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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.
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
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
Pruning Shears has an excellent analysis of ACTA.
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!!!
I agree, and I disagree.
The real problem is, there aren't nearly enough voices protesting ACTA. Google will be listened to, but there are to many other big money voices clamoring in favor of ACTA. Google will be bullied and whipped into conformance. Understand that ACTA seems to have the backing of some of the deepest pockets in the United States, and around the world - not to mention the United States government.
Google may have enough clout to temper some of the most vile clauses of ACTA, but IMHO, ACTA is going through, and it's going to suck galaxies of money through garden hoses.
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