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Google Attorney Slams ACTA Copyright Treaty
Hugh Pickens writes "CNET reports that Daphne Keller, a senior policy counsel at Google, says ACTA has 'metastasized' from a proposal to address border security and counterfeit goods to a sweeping international legal framework for copyright and the Internet that could increase the liability for Internet intermediaries such as, perhaps, search engines. 'You don't want to play Russian roulette with very high statutory damages.' One section of ACTA says that Internet providers 'disabling access' to pirated material and adopting a policy dealing with unauthorized 'transmission of materials protected by copyright' would be immune from lawsuits but if they choose not to do so, they could face legal liability. Both the Obama administration and the Bush administration had rejected requests for the text of ACTA, with the White House last year even indicating that disclosure would do 'damage to the national security.'"
Why would ACTA have been vital to "national security"? Is this an admission of sorts that the US no longer makes actual things but instead the majority of its GDP is based on intangible products? So, piracy as the issue: what if the world doesn't play ball with the situation the US has worked themselves into? If the world does not recognize ideas as property, where does that leave the future revenue source of the US?
Shh.
Hugh Pickens is the new Roland Piquepaille
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Is this an admission of sorts that the US no longer makes actual things but instead the majority of its GDP is based on intangible products?
Umm, I think ACTA is bullshit, but if you don't think a movie or TV show is an "actual thing" made in the USA, you're fucking batshit crazy.
Don't believe me? Try writing a screenplay sometime. Done? It sucks. It beyond sucks. It's an unreadable POS that makes no sense to anyone but you. But you think it's awesome, so go ahead and make it. Yeah, you'll need some money and a crew and some actors and some VFX houses. And props, makeup, locations, insurance, transportation, post-production, Foley, sound mixing.
You get the point. They make "actual things" and employ real people.
Same goes for video games, computer software, and those other "intangible products" that believe it or not are also "actual things".
Again, ACTA sucks donkey balls. I'm just saying that it is related to a "real" industry with "real" products, not some ephemeral, intangible anti-product. If you're going to debate this, you can't just dismiss the concerns (or existence) of the "IP" industry out of hand, because you'll lose on the facts before you've even started. There are plenty of rationals for criticizing ACTA. Saying they don't make actual things isn't one of them. Hope you enjoyed Iron Man 2 this weekend.
What are you trying to tell us?
I wonder if he is really a Republican undercover...
I really, really hope that everyone remembers everything that BOTH the republicans AND democrats have done to take steps to gradually make our country into a police state in the name of "National Security" over the past few years. In reality, personal freedoms are being controlled and restricted by corporate interest and they have little interest in anything other than making a buck.
Please, come election time, research independent alternatives for public office. The offerings may be slim, but can you really say that it would be any worse than what's been going on?
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
"You must be new here."
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
'damage to the national security.'
Dumb schmucks.
bjd
This is slashdot, we don't let facts enter into it!
Just how right-wing the US is generally. Even your left-wing politicians are more rightwing in a lot of cases than the most rightwing politicians in some other countries. Our "Conservative" government up here in Canada gets along just fine with Obama's administration, and the association - like that with previous administrations in the States - continues to move Canadian politics to the right.
You folks have no idea what a normal political spectrum is I am afraid, the influence of the Republicans over the past 100 years or so seems to have skewed things greatly to me.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
...how can you abide to a secret law?
Secret laws and laws passed out of the public eye for the sake of corporate interests are nothing but simple corruption. Call it what it is.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"You don't want to play Russian roulette with very high statutory damages."
I've always preferred to refer to things like the RIAA lawsuits as lawsuit lotteries. It bears a lot in common with lotteries, although millions are eligible to be selected only a handful ever are, however in the unlikely event you are one of the few the amount of money involved is extreme.
I stole this Sig
I am glad Google seems to be taking exception to ACTA. They have a big voice, they will be listened to.
One section of ACTA says that Internet providers 'disabling access' to pirated material and adopting a policy dealing with unauthorized 'transmission of materials protected by copyright' would be immune from lawsuits
Just immune from lawsuits for aiding piracy, or immune from any lawsuit, including those from users who were affected or copyright holders who felt their material was wrongly blocked?
My webcomic
Pruning Shears has an excellent analysis of ACTA.
I no longer see any distinction between the Republicrats and Democans. Under this political cartel, we've seen our social security go broke, our government bankroll the financial industry, and juice the mortgage market. Foreign policy is a disaster, supporting evil regimes, and standing by while NK gets nukes. There is no more debate on the idea of limited government. Political dissent may now get you tracked and arrested. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011780363_spysettle05m.html
Wrote that western countries would not be able to stave off the spreading of knowledge and technology. The uk would soon no longer be the workshop of the world. USA and other countries would catch up.
When manufacturing moved elsewhere finance took it's place. Now finance is wobbly and the only way to maintain dominance is to own all knowledge.
Good luck is all I can say. It's gonna get ugly though.
The Trouble with laws / treaties made by Big Media is exactly the same trouble as laws made by Big Corporations: perspective.
Both groups fail to see beyond their legislative goals and this results in laws that impact far more than the areas they intend.
Laws ought to be studied and debated by the public and all of the consequences understood and taken into consideration in the law or treaty.
Otherwise the collateral damage will outweigh the gains sought by the special interests involved.
Ultimately special interests and Corporations care only about their agendas and profits and not about the impact to society they have.
Only Congress should be allowed to make laws and treaties like this and only when circumstance or the people require it.
Just a few stories down from here on /. is a story that they just charged a bunch of people with selling counterfeit Cisco gear. They even confiscated it. Yet the powers that be (big buisness) would have us believe that is completely impossible with the current laws. It is just like when the US came up to Canada and threatened a trade war if we didn't put in an anti cam-cordering law. Well we did. And some one was convicted of recording a movie in a movie theater. Only they didn't use the spanky new law that was put in just for that purpose, they didn't need it. So what was the point of the US interfering in the laws of a sovereign country again?
If the US wants to make themselves completely incapable of competing in the global economy because they give only a few companies the right to produce any thing, and those companies no longer feel a need to compete then fine. That is their business. But leave us the hell alone!!!
sure, places like canada and the netherlands are to our left, but far more are to our right: the entire muslim world, for example, plenty of third world countries. we even have better freedom of speech protection than up in canuckistan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#North_America
i consider myself left leaning and greatly admire canada, there's plenty about your country that the usa would be wise to emulate
but its pretty silly to see you castigate the usa for being so right leaning from a GLOBAL standpoint when you can't even keep track of how far left canada itself is on the world stage
go ahead and castigate the usa from a canda-centric point of view, that's perfectly in your right. but when it comes to wordliness, you have a ways to go, as you don't have a good grasp of the true international range of ideologies. unfortunately, its quite right wing out there. really
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
also seems to be the most privacy intruding corporation of them all, Google.
How low did the internet folks sink to let Google lawyers speak up for them?!?
a controlled real world venue
even if they gave iron man 2 out free on dvds this weekend, it will still make a shit load of money in the cinema house. people pay money to watch movies in the cinema. they don't want to see it on their 17 inch monitor in their basement by themselves. or on their little netbook on the train. or even alone in front of the 52" hd in their den. they want to ooh and aah with strangers. its sociological. even all the cell phones and babies don't dent this concept of going to the movie house
this is how you make money in movies, and always WILL make money in movies: the cinema house
the only thing the internet is going to kill is the dvd after market. and who cares? how many crappy direct to video movies to do we need? avatar made a shitload of cash: all in the cinema. so the movie making model is completely safe, completely untouched by the internet, NO ACTA NEED APPLY, despite all the whining and panic and hand wringing by people who apparently don't even understand the business
the movie making business is completely safe: it will not be destroyed. it will not be touched by any internet, dvd, vcr, or television (the original "destroyer" of the cinema because of free over the air signals... in the 1950s they said the cinema house was dead!)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
however i am far more against armed revolt. plus, it won't happen unless people are hungry
the point is: don't romanticize revolution. it is ugly and brutal and full of more suffering and cruelty than the worst corporatistic abuses of our democracy. peaceful change is the way to change things. armed revolt is for idiots who don't even understand the problem and will only make things far worse
finally, you have no control over the outcome, when you write about "an armed revolt introduces proportional representation" is just a fucking joke: NO ONE controls a revolution, and no one controls the outcome. you don't throw a revolution to get {xyz}, you throw a revolution... and anything is possilbe. in fact, the range of choices about what comes on the other end of a revolution are far, far worse than our current problems
so please stop romanticizing revolution, it is far, far worse than our problems with corporations, really. romanticizing revolution is for true idiots only
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
they could lose on this one, but nobody will ever bully Google, not even the Chinese.
You folks have no idea what a normal political spectrum is I am afraid, the influence of the Republicans over the past 100 years or so seems to have skewed things greatly to me.
If Canada is as liberal as you state (where our liberals look like conservatives to you,) maybe it is Canada that is lacking a normal political spectrum.
Or maybe, different countries have different founding ideologies and the normal political spectrum is based upon those ideologies. In which case, it makes sense that there would be different political spectrum from country to country.
i don't know anyone who has a bevy of friends they can program to come over to their house and to all agree on a movie at the exact moment you want to see it
furthermore, all the babies and cellphones do not rise above the oohs and aahs in the dark around you that heighten your experience
if you honestly believe otherwise, you don't even know yourself
i am asserting that your complaint is false and contrived. box office returns say so. and EVEN IF your complaint is truthful and factual, you are a fragment of the population, a small shrill overly fragile minority that is so bothered by a cellphone. so your opinion is without merit
sorry dude
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The only way to fix the system is to have the tax payer pay reasonable sum for each officials election campaign and simultaneously forbid all forms of contributions. Its transparently rediculous SIGs are allowed to expend millions upon millions of dollars to lobby to have their way at the voters expense.
You can't expect a fucked up system to yield a product that is not also fundementally fucked up.
Yes, the voting system in the US only works fairly if there are only two opposing parties. A vote for one is effectively a vote against the other. The moment you introduce a third party, the whole vote gets out of whack. An underhanded way to win is to generously fund a new "grassroots" party that is very close to your opposition's position. It will siphon off some of the voters from the opposition party making it easier to win the election.
People have very little choice in an election; just a choice of two party candidates, and most voting districts have been gerrymandered to the hilt. One solution for the voter is to participate earlier... in the primaries. This is where actual choices are. The candidates have to run the gauntlet of very few people in the party to get selected to run. The election itself is too late. Most states are gerrymandered anyways, so just forget about the election and participate in the primaries of the likely winning party in your district. Only Iowa ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering ) has little to no gerrymandering.
Don't worry about party affiliation in the US, just register R or D and vote in the primary of the most likely party to win that will have a choice of candidates. Will this work? I'm not sure, but it doesn't require election reform or redistricting to implement. You may have to register a party affiliation you don't like if you in the minority in the district, but at least there may be a chance of having a moderating voice in the selection process.
Simply not co-operating or ignoring key stakeholders (like Google) is stupidity beyond belief.
This is a half assed attempt to make common carriers with money - like Google - targets for lawyers. And to criminalise civil matters.
Hopefully Google will move its hard assets and money offshore, and have a worthless highly geared shell, should bad laws slip through. Some interesting possiblities where they relocate to.
If they don't like the smell, they should pony up some money, and tell politicians they will be made responsible.
Except for a few actors, the other people you mention belong to the "lower middle class" set of professions and can be hired for relatively small costs.
No, the highest cost in making a movie is not making the props or paying the wages, the biggest cost is in bookkeeping
I live in Brazil where the representatives are elected according to a system where votes in the whole state are considered for each candidate and party. I wish we had district voting like the USA.
The problem with proportional voting is that representatives are elected by special interests. This means that each church has its representative, each labor union, even soccer teams have elected representatives in the Brazilian congress. And then there are "protest" representatives, people who get elected only because they look crazy, talk crazy, and act crazy. People say "WTF, those crooks are all the same, I will vote for the crazy guy to send a message".
