolidated version is one with... all patches applied? Like git checkout HEAD?

And they have this cumbersome process automated? Why, we programmers should do that too! It would save lots of effort :)

Re:This is why you need version control on laws

[MrNaz]

But then they'd only need half as many politicians to accomplish the task. That would mean the other half of the politicians would have to enter the private sector work force. And I don't even want to *risk* having my Big Mac handled by an ex-politician thank you very much.

Re:This is why you need version control on laws

[DragonWriter]

But then they'd only need half as many politicians to accomplish the task.

Actually, no. It wouldn't affect the number of politicians needed. What it would reduce is the depth of analytical staff needed to comprehend laws, which would then shift the balance of power away from groups with lots of money to spend on policy in a particular area, because then they wouldn't be as easily able to mislead as to what legislation would actually do.

Re:This is why you need version control on laws

[Cimexus]

Yep good analogy. I'm not a programmer so I guess that didn't spring to mind. But that's exactly what it is.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not the only one, the telecomix/werebuild cluster has started up a transcription effort together with la Quadrature at this faxpad as well. The finished pages are available at the wiki.

In thruth, it is almost finished, with only about 5-10 pages left.

Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[SwedishPenguin]

Well, it's great to know what our corrupt EU politicians over here have been up to. EU citizens: remember, this is what your government ministers have agreed to, it's not just some faceless EU bureaucracy. Hold them responsible for their actions in the EU, don't let them hide behind the bureaucracy.

Article 2.x, option 2 (EU)
"Each party shall ensure that, where a judicial decision is taken finding infringement of an intellectual property right, the judicial authorities may issue against the infringer an injunction aimed at prohibiting the continuation of the infringement. The parties shall also ensure that right holders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by the third party to infringe an intellectual property right."

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[Hurricane78]

Well, you are loud, but typically for loud people, not very well informed and ignorant of that fact.

Yes, they did. but you omitted that the current situation is, that the EU rejects ACTA as a whole. There even was an article here on Slashdot about it.

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[SwedishPenguin]

The "EU as a whole" did not reject ACTA, the European Parliament did. The council of ministers and the commission are the ones propagating ACTA, and the ones involved in the negotiations. Unfortunately, the European Parliament has a tendency to fold when it come down to it, and the council of ministers usually wins. The council of ministers is composed of national government ministers. The national governments are however rarely held responsible for any of the decisions of the council of ministers, hell most people probably have no idea what the council of ministers is. That needs to change.

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[unity100]

The "EU as a whole" did not reject ACTA, the European Parliament did. The council of ministers and the commission are the ones propagating ACTA, and the ones involved in the negotiations. Unfortunately, the European Parliament has a tendency to fold when it come down to it, and the council of ministers usually wins. The council of ministers is composed of national government ministers. The national governments are however rarely held responsible for any of the decisions of the council of ministers, hell most people probably have no idea what the council of ministers is. That needs to change.

dear swedish penguin,

as of last year, european parliament has the power to ratify any treaty that is made by european commission, including ALl the ministers and bureaucrats and whatnot. furthermore, no treaty, decision can come into being without being ratified by european parliament. AND european parliament can also cancel treaties made prior to acquiring that power. (that was the power they used to cancel SWIFT agreement in which bush&co coerced europe into disclosing bank transfer details europeans did with americans to us government).

with the latest resolution, Eu parliament already blocked numerous stuff from the acta treaty. isp liability, 3strikes, internet connection severance without court decision etc etc. because of that, the countries whose ministers would accept acta would have to face a dilemma ; either secede from european union, or refuse the treaty.

but that doesnt mean we are in the clear yet. we need to push hard.

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[SwedishPenguin]

I know the parliament now has the legal power to not ratify it, but do they have the willpower? The proportion of parties in the parliament is presumably quite close to those in their home parliaments, and since the majority of their home parties are obviously in favor in one way or another (if they weren't, the council of ministers would have put a stop to this a long time ago), do parliamentarians really care enough about the issue to stand up to their parties when it comes down to it? I wouldn't count on it.

