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Why Google, Bing, Yahoo Should Fear ACTA
littlekorea writes "US intellectual property law expert Jonathan Band has warned that Silicon Valley's search engines, hosting companies, and e-commerce giants have much to fear from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, negotiations for which continued in Switzerland today. The fear for search engines in particular is the erosion of 'fair use' protections and introduction of statutory damages, both of which could lead to more copyright claims from rights holders." The article links a marked-up ACTA draft (PDF) that Band and a coalition of library organizations and rights groups believe is more balanced. Quoting Band: "Our high-level concern is that ACTA does not reflect the balance in US IP law, [which] contains strong protections and strong exceptions. ACTA exports only the strong protections, but not the strong exceptions."
The war on filesharing is untimely.(Bad economics)
Because they'd rather you not listen to their music at all than let you download it.
This is about information control, and controlling who can and cannot be happy. It's also about profit margins. But the truth is most college students and recent college grads aren't going to spend more than a specific amount of money every year on entertainment no matter what they do. They can pass any laws they want and it's not going to improve the job market. They should be finding a way to make money on ad revenue but instead they want to keep the old models even when the economy doesn't support it.
Because they'd rather lock you up than hire you or give you a raise.
If a college student budgets $200 to spend on movies and music for that year thats what he or she is going to spend. He or she can spend it all on one concert or buy albums and movies on itunes but the limit is not going to change no matter what laws they pass. As the economy is getting worse they keep upping the price of the music on itunes so that young people can afford less and less of it, while at the same time complaining that sales are down. They cannot have it both ways, and they have to compromise just like everyone else has been forced to do in this economy.
If they think passing ACTA is a good idea it's not. It's not going to make someone friendly to your business if you sue them. This goes for corporations like Google or for individuals. And the 3 strikes policy is completely unacceptable, ruin a persons livelihood because they downloaded some music they couldn't afford or didn't want to risk paying for? Find another strategy, not wait until an economic depression to crack down hard on all the poor jobless undergrads and recent grads unless they really want to make the the situation worse and make people desperate.
If sales figures are down it's because we have less disposable income. If people aren't buying music, movies or art it's because they are paying their bills. Find a way to expand the market, is that even up for debate? And before anyone comments, I own several copyrights and these people backing ACTA do not represent me.
...so why can't google?
Oh rite...they can afford the lawyers.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
so ACTA will kill the internet? so any thing can be claimed to be taking some ones ip?
I clam the IP rights to the letter E will want a fee of $0.01 per use!
lawmakers and everyday people live in different worlds. what they refuse to understand is that if people can get something for free, they will get it for free. period.
another important issue is that it's very dangerous to try to forbid something that you can't actually stop. that's when you lose all authority.
offtopic: http://xkcd.com/137/ . we shouldn't be afraid to say the truth about what we want.
new sig
I claim the COPYrights to the letter E will take a fee of $0.01 per use!
Bing and Yahoo? Yes. Google? No. Google has excellent tie-ups with cronies in high-levels.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
Anyone else wonder how long these companies can go before they ruin the 'wrong' life. You know, sue into oblivion that guy that is willing to take his collection of rifles and 'extract his payments' using his own judicial system?
I mean, the tax code caused a guy to fly his plane into the IRS station, and as I understand it, that guy wasn't even financially ruined. The problem with a corrupt system is that once people see how corrupt it is, they realize that to get justice they need to do it their own way.
This seems to be the cycle: system goes corrupt, people realize system is corrupt, people enact a revolution, people ensure system cannot go corrupt, system overrides protections, system goes corrupt.
you must pay $0.05 or get shut off!
Below is the text from a Q&A session with ACTA negotiators held on June 28, 2010 in Lucerne. These were notes taken by hand by the questioner, and the answers were considered "on the record." I have highlighted some important parts, and omitted some irrelevant parts.
On June 28, 2010, at 7:30pm Swiss time, a group of civil society representatives met with 21 ACTA negotiators. The negotiators included representatives (21 in all) from the Switzerland, France, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Japan, U.S., Morocco, Canada and Korea.
...
The questions raised were given to the negotiators in advance and the answers were represented as those of the collective views of the negotiators rather than of an individual negotiator unless otherwise indicated. Unless otherwise indicated, the speaker is the chair of the Swiss Delegation who was appointed to speak for the group.
There are a couple news items here. First, there is an “emerging consensus” to take patents out of the border measure chapter, but not out of the rest of the agreement. Some parties appear to desire to take patents out of the whole text. The EU appears to be in favor of leaving patents in the civil chapter. The change appears to be a rather direct result of concerns raised by access to medicines advocates.
