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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.'"
In this case "national security" means the stability and financial success of their supporters and corporate overlords.
Why would ACTA have been vital to "national security"?
Because saying so means they don't have to show it to you.
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
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
More specifically, the "national security" claim is the only way to get an exemption from the disclosure requirements imposed by FOIA. It is undemocratic and insulting that it is abused so often. It is appalling that the Obama administration is working so hard to best Bush II in the scope of this abuse.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
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
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
Be careful. Kagan is a neo-con kook at heart. His writings assume a US-Israel hegemony and he represents the worst kind of conventional wisdom that posits the world would be better off if we just let smart people like him make the decisions. He's also tends to be an "ends justify the means" kind of guy when it comes to military entanglements, with the ends usually meaning oil or profits for military contractors. He's an excellent writer, but his books tend to be delicious apples with worms at the core. Basically, an apologist for the military-industrial complex, masquerading as a liberal with "everyone's best interest in mind" as long as their "best interest" involves a huge adventurist US military and support for Israel. He and Bill Kristol were co-authors of the "Project for a New American Century" which was the neo-con blueprint for the Bush Administration's plans to invade Iraq long before 9/11 or even the 2000 election.
Caveat emptor. I suggest digging for some of the critical reviews of his books before accepting any of his conclusions as gospel.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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!!!
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
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.
And yet, until recently, when we started introducing leftist ideas and gender/identity politics and the same welfare policies as all those hundred other countries, our country had skyrocketed to cultural, monetary, millitary, and scientific top dog in a very short period of time while others stagnated. I wonder why that was?