The european parliament (albeit a slightly different one) passed the data retention directive as well as IPRED, I wouldn't put too much stock into their goodwill.

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[unity100]

man, they made the resolution, which includes the declaration to go to court if it is ignored, with 669 to 13 or so majority. and they all voted in line with their parties in their home countries too.

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[SwedishPenguin]

Well if their home country parties are opposed, who exactly is in favor and continues the negotiations, and who continues to keep the negotiations secret? And who wrote the proposals made by the EU?
Surely, the governments are not working completely outside of the normal "democratic" system?

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[unity100]

you can track it below :

http://votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?id_act=456&lang=en

Re:Injunctions against "intermediaries"

[Thinboy00]

Surely, the governments are not working completely outside of the normal "democratic" system?

Of course they are. That's the whole point of ACTA.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Runaway1956]

You're awesome. I've skimmed through the PDF, but it's positively crap. I owe you a little something toward your next pair of glasses, after you've read and transcribed all that mess!

Re:Speaking of leaked treachery...

[cmiller173]

Actually the Senate bill, which is what he signed, has been up for weeks. The House reconciliation bill which is now in the hands of the Senate is nowhere near signing. What remains to be seen is if the Senate, which actually likes the Senate bill (they passed it after all), will actually pass the reconciliation bill.

Coming up: DMCA takedown request

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be funny.

Yes, lots

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't talking about the net deficit; he was talking about the exports. Saying the US doesn't export lots, is like saying a rockstar who spends a million dollars a year on cocaine, isn't really buying much cocaine because his income is higher than his cocaine expenditure.

But ok, let's totally change the subject and talk about the net deficit.

If we, as Americans, had a lick of sense, we would stop buying things made in China, Pakistan, India, etc.

Hey, they're the idiots who gave us the credit card that everyone knows we are never ever going to pay off. Why not use it? After the crash when no one will export to us anymore, then we'll be glad we didn't ship away all our resources. I say exploit China as much as they're willing to let us. This fake credit rating isn't going to last forever.

holy crap

[unity100]

of course it would work. it is the official page to submit a petition. its in equal status as if you went there, and presented a petition on paper. its official, governmental, bureaucratic as it can be.

Re:holy crap

[Anonymous Coward]

of course it would work. it is the official page to submit a petition. its in equal status as if you went there, and presented a petition on paper. its official, governmental, bureaucratic as it can be.

Remember this is Slashdot, where almost half the commentators apparently seriously believe that any out-come of government action has to be a net-negative and civil servants at every level of the hierarchy wake-up each morning thinking of all the ways they will be able to abuse or at least irritate and inconvenience the general populace. So I think the GP is right to vigorously remind us all that sometimes using the system can actually work!

Re:holy crap

[unity100]

yea it works but you have to supply proper address to get a reply.

Re:holy crap

[stuckinphp]

.... and.... ?

Re:Speaking of leaked treachery...

[donaggie03]

I think this has been a bait and switch all along. There is absolutely no requirement or guarantee that the Senate will pass the reconciliation bill. If it doesn't get passed, we're stuck with the original Senate version, which a lot more people had problems with. Can someone please explain why the health care bill wasn't treated like every other bill? . . . Each house should pass their own version of the bill and then have a joint reconciliation meeting. That reconciled bill then has to be passed by each house again before the president gets a chance to sign anything.

surrender monkeys as in

[unity100]

how they occupied entire europe back in 1792 ?

fyi, any serious scholar of military history would be able to say that what befell on france would befall any contemporary nation that happened to be placed geographically same with france. germans gambled on untested military technology, and won their gambit. such gambles cost many nations their freedoms before when tried. however this time it worked.

northern france, poland, western soviet union had geography that was most accommodating to this new kind of war, blitzkrieg, with their open wide fields that allowed big mobility. because it was a fast tactic, until allies were able to develop a counter tactic, germans were done away with northern france, and even later soviets in 1941.

due to geography, blitzkrieg didnt work well in south france, yugoslavia, balkans.

let me break you another fact - by 1940, united states didnt even have a proper medium battle tank, hell they didnt even have light tanks. had germany been a neighbor of usa, all americans would be talking german now. i know this will come as distasteful to a lot of you nationalist americans out there, but its a brutal historic fact.

and on a sidenote, im not french. im just a hobbyist of history.