There are still major concerns on access to medicines and free flow of goods in the border chapter. Negotiators seem committed to requiring in transit seizure and it is possible (although there seems some division) that it will include common trademark infringements and non-commercial scale copyright infringement, thus reaching far beyond TRIPS standards.
There was an admission that countries may have to change their laws to comply with ACTA. That may not be real news, but I have not heard it admitted by a delegate before. But the EU continued to press that they will not change their laws.
There seemed to be little desire to remove or narrow considerably the internet chapter. There was a desire by some delegates to ensure that DMCA-like protections are in the ACTA internet chapter. But several discussed (off line) the desire to combat “file sharing,” even apparently when not done on a commercial scale.
Meeting with ACTA negotiators, Lucerne, 28.06.2010; Compiled questions from the civil society for the Q&A session
1. Will negotiators commit to continue releasing the text of the Agreement following completion of this week's negotiating round and subsequently until the completion (or abandonment) of negotiations?
A: This is a question that the delegation takes up at end of each round. This will be a question to be discussed and agreed by consensus.
On issue of public comments, this is a plurilateral process and each country will have to take that into account. It is not as if the ACTA group is a formal organization. For a pluralateral agreement, we have promoted a great deal of transparency already – more than in other agreements.
Q. Wait. In other processes – e.g. anything done at WIPO or the example of the Doha declaration – civil society got access to text before and after each round. That has not been the case here. We received text once, after years of negotiations and close to what you declared to be the end point of the discussions.
A. Those are multilateral negotiations. This is a plurilateral negotiation. We do not have a secretariat to assist with such matters. This has been an extremely transparent process.
2. Are negotiators reviewing the text of the Agreement to ensure it is fully consistent with the WTO TRIPS Agreement? Will the WTO or other independent legal experts be asked to review the text of the Agreement to ensure it is legally consistent with WTO rules? Will you provide clear and objective information regarding the evidence base upon which ACTA is purportedly justified, as
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
how bad will the junk patent flood be under ACTA.
Any one can patent basic stuff and use ACTA to shut and lock down just about anything.
ACTA is an end run around the legislative process. Treaties like this should ratify what is already the the consensus of the legislative bodies of the participating countries, not try to legislate entirely new bodies of law by subterfuge, on a take it or be considered an international pariah basis. Unelected international bureaucrats have no business deciding what that consensus should be.
This is getting completely out of hand.
Copyright proponents are clearly living in a dream world if they think ACTA or suing/arresting people for downloading files is going to improve their business or profits. Here are my reasons for continually violating copyright laws, for anyone who cares to read them:
1. Copying a file is not theft. I do not deprive the original owner of the property which I am taking, therefore nothing is lost, therefore there is no crime. If somehow downloading a file made it disappear from the host machine, I could see theft being a valid argument.
2. Prices are going far beyond the worth of the materials they are asking me to pay for. Value should be computed based on what people are willing to pay for a particular item. By this logic, if trends are any indication, digital music and video files should be free or nearly free.
3. The proceeds from sales of these items does NOT go to the people who produce it. Instead, there is a cartel of corporations with no real product to speak of who collect a majority of the money paid for these items, just to police and enforce future payments on the items. This sounds ludicrous to me and I don't understand why it's allowed to continue.
4. It is often easier to get and use products illegally for free than it would be to purchase them legally, even if I was inclined to pay for them. The Pirate Bay is much easier to use than the Adobe store. It's easier to use than iTunes as well, and I don't risk the exposure of my personal information either.
5. The supposed value of these items is far beyond what I am capable of paying for them. I do not have $700 to spend on the CS4 Master Collection, nor $7000 to spend on Maya 2010. I am a poor college student, and suing me for downloading music isn't going to help me afford paying for it in the future.
6. The tactics used to police copyright are nothing less than bullying. The corporations with executives making tens of millions of dollars a year suing housewives and college students does not sit well with me, and therefore I will do everything in my power to defy these people and cause them problems.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Are what secret negotiations over treaties that will obligate us to write laws in concert with the treaty. There was some fuss about something like that once somewhere.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
ACTA highlights the fundamental problem with politics (in the U.S.) today.
You've got intellectual property interests driving a legislative bonanza for Intellectual Property holders that, on its face is totally offensive to commerce. These vested interests are the lever driving their interests forward. In response, you get a compromise, (from the librarian group) which acts like a pawl, restraining the ACTA juggernaut, but still the ACTA juggernaut scores a a major win. This process is simply repeated. After ACTA will be another more restrictive set of legislation and the moderate political forces will restrain it, but there will be another big win. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Every time you think, "It can't get worse than this." Think again. Because that's how the Ratchet Effect works. They have to drive the most extreme legislation forward so they get a compromise that resembles exactly what they wanted. If the issue dies, just try again.