The result is that people who are elected for special interests pool together their votes in congress. The representatives of the teachers union exchanges votes with representatives of the churches, so that teachers will get early retirement benefits and churches will get exemption from environment protection laws.
If bipartidarism is the price for getting rid of the football players and reverends in congress I would gladly pay it.
No, it's you. When a hundred other countries all agree that your left wing is rightwing, it's not because they are the ones with a problem.
because Google isn't any better than than the rest of them. Privacy is the next killer ap. The person who works out how to do all this in a way that protects our privacy is going to make a fortune.
"You folks have no idea what a normal political spectrum is I am afraid"
I feel the same way about Europe and Canada. There are no true conservatives. You're all liberals with degrees of how much government should control your life.
It's like a person who watches CNN and MSNBC thinks Fox is so hard core extremeist rightwing. They're pretty centrist if you take off the blinders. But CNN and MSBC are such an incredibly hard freakin' left turn that they think Fox's middle is extremeist right.
Instapundit. Pretty middle of the road. I wish he'd run for office. He's up on tech, hip to civil rights being, you know, for citizens, good on security, even-keel on immigration and willing to listen. Reynolds/Whittle FTW!
Being "wealthy" isn't really about having money so much as it is about having control over things of value.
These days, information (in all its forms) is the most valuable asset to control.
The currently-wealthy will do everything in their power to increase their control over information (which, by proxy, means control over you). Neither reason, nor justice, nor the poor masses, will stand in their way.
To most of the first world, CNN and MSNBC are right-wing, FOX is batshit ludicrously insane right-wing. US's scale is so shifted it hurts.
Who was the last "true conservative" in the US for that matter? Goldwater?
Imagine a public library that offered its main service, access to books, 24/7. And which didn't have limited numbers of copies, library cards, returns, late fees, reshelving work, and vast spaces devoted to paper books. No more problems with books being lost or damaged. And far more efficient cataloging and searching-- no more "two step" of finding something in an index, then finding it again in the stacks. No reason for arrest warrants for overdue books. Just surf to the library's website and download a copy of anything you want. Would be huge savings for everyone. Cities are always strapped for cash, are they not? (I doubt late fees amount to much revenue. May even be negative when the lost patronage is factored in.) Branches could be repurposed into access points, or shut down. Smaller towns could band together to provide more than any of them alone could do. (Ultimately, best to merge into one gigantic library. A complete Library of Congress in every village!) Of course there'd be a few new expenses such as the costs of maintaining huge quantities of digital storage and access devices, but I imagine that'd be more than offset by the savings from being able to reduce staff. There are even further savings. We would have little use for our current 3 part system of bookstores, used bookstores, and libraries. Consolidate them. Except for things like pop-up books, the library could easily expand to handle all sorts of media, which could itself grow in new directions.
I'm supposing you agree this digital public library would be wonderful. Do you see any way we can have this vision and copyright law?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
of course your opinion has merit... to you. you don't have to indignantly rebut my observations. i don't care about your life, i care about the topic at hand. and apparently your opinion doesn't have merit to the subject matter at hand. don't take it so personally. simply understand that your opinion and your experience is far from normal
box office returns are what matter, and hollywood is looking at its first ever possible 5 billion dollar summer this year, its first ever. and thats what matters, and it obviously proves my point correct: that for all the babies and cellphones, internets, dvds, vhss, televisions, etc., the cinema house has proven to weather every supposed challenge to its dominance, and has continued to make cash, and more of it, every year, unfazed
so all of the gloom and doom talk to the contrary, from within the industry and outside it, in the audience, like yours, dating back all the way to the 1950s, is false, contrived empty FUD that simply doesn't understand the subject matter
who says? not me. box office returns say. end if discussion: sorry, but you lose
unless box office returns take a pronounced, repeated downturn. then maybe they'll do something about the babies and cellphones. until then, enjoy your 17 inch monitor in your basement by yourself (oh i'm sorry, you have magical friends who show up en masse to see exactly what you want to see at a moment's notice)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it