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[maxume]

If Germany had been a neighbor of the USA, they may have been a little more worried about developing military technology.

Changing a single element and holding all the others to be the same is a pretty bad way to speculate.

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[Splab]

Most likely not, no one was paying any attention to what the Germans was up to - after WW round 1 the neighbours told Germany they weren't allowed to rebuild their military, Hitler had his own opinion about that - also, another tactic Hitler used with great succes against France was to drive around their main line of defense.

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[maxume]

The Russians had some idea, they were allowing the Germans to conduct training operations on Russian territory.

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[matija]

Not arguing with the rest of your points, just one minor nit to pick: Blitzkrieg worked JUST FINE in Yugoslavia/Balkans in 1941. From the moment Germany declared
war on Yugoslavia to the complete surrender of Yugoslavia, only 6 days passed. Considering that Yugoslavia wasn't all that small, that is not shabby by any standard (particularly considering that the invasion was conceived and executed in a matter of days).

What didn't work was the subsequent occupation and "pacification" of the territory and inhabitants - ordinary people formed volunteer resistance cells, attacked from ambushes etc. The occupation
was a failure, but the blitzkrieg phase worked just dandy.

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[unity100]

yugoslavia wasnt a proper major power. just having bought equipment from this or that major power doesnt enable one as a major power. remember that had french didnt tire their heavy tanks to breakdown in battle of northern france by sending them back and forth, entire world war history might have been different. so even major powers which actually produced their own equipment could have issues with keeping them operational.

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[matija]

You stated

due to geography, blitzkrieg didnt work well in south france, yugoslavia, balkans.

Now, after I pointed out that Blitzkrieg worked just fine in Yugoslavia (a win in 6 days counts as just fine in my book) you say that Yugoslavia was not a major power.

I don't see how that affects my point one way or the other: Yugoslavia, the regional power of the Balkans, colapsed in just 6 days due to blitzkrieg. The geography (which was VERY useful for the later guerrilla resistance) did not protect them from the initial Blitzkrieg.

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[unity100]

i may have been mistaken there, yet there are strong considerations - the scale and the opponent matters. furthermore, there was little resistance in part of yugoslavs, and they disintegrated very fast because croats and other ethnics were not willing to serve yugoslavia seen as greater serbia - they even mutinied and let them pass unharmed. note :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Yugoslavia

 

Formed after World War I, the Royal Yugoslav Army was still largely equipped with weapons and material from that era, although some modernization with Czech equipment and vehicles had begun. Of about 4,000 artillery pieces, many were aged and horse-drawn, but about 1,700 were relatively modern, including 812 Czech 37mm and 47mm anti-tank guns. There were also about 2,300 mortars, including 1600 modern 81mm pieces, as well as twenty four 220 and 305mm pieces. Of 940 anti-aircraft guns, 360 were 15 and 20mm Czech and Italian models. All of these arms were imported, from different sources, which meant that the various models often lacked proper repair and maintenance facilities.[4] The only mechanized units were six motorized infantry battalions in the three cavalry divisions, six motorized artillery regiments, two tank battalions equipped with one-hundred-and-ten tanks, one of which had Renault FT-17s models of First World War origin and the other fifty-four modern French Renault R35 tanks, plus an independent tank company with eight Czech SI-D tank destroyers. Some one-thousand trucks for military purposes had been imported from the United States of America in the months just preceding the invasion.[5]

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[Anonymous Coward]

You are now explaining that Bliztkrieg worked because Yugoslavia was a week opponent, but your initial claim was that the Blitzkrieg didn't work due to Yugoslavia's terrain.

I sense a contradiction in there somewhere...

Re:surrender monkeys as in

[unity100]

there is no contradiction. for some reason, im not considering the offensive in yugoslavia as blitzkrieg. despite germans have moved on to belgrade as fast as they could, even not surrounding their foes, it still doesnt compute because there was no resistance.

in a situation like this, if french army moved in with their legacy organization and pushed forward, and just let pass by croat forces and half of yugoslav army, wouldnt they march towards belgrade ? would this make what they did blitzkrieg ?

or would they just idiotically stop and try to surround the enemy forces which just let them pass and hailed them as liberators ? surely they wouldnt.

what i cannot make out is, whether i am saying blitzkrieg in yugoslavia failed because there was no blitzkrieg, or rather it would fail due to rugged yugoslavia terrain if yugoslavians resisted. regardless this is an opinion apparently shaped some long time ago. i just cannot make out its roots.

Not too bad

[Jenming]

After reading through the entire thing it actually doesn't look too bad.

The only major problem I see in it is trying to make 3rd parties liable for people who use their services. I'd recommend pestering your elected representatives and tell them to follow NZ lead on those articles.

The rest of it basically says:
1) make sure its illegal to copy and distribute pirated works.
2) make sure there are tools to enforce those laws.
3) provide these legal tools to foreign copyright holders.

These seem like pretty logical steps. I think the real fight here should be to shorten the absurd copyright lengths currently in use.

Re:Not too bad

[slashdotjunker]

Not too bad, huh?

Even if the treaty was blank pages I would be against it. The content of ACTA is irrelevant. The process used to create ACTA goes against what I believe are cornerstones of our society and the treaty should be killed for that alone. Any non-negative or even overtly positive terms of ACTA would not balance out the long term damage to our society caused by allowing ACTA to live.

I might sound like some kind of hardliner who is unwilling to compromise, but that's not true at all. Here is my compromise. If you just let ACTA die quietly, then I'm willing to let those involved in the creation of ACTA go free instead of sending them to jail.

Re:Not too bad

[2obvious4u]

What if your country only believes in 7 year copyrights? What if your country believes that copyrights stifle innovation?

Re:Not too bad

[HiThere]

What if the investigating official suspect that something is in violation of copyright, but doesn't know?

What proof is required?

What "due process" is required?

I wouldn't say it as "not bad". I'd say it was terrible. But I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I'm wrong. But I doubt it.

Re:Not too bad

[Jenming]

The proof required and the due process required are the same as any other civil lawsuit (or your countries equivalent). This draft relies on local laws, local courts, judges, juries, etc.

If an investigating official suspects something but is not sure I would assume he would ask his supervisor to take a look.

Re:Not too bad

[Jenming]

Then you probably shouldn't be entering a trade treaty designed to protect IP...

Re:Not too bad

[HiThere]

That's a tremendously BAD difference. Usually when the state brings charges it requires evidence at criminal law standards. Civil law is *much* looser. (Anyone can sue anyone for anything. Proof should be required to win, but only "good faith" is required to file a suit. And there's no test for that.)

Additionally, if we're talking about border crossings, the people at the borders (I hesitate to call them guards) have a reputation for theft, lack of accountability, etc. ANYTHING that gives them more power is a bad idea.

What are odds

[Anonymous Coward]

Next draft will include making it a criminal offense to release secret treaty information?

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Anonymous Coward]

Text is now completely transcribed and online at the wiki.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Artemis3]

http://skipscreen.com/

Trust your government

[Tokolosh]

... Even with leaks we can't trust our governments to continue in this despicable fashion.

On the contrary, I believe that we can put our full trust in the government to continue in a despicable fashion.