And few look around and ask, "how did we get here?" Instead, another economic bonanza is in the legislation queue like so many airplanes waiting for Congress' moderation and approval to further constrain economic activity. The proper response is, "ACTA is harmful to the economy. Here is legislation that eliminates restraints on intellectual property/copyright." The fundamental political failure is the lack of an Anti-ACTA, or Anti-DMCA. This is where the voter has gone wrong. Demand an Anti-Acta and Anti-DMCA is just one way to get the process more balanced.
I didn't make up the term "The Ratchet Effect." This story is an excellent example.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I would think a majority can use a spreadsheet and know about http://www.gnucash.org/ and I guess if they didn't they know now.
Those kids who are in debt now are going to be in debt for a long long.. js.
It's not a matter of if they are capable of controlling happiness. Thats their way of expressing dominance. It's not entirely about profits, because if it were they would take profits even at a loss of control which they don't and wont ever do.
IP rights holders want control of entertainment. They do not want free or cheap entertainment to exist. You have some of them trying to ban radio because people might record from it. Of course it doesn't work but if the world worked the way their model proposes it should, if you don't have the money then you wouldn't be able to listen to music, watch movies, or play electronic games.
Fortunately there is the creative commons, the copyleft strategy. No I don't think economic control is the same thing as profitability. Microsoft wants economic control and information dominance. Google wants profits and will let you do whatever with information as long as they get to organize it and they make their money by eyeballs.
It's not an easy point to understand because it's about power not profits.
A problem with copyright law is that it appears to no longer protect individuals as much as it protects large corporations. I'd wager a lot of the money to promote copyright extension and enforcement is coming from places like Sony, who have much to gain.
We live in a democracy right? So I say let's make a public vote and see what happens.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if the search engines would respond to overzealous takedowns with "ok, if you don't want to be on the net, we'll remove *all* references to you".
Replace "download" by "listen on the radio". Do you know of anyone who opted for not buying an album because the songs were available on the radio?
Music sales have always been like that. People get most of it free, then they buy one particular album because they like it specially much, or to give as a gift. I have a few albums I bought mostly for the enclosed poster when I was a teen.
The big failure of the media industry is in insisting on changing their old business model that worked so well for decades. My grandparents already got music for free on the radio and films for free on the TV, why should I start now paying every time I listen to a music or watch a film?
both of which could lead to more copyright claims from rights holders."
Copyright is not an "inalienable right". Therefore, these people aren't "rights holders" unless we, the people, grant them these additional rights.
Simple...
if a web site does not have a robots.txt file in their web site root, do not include them in your search engine database (expunge them from your db if robots.txt disappears from a site when you re-index them).
if a web site has robots.txt follow the instructions in it as this is implied consent from the web site owner on what they do and do not want cataloged in search engines.
end of story.
FEAR ME NOW
aint gonna pass
cept maybe usa so how can one country have a treaty with itself....
USA USA
LOL
I imagine after large numbers of the population lose access to the internet people might revolt. Of course, 1% of us are in prison right now, mostly on drug crimes. So maybe we'll just sit by and let it happens. Who knows?
The patent troll landscape was bad enough when it was limited to the USPTO.
So with ACTA, I not only have to worried about being screwed in Texas by an American patent troll, but also that American courts will enforce trollish patents from China, India, Japan, Russia, Brazil.. etc? :facepalm:
Will they at least respect American prior art?
What do you mean "prior art doesn't exist in ACTA"? :facepalm:
in the days before the internet, we would simply borrow an audio/video tape and copy it for personal use. (ofc there are always idiots trying to make a profit with counterfeit stuff)
today, the good old double tape deck has been replaced by a simple copy, GET or POST command (even less effort and no copy station/blank media needed).
the reason why is that there's no significant advantage spending unreasonable amounts of money on entertainment 'data'. sure, quality (CD vs mp3, DVD vs divx) may be a reason but those cheap plastic discs aren't built to last forever and you most likely end up listening to your music on your mp3 player anyway.
besides, there will always be ppl that can't justify paying money for something they listen to/watch a couple of times and then never again thus they don't mind the lesser quality (or simply can't afford all the products commercials claim you need to buy). this is not going to change, ever.
bottom line, when consumers aren't happy with a product (price/quality) they will seek alternatives.
so the industry should see the scene as their competition - not their arch enemy - and try to find ways to make their products more attractive. and I'm not referring to more ads and commercials.
with all the whining by the industry one could actually think they're close to bankruptcy (which isn't even remotely true).
those poor guys are only making x billions a year instead of x + x/10. anyway, what would they do with the additional money? more advertisement ofc.
stupid planet; i want to move to Risa...
We need you to become lawmakers and change the laws - time is running out.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating