Experts Say ACTA Threatens Public Interest

langelgjm writes "In the lead up to next week's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations in Lucerne, a conference that drew over 90 academics and experts from six continents has released a statement issuing a harsh condemnation of both the substance and process of the agreement. Held last week at American University's Washington College of Law, the attendees say, 'We find that the terms of the publicly released draft of ACTA threaten numerous public interests, including every concern specifically disclaimed by negotiators.' The 'urgent communique' covers more than the usual ACTA topics of interest on Slashdot: in addition to the agreement's effect on the Internet, it also considers the effects on access to medicines, international trade, and developing countries. Meanwhile, Public Knowledge has an action alert where you can send a note to the White House expressing your opposition to ACTA."

Comments

Crazy radical extremists

[adonoman]

Well, according to the Canadian government, those "experts" are just radical extremists who pretend to care about copyright. If you are against copyright bills, you are a terrorist.

Re:Crazy radical extremists

[Kitkoan]

Ahhhhh.... what the difference a year makes...

Re:Crazy radical extremists

[Kitkoan]

D'you think if someone handed James Moore a cluestick he could use it to pry himself out of the CRIA's ass that he's so firmly lodged in? ... No?

Can we just beat him with it then?

Beat him with what? The cluestick or CRIA's ass? Or both for the best of both worlds?

Of course it isn't in the public interest

[dkleinsc]

The question is not whether ACTA is in the public interest, but whether it's in the collective interest of those empowered to enact it. It's safe to assume that with the supporters of ACTA in control of a lot of cash and the majority of television airtime, the folks in power are very likely not giving a rat's behind what these professors and petitions are saying.

No Kidding

[SilverHatHacker]

How much money are we paying these "experts" to sit around and come up with this again? Next up: Water's wet. Crap slides downhill. kdawson gets no respect.

Re:No Kidding

[Barrinmw]

If nobody comes out to state the obvious, then the people who are forcing this down the throats of the collective world will think they are doing it with everyone's concurrence.

Fuck acta

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck acta

Re:developing countries will not just sit by and l

[Kitkoan]

Developing countries and other countries that aren't included in the ACTA meetings aren't just sitting by.

not just experts

[theheadlessrabbit]

It's not just experts who believe ACTA threatens public interest.

My name is on that list, too.

Re:not just experts

[Barrinmw]

What I am saddened by the most is that this would end up being a Executive Treaty because it doesn't come into conflict with out pre-existing laws. /cry

Enough is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Government of the USA,

Please stop trying to cram your shit house laws down the rest of the worlds throat.

Maybe if you took care of your own internal issues properly and stopped interfering with the rest of the world we would hate you less.

Kind regards,
The rest of the world (yes there is life outside the USA)

Re:Enough is enough

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Dear Rest of World,

Our laws (bills) are written by the lawyers from the industries those laws are written to regulate. These bills are then introduced by representatives from the home districts of the largest companies of those industries, who supply the voters and money to place/keep those representatives in office. The bills are then discussed and voted on in an orgy of self-interested back-scratching and pork exchange with representatives from other districts. Oftentimes, these other representatives will attach totally unrelated goodies and other bits of pork for themselves and their districts to bills which have nothing to do with their ostensible purpose. After a bill is passed into law, its enforcement is regulated by a government bureau whose executive layer is comprised of people who came from executive positions in the industry in question, and to which they will return, when the Other Party wins their next Presidential election and replaces those executives with a different set of executives from the same industry. If a law should come before a pesky court, its hands are generally bound by the letter of the law itself, so, in actual fact, the Constitution poses little threat to our sacred way of life.

Please understand that if we do not "cram our shit house laws down the rest of the worlds throat" then our Corporate Overlords become unhappy because they are not making every possible dime they feel they are entitled to, and their accountants will produce reams of speculative arithmetic to prove that it is so. And frankly, we're just not interested in "taking care of our own internal issues properly", or whether or not the rest of the world "hates us for our interfering", because we're making lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of money, and that's the only thing anyone in power here gives a flying fuck about.

Kindest Regards,
The U.S. Government
(and their Corporate Overlords)

Re:Enough is enough

[hairyfeet]

Please quit buying *.A.A crap so they won't have the money to bribe our legislators and force these crap laws onto your countries. Sincerely America

Re:Enough is enough

[complacence]

No can do. Any decline in sales will be blamed on piracy, and a sales tax on computers, storage media or connectivity will be introduced (cf. Canada, Germany et al). They're in deep enough to basically finance themselves through corruption even if they didn't produce anything.

If you think a note to the white house matters....

[fotbr]

You're nuts. You or I don't have enough money for them to notice us, and if we did, we'd have lobbyists go to the white house and make the points -- and campaign donations -- for us; not use a web feedback form.

Realistically, there's nothing we can do.

Thanks for that link!

[erroneus]

Because that link was so convenient, I was able to send my "two cents" to the white house and all that. If only my two cents could compare to the hundreds of millions that law makers get from the companies sponsoring ACTA.

Is the End of Internet Liberty Coming Soon?

[Apple Acolyte]

This is a post I wrote for another forum on the subject of the Obama Administration's just released vision of intellectual property rights enforcement (as reported by DailyTech, which I assume to be a prelude or complement to ACTA:

The fact is, as others have often pointed out, digital information wants to be free. You can turn the whole world into criminals trying to fight that simple truth, but it's only going to create a virtual international police state. I don't want that, and I don't think you want that, either. If copyright infringement is that damaging to your bottom line, I think you have to figure out other ways to monetize your product.

There's only one analogous example to the grip of the media cartels that I can think of. Government and other organized labor employees are destroying the industrialized world with their lavish pensions and other benefits. They work 30 or 40 years and then demand and get guaranteed pensions for the rest of their lives, even while the countries they're sucking dry are going into national bankruptcy. Politicians naturally assume they'll just raise taxes ever higher in order to pay off these corrupt deals. May people know about the serious financial problems posed to the US by the public entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But nearly no one discusses the fact that Government Employee Entitlement costs are almost as large as the public Entitlements.

Similarly, with copyright protected media, the creator produces something once and then expects to receive guaranteed income from it forever. But in this case it's not even the original creator who gets most of the recurring revenue - it's the media cartel that distributes his or her product. Despite the fact that the march of technology has changed the way we interact with distributed media, some still expect to get rewarded financially in the same fashion that they were rewarded prior to the consumer Internet age.

Now here's the thing, I have a limited amount of respect for copyrights. I think granting a limited-time narrow monopoly to the creator of a given product is a desirable trade-off to support the creation of works of art and science. But the key word is limited. The Constitution calls for limited-time copyrights, but as time has gone on copyrights have gone from limited to unlimited, and now the media cartels want to turn the Internet into a virtual police state to enforce their permanent monopolies. If enforcement provisions like the ones envisioned go into effect, we're on a very slippery slope to the death of the Internet as we know it. If a person can be prosecuted for a random search term that may draw the wrath of the media cartels, then that means it's no longer safe to surf various sites and click links to different pages indiscriminately. Remember, we're talking about merely searching for terms that the media cartels think may lead to an infringing download, not the infringing download itself. What this is referred to as in the law is an "inchoate offense" - a violation of the law the precedes the actual illegal act, and it's a very controversial subject because of the far-reaching implications involved. When the media cartels get that kind of power over our online lives, it means they've taken things way, way, too far. And make no mistake - this will be a slippery slope. If government can snoop on search engine keywords to help the media cartels, what's next? Logically keyword searches about anything that could arouse even minor suspicion could put a user in danger. What this announcement looks like to me is a "War on Digital Piracy," and just like the "War on Drugs" it will certainly ensnare many innocent people, erode liberties and be of dubious value - if not harmful in all respects.

Is this a Socialist move? Yes, I believe

Re:Is the End of Internet Liberty Coming Soon?

[king neckbeard]

And that's the thing. Nobody ever runs openly as a corporatist, and yet we're overrun by them.

Re:If you think a note to the white house matters.

[JockTroll]

There's a lot we can do, but it calls for harsh direct action against the industry mob.

getting pretty close to Tree-of-Liberty time

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of bullshit is not going to stop. It's going to get worse for the rest of our lives. Eventually, they will push it too far and all of these assholes are going to wake up with a rope around their neck and discover themselves dangling from the nearest tree. ACTA is a great symbol for everything that's wrong with this world, and exterminating every one of the parasites who is participating in it would definitely make the world a better place.

In the meantime, we get to watch as they chip away at our civil liberties and systematically corrupt and dismantle one of the best innovations the human race has come up with -- a giant network for the free exchange of information. Aren't we lucky, those of us who witnessed its creation and over the next 15 to 20 years are most probably going to witness its downfall too.

Re:getting pretty close to Tree-of-Liberty time

[Findeton]

In my opinion, not everything is your fault. 70% of the votes are casted on voting machines, which are again and again proved prone to be manipulated. Yes, I'm saying that it's very possible elections are rigged. The first thing you should do is going back to counting votes with your hands.

Re:If you break this lock I will destroy you in co

[freaker_TuC]

# if (locked) {
enter();
# }

I swear; All I did was comment code ..

The US is _designed_ as a socialist country

[IBitOBear]

Remember for a moment that the word "socialist" wasn't coined until the early 1900's, but the ideas underlying the concept had been around for many, many years prior.

The preamble of our constitution includes "promote the general welfare" rather prominently. Now in that usage, that is as that word was used before The New Deal, means health care and care for the less fortunate.

Before you launch into the talking-point versus talking point debate, it would be nice to see everybody read up.

Please take a moment to really internalize these words:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

"Posterity" not "citizenry"; Justice, Tranquility, Defense, Welfare, and Liberty. These are pretty lofty goals, and oddly enough, socialist to the very last.

Yes there is, it is called revolution

[SmallFurryCreature]

Our freedoms were won by blood and by sword. It doesn't say anywhere we do not have continue to fight for them. And if words no longer work then bullets have to take over.

Save democracy, kill a politician.

Mind you, the politicians know this and so make sure the rabble get their bread and circusses while Rome burns.

History has seen the same story repeat countless times and will no doubt continue to do so.

The current situation in the western nation has arisen because the parties have reached a balance point were no politician can actually get anything done any more. Holland is in death lock after its election made the largest party have fewer votes then the number of people who didn't vote and a three party coalition being the absolute minimum with a FIVE party coalition being considered.

Belgium? Falling apart at the seems, it no longer is a question of IF the republic will seperate but when.

England? Bankrupt and the voter just has no idea who to vote for. The party of sleaze, the new party of sleaze or the liberals who are to small to sleaze properly for now. As a Hignfy presenter put it, Labour and the Conservatives agreed to pay back millions in donations and the liberal supporter got his book token back.

The US? Obama won? Bush won? Hardly. Both "victories" are well in the margin of counting errors and even then you are NOT counting the voters who didn't vote. The US is deadlocked, democrats block republikans and vice versa. And NO dear US citizen, this is a NOT a healthy system of checks and balances anymore. This has become a situation in which absolutely NOTHING can be done.

Democracy has its limits, for instance a referendum about which side to drive on would be very democratic but how are you going to deal with a vote to drive on the other side? Democracy also asks of the loser to accept that they lost and let the winner do their thing. Opposition is one thing, blocking everything is another. Yes, it is the job of the opposition but it creates a system were EVERYTHING is opposed.

Ultimately this leads to back room deals because that is the only way to reach agreement on anything, but those backroom deals soon spread until you get ACTA. One giant backroom deal just so that none of the people involved have to deal with those messy election processes were you can never get a clear YES or even a NO.

The EU constitution was the same. Backroom dealers convinced they did it for the best but had to conveniently ignore public opinion and so argued that the public just didn't understand the issue.

But there is a solution to this. When the ruling elite becomes to detached and start talking about eating cake, then it is time to chop of some heads. It is remarkably effective. But of course, who is going to be in the front line as an unarmed protestor storming the bastille? Not me, Idols is on and I got a 300 dollar tax rebate. Bread and circusses.

Re:Yes there is, it is called revolution

[mario_grgic]

I think the real problem is that stupid people have an opinion too. It can be wrong, but it doesn't matter, it's still an opinion and it counts. So, as a consequence getting any kind of consensus is impossible. All you have to do is have a media campaign to dilute the issue and divide the public opinion and there you go, another rebellion prevented.

I think so

[NickFortune]

A non-trivial number seem to think that any copyright is a bad thing, that it hurts the economy, etc

Of course, a non trivial number also seem to think that more copyright is always better, too.

There is some pretty good evidence to indicate that's not the case, but they aren't interested

I'm interested. If nothing else, I'm interested in what you'd consider "evidence" without a parallel universe to use as a control sample.

They have an all or nothing stance on it. As such, this treaty is automatically and "obviously" a bad thing to them, since it increases copyright.

Of course it is also possible to be of the opinion that copyright laws are currently too strong without necessarily being a deluded extremist. So you can make an entirely rational case that the ACTA is a bad thing in so far as it works solely to strengthen copyright provisions that many feel are already over strong.

So this is the kind of thing I like to see. Some real analysis to determine what benefits and costs it has

Why don't you start? What's this evidence you mention?

When you think something is obvious, especially something complex (as any new law is) ask yourself: Is it really, truly obvious, which would mean that nearly everyone should see it, or do I think it is obvious because of my biases?

So what, then? We should all sit tight and wait for someone in authority to tell us what everyone thinks? I can see problems with that approach, personally.

I should also add that I'd find your call for objective self-examination a lot more convicing were it addressed to both sides of the debate. Otherwise, it seems as though you don't think the copyright maximalists need to examine their preconceptions. Perhaps your own biases are showing here?

Re:I think so

[Danse]

What it boils down to is that ACTA is being lobbied for and crafted by the copyright industry, who have a direct financial incentive to extend and expand copyright restrictions as much as possible. They should bear the burden of proving that such extension and expansion serves the public interest rather than just their own financial interests. Aside from some laughably bad "studies" showing ridiculous figures for damages caused by copyright infringement, what have they produced in the way of evidence to support their case? Nothing that I've seen. There have been quite a few thoughtful analyses of copyright law that have determined that more is not better, and that shorter terms would result in more innovation rather than less, and that's just the financial argument. It doesn't even get into the questions of constitutionality or natural rights.

Re:I think so

[NickFortune]

You know, I think the parent was simply attempting to get the 'dotters to examine their own self-justification in their hatred of ACTA

Always presupposing that it is self-justification, of course which has yet to be established. I'm sure you meant to say that.

As for the GP, his post struck me as being quite baldly manipulative, framing itself as an even handed appeal for balanced judgement, whilst being utterly partisan, and quite one sided in its analysis. I mean we have:

• The straw-man framing of the ACTA critics as extremists, opposed to any copyright at all
• We have "evidence" aluded to but not cited, on the one hand, whilst simultaneously demanding a detailed cost/benefit breakdown from the other side.
• Accusations of bias, leveled at one side of the debate, only.

We do it all the time because, quite frankly, we are smug, intelligent, self-assured folk that have successfully surrounded ourselves with like-minded individuals in this medium (nerds and such).

... and there's also trying to trying to gain rapport by identifying yourself with a side of the debate that you don't especially seem to support.

However, as soon as a story comes up about increasing the scope of copyright law, our knee-jerk reaction is something along the lines of, "WTF?! It already sucks as it is! Can't everyone else see that?!"

ACTA is hardly a knee jerk reaction, however. It's been quite robustly debated on a number of occasions. I've yet to hear any persuasive points made in its favour. And the best I've heard from yourself and the GP boils down to "you're not really qualified to hold that opinion" which I reject.

Well, the answer is, apparently, "No."

Because if there wasn't some disagreement on the subject, we'd hardly be debating it. But the simple existence of differing viewpoints is hardly an argument for one side or another.

Hell, there are quite a few people who consider copyright infringement to be on the exact scale of morality as physical theft. (And if you don't believe that, go down to your local farmer's market/community center sometime and try debating it with some non-tech oriented folks. They will look at you like you just ate a baby).

I'll tell you what: you go tell one of them how his fourteen year old daughter who spent all last night downloading music is a criminal and has caused thousands of dollars of damage. Report back when you're done. I'll wait :)

So in other words, I don't think lashing out at the parent is really in the best interest of discussion

What I don't think is in the best interest of the discussion is trying to tell people "you guys aren't really smart enough to make that judgement - wait for someone to tell you what everyone else thinks and then agree".. And if you think this was lashing out, you've clearly not spent much time around here. Or on the Internet for that matter.

I don't see a reason to pick apart his post and try to paint him as some sort of biased shill.

I picked the post apart because I found things too pick apart. If there's any specific thing I said that you think is unfair, perhaps you might point it out and explain why, rather than simply painting me as some mean old kicker of puppies.

The parent isn't trying to make the case that ACTA, or harsher copyright, is a good thing. He is just saying that he likes to see people spending their time actually doing research and analysis on this topic

I read it as "doubt yourselves - but only if you think the ACTA is bad". But you know, if he's keen on research, perhaps he'll set the ball rolling the evidence alluded to in his post.