Re:Trust your government

[Boomshadow]

Bang on! I could not agree more.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Applekid]

In this case, since it was effectively smuggled out, I'd wager that the leak was simply unable to get ahold of the source document and maybe all they had available was some hard copies. FSM bless them for the effort, I sure hope they don't get found out and made dead.

Re:Speaking of leaked treachery...

[Attila Dimedici]

Because they couldn't get enough Democrats to vote for it a second time. They had enough trouble finding enough to vote against the express wishes of their constituents the first time.

I've started reading the text through ...

[dbarclay10]

I've started reading the text through, and all I can say is: GO CANADA!

As a Canadian I've been dreading our role in these negotiations. I feel that we really haven't pressed our position sufficiently in bilateral treaties with the US when it comes to commerce (this goes back decades). This is exasperated by the current Federal party in power in parliament (though it's a minority), which demonstrably follows the US lead in many areas.

However, it seems that at least in this case, our government (as distinct from parliament, I might add) is clearly pushing for the Right Stuff(tm). At least as hard as the EU, maybe harder. As an example, it seems that wherever punishments (remedies) for infringers are mentioned, Canada (and usually the EU) has added: [the judicial authorities] "shall take into account the need for proportionality between the seriousness of the infringement and the remedies ordered as well as the interest of third parties."

In other words, no ridiculous court cases where a 16-year-old gets saddled with a $750,000 judgement against them because they downloaded a few tracks from Kazaa (or whatever the kids are using these days :) and didn't know enough to turn it off.

DAMNED FUCKING RIGHT. TAKE THAT YOU BASTARDS.

The Right-Wing nutjobs may have been right?

[jd2112]

Perhaps this, rather than the UN, is the 'Evil One-World Govenment' they were warning us about...

Damages and DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Article 2.2 1 (b)

in determining the amount of damages for infringement .. its authorities [shall] consider .. the value of the infringed good or service, measured by the market price, [or] the suggested retail price

Here's the big problem: if the infringing copy does not contain DRM but the retail version does contain DRM, then there is no retail price for the infringing copy to compare to.

Let's say in 2010 Sony sells a Bluray disc of movie for $20. Let's say you rip the movie, removing the DRM which keeps most people who buy it from being able to play it, and then spread seven billion copies of the .mkv file.

In the eyes of this treaty, the resulting law is going to value the damages at around $140 billion. But in real life, the damages are $0.00, because Sony doesn't really have a usable product on the market. They haven't lost a single sale. This discrepancy needs to be dealt with.

The catch is that Sony may in the future lose some sales due to the past infringement. Suppose in 2012 Sony decides to enter the market and start selling the movie without DRM. Why buy Sony's non-DRM copy of the movie in 2012 if you downloaded it in 2010 for free? That's a problem and clearly something has gone wrong.

But we've got to remember that the purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to release creative works. If Sony doesn't really release the movie until 2012, then it doesn't make any sense for them to have a copyright in 2010, so those unauthorized copies shouldn't be considered infringing. And this is where copyright law really breaks down, because it considers the work to be copyrighted as of 2010, and considers a DRMed copy to be a real publication, and even contains other weirdnesses to not only allow DRM, but legitimize and endorse it. In US, the very act of removing the DRM is prohibited. That's just insane.

ACTA is too soon. We need to repair copyright law before we pass a treaty like this. But if we must have ACTA, then it needs to contain a provision that copyright should not be granted or enforced, when the holder doesn't make a good faith effort to get the work onto the market. DRM should mean no copyright. Add that provision, and everyone -- publishers, consumers, and public domain trawlers a hundred years in the future -- wins. Without that provision, ACTA is worse than useless, because it only compounds the error in existing copyright law.

Do not support this treaty without that provision. If your Senator votes to ratify it, vote him out. If the president doesn't tell his commerce people to make that a top priority, vote him out too. As is, the treaty just isn't being proposed with any good faith at all.

This must be fake

[Sloppy]

Where's the part that justified the secrecy? I don't see it here. Somebody obviously edited out the part requiring the US to sell puppy shredders to Iran in exchange for releasing hostages. If they edited that out, then who knows what else is inaccurate?

But seriously: let's see who is now going to "walk away from the table" now that the big secret is out of the bag. If we don't see countries withdrawing from the treaty now, then Kirk was lying.

Re:This must be fake

[Pete Venkman]

That might be the idea. I can imagine a scenario where the released document is actually a stand-in to later be replaced by the real deal. "Leaking" this stand-in copy now would let people think they knew what was going on so that they would complain to their government representatives. These government reps would then go back to the table and approve the "real deal" which contains many other provisions not listed in this stand-in document.

In this scenario, the people believe they have participated in some way, and a little of the backlash is prevented when the real deal gets passed.

Global Fascism Acid Test

[inKubus]

This has the hallmarks of an acid test. Global law negotiations done in secret, under the guise of treaty...exactly the way we don't want it to go. From here there will be more laws in secret and the only way you'll find out you've violated them is that you don't have the required permit on your passport and you're accosted at the border. This is exactly how the global fascists (corpratists) want it. Without control over global travel, they cannot control the flow of goods and information. Each intersection of borders is a profit gradient. If goods are allowed to pass by osmosis, they lose all the leverage they could use to pump wealth back and forth between countries while taking a cut off the top. Sooner or later, they have it all.

There are basically two forks in this road: one, where there is a single world democracy with the corporations below that rule of law and the other where there are separate country laws (like there are now) and the corporations flit above them BUT prohibit the individual. That's where we're headed now.

Re:Global Fascism Acid Test

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's "choose your poison, or the poison will choose you" type of situation.

"would lead to iPod searching border guards"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, in ACTA countries, iPod searches you!

Re:Speaking of leaked treachery...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.breitbart.tv/shocking-audio-rep-dingell-says-obamacare-will-eventually-control-the-people

Enjoy your cage.

Programmers and lawyers are the same thing.

[mrchaotica]

Both spend their careers constructing logical arguments to accomplish tasks, and legalese is just another programming language. (Unfortunately, legalese makes COBOL look terse!)

not a single element.

[unity100]

at that point (ie up to 1941) united states didnt have any solid combined arms to stand up to what germans had invented.

aircraft were subpar (not totally inferior, but subpar) tactics were obsolete, bombers were inferior, (b17s didnt come into being until 1941 proper), no tanks, outdated infantry tactics, no close support. you can count many things.

usa had taken a lot of lessons from what befell on france, britain and russia up till the time she joined the war. and even in 1941, allies were still not on par with germans.

Re:not a single element.

[maxume]

Yes, but the surrounding oceans were very much a military consideration for the United States.

(I mean, Pearl Harbor was nearly as successful as it possibly could have been, and in the end, the only impact it had was, possibly, to extend the time the war took (but really, other American war decisions were probably larger factors, America could have skipped by quite a few hard fought islands; I realize that I just went and talked about an almost entirely different war, fought across a very different ocean, but the Atlantic was very much a strategic asset for the United States at that point in time)).

Re:not a single element.

[unity100]

rather appallingly, u.s. didnt do enough for those oceans. it had some battleships, many obsolete, and only 2 aircraft carriers. japanese totally outclassed united states in generaly capability.

however pearl harbor didnt do much to prolong the war. actually, by the time it happened, so much construction was put into motion that even if japanese sank every single floating battleship and a/c usa had, they would still be outnumbered 2 to 1 in 1 years' time, and 4 to 1 in 1.5 years' time.

i read a research published on a navy enthusiast website once. it compared manpower and manufacturing power of countries, and found out that u.s. approx tripled all allies, axis combined itself. so the result of the war was a foregone conclusion in that regard.

You can

[unity100]

because you are in Eu. go fill it.

who's stopping you

[unity100]

just go fill it. drop that you are an american, and your senators do not listen to you, just ignore you. ask the parliament members to speak on your behalf too.

i assure you it would give great clout to parliament in negotiating with the bastards who were ignoring you.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Which would be precisely why it isn't done that way.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Sure it is but everyone needs an unrelated hobby or two.

the treaty made me do it

[epine]

Nice summary, but you left out the part after the treaty is signed where a government rams new legislation down the throats of its citizens on the grounds that the previously signed treaty (under secrecy, with little democratic input) obligates the government to pass the Draconian legislation as proposed. Failure to do so will emasculate the country's standing in future treaty negotiations (we won't be regarded as good on our word), so be good little citizens and get out of the way.

They never say "well, we signed this treaty in secrecy with hardly any democratic input, so now that we've signed it, let's get everybody involved to determine if it was actually a good idea to sign this treaty as proposed".

The whole process is brutally paternalistic in terms of the scope it offers for democratic participation, which is little and late, and construed as difficult people rocking the boat unnecessarily.

In a balanced democratic process, the public would be consulted about what the country is willing to offer and not offer in the negotiation process. If Canadians decide that our privacy laws or the principle of fair use or some other law of due process trumps abusive process in the protection of private property, then our diplomat should show up at the treaty table with a flat out "no can do" on those clauses, long before they get written into these secret drafts so that these ridiculous fait accompli arguments aren't used to justify oppressive legislation in the treaty aftermath.

The general public does not have an unassailable grip on the plain fact of democracy that a treaty negotiated under cover of secrecy has no democratic standing and especially so where the treaty agrees to enact new legislation that overrides or supersedes previously existing legislation established on the basis of democratic consultation.

If the treaty is well considered, it shouldn't be a difficult matter to convince the citizens through a democratic consultation of the merits of the agreement, at which point legislation can be enacted to satisfy the nation's obligations under their agreement to the treaty in full democratic glory.

OTOH, if the treaty exists to run roughshod over previously established democratic freedoms, then the subsequent democratic consultation should feel no compunction whatsoever about consigning the treaty obligations to the round basket of totalitarian overreaching, with appropriate consequences to the careers of those involved. If the process was highly secretive, it would be prudent at this point to cast a wide net, to reinforce the message that perhaps transparency should be viewed as a positive term in the calculus of political longevity.

Re:the treaty made me do it

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Nice summary, but you left out the part after the treaty is signed where a government rams new legislation down the throats of its citizens on the grounds that the previously signed treaty (under secrecy, with little democratic input) obligates the government to pass the Draconian legislation as proposed. Failure to do so will emasculate the country's standing in future treaty negotiations (we won't be regarded as good on our word), so be good little citizens and get out of the way.

My post was to contradict the OP's false statement of:

Understand that a treaty supersedes a nation's sovereignty ...

This statement is simply not true.

My point was that a treaty has no force of law. It does not force anyone to do anything. The action of agreeing to a treaty is entirely divorced from the action of enforcing a treaty. Whats more, any action a government could take in the name of a treaty, they could also take WITHOUT the treaty.

As for ACTA it self, I think any negotiations by the US Government that are held from the US Citizen are by definition immoral. What is in the treaty is irrelevant, the fact that the terms were not made public so that each and every American Citizen could weigh in and debate them, preempts any other issue.

Re:the treaty made me do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Thomas Jefferson on US treaties:
"It is desirable, in many instances, to exchange mutual advantages by Legislative Acts rather than by treaty: because the former, though understood to be in consideration of each other, and therefore greatly respected, yet when they become too inconvenient, can be dropped at the will of either party: whereas stipulations by treaty are forever irrevocable but by joint consent...."

Re:the treaty made me do it

[marcosdumay]

"...obligates the government to pass the Draconian legislation as proposed. Failure to do so will emasculate the country's standing in future treaty negotiations (we won't be regarded as good on our word)"

Well, if you are from the US (most likely), you shouldn't care, you are already known to not be good on your word. In fact, very few countries care, and normaly just very (economicaly) small ones.

Now, I can imagine that phrase being used internally to justify passing a bad law.

Reality check

[cdrguru]

First off, anyone under 30 that has ever downloaded music or a movie is never going to accept anything that forces them to pay for crap. This is pretty much everyone under 30 with a computer. Call is 1/10th the population of the planet. And most people under 30 believe that all music, movies, books - media in general - today is crap. So they aren't going to pay.

Governments, on the other hand, look at two things: taxes and GDP. On a tax basis if everyone universally stops paying for media, there will be a huge hit in revenue collected by governments. I don't care if you are paying sales tax, GST or VAT. The tax hit would be huge.

The US and a lot of other Western countries don't make much physical stuff anymore - a lot of the GDP is intangible goods and media.

Because of the above, governments have no choice. They must prevent piracy of media at all costs. Failure to do so will mean loss of GDP and tax revenue, neither of which would government today be terribly fond of. The US just signed up to spend more than 1 billion dollars a year out of the government coffers. Where exactly do you think that is coming from? Donations?

Sadly, I think the governments are likely to lose. We have trained a generation that they shouldn't have to pay, it is all free for the taking on the Internet. The lessons took and today I know only a few people that pay for music, movies, etc. Often, paying it seen as "cheaper" than the effort required because piracy is inconvenient. That is changing with the real pirates making downloads faster and more efficient all the time.

If you have been shown from the first day of school that it is OK to "borrow" software, music, movies and anything else not nailed down and DRM-secured why would anyone pay for anything if they didn't have to? You can't stop it, no matter how much effort is put into it.

Re:Reality check

[Andorin]

First off, anyone under 30 that has ever downloaded music or a movie is never going to accept anything that forces them to pay for crap.

Generalization. I can just as easily say that most people who use p2p regularly are more active collectors who are more likely to buy something, despite the fact that they can get it for free, because they know that creators have to eat too.

On a tax basis if everyone universally stops paying for media, there will be a huge hit in revenue collected by governments.

Nope. If someone downloads a movie, the money they could have spent on it is more likely to go somewhere else than just sit in their wallet. Net financial effect: Zero.

The rest of your post is pretty much invalidated by the above.

Re:Reality check

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but you could've gone even further: according to some graph in the Guardian, it seems that not only are people spending the money saved on recorded media elsewhere, negating the supposed tax hit, they are actually spending it on other music industry related expenses. As CD sales have gone down, live concert ticket sales have gone up to compensate. The same money goes to the government, more money goes to the artists and venues who host and promote them, and the only ones losing out are the obsolete middlemen of the recording industry.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[noidentity]

Cool, Thank you. - And yes, please keep all of the original errors and typos, Law droids have all sorts of fun with those. "For lack of a comma the land was lost" and all of that..

I wonder which of these apparent typos are really parts of a fingerprint to determine which copy, and thus who, was leaked.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Thinboy00]

Like this?

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Abstrackt]

Like this?

More like this is what I had in mind. ;)

Brazil?

[marcosdumay]

Is there a list of countries? Does anybody knows if Brazil is taking party of it?

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

"Back on topic"...?! You're hijacking a thread at the top to whore for karma with a few precious banalities. People like you disgust me.

Does that make the executive the run-time system?

[jonaskoelker]

Both spend their careers constructing logical arguments to accomplish tasks, and legalese is just another programming language.

Is the executive branch the run-time system and/or virtual machine then? Does that make the police force a garbage collector?

And how about the judicial, are they the evil OS, sending SIGFINE and chroot jail?

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

And people call these things leaks.....

Which ratifications shall they address? Hmm... let us go look at this board.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Paul server guy]

Hmmmm, Good point. Scary, but I wouldn't put it past those creeps ^H^H^H^H^H^H slime.

Re:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/201001_acta.pdf_as_tex

[Anonymous Coward]

I was really surprised by all the errors. Are we sure this is a genuine document?