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MPAA Asks If ACTA Can Be Used To Block Wikileaks
An anonymous reader writes "With the entertainment industry already getting laws to block certain sites, it appears they're interested in expanding that even further. The latest is that at a meeting with ACTA negotiators in Mexico, an MPAA representative apparently asked if ACTA rules could be used to force ISPs to block 'dangerous sites' like Wikileaks. It makes you wonder why the MPAA wants to censor Wikileaks (and why it wants to use ACTA to do so). But, the guess is that if it can use Wikileaks as a proxy for including rules to block websites, how long will it be until other 'dangerous' sites, such as Torrent search engines, are included." Note: TechDirt typically has insightful commentary, but make of the original (Spanish) twiiter message what you will.
Did they ask if it could be blocked because they wanted to, or because they think it could mean backslash for using ACTA as a censor tool instead of enforcing copyrights?
Then maybe freenet will be able to takeoff ?
Did they ask if it could be blocked because they wanted to, or because they think it could mean backslash for using ACTA as a censor tool instead of enforcing copyrights?
I'd imagine the MPAA and government have similar interests in forcing ISPs to block certain websites. The MPAA is probably making a calculated move to suggest they would be the watchdog going after Wikileaks if such a censorship method could also be used to protect their copyrights.
Frankly, it looks like they're trying to show to the government that they have aligned interests. As the TechDirt article notes, the MPAA could merge The Pirate Bay with Wikileaks in the eyes of the government and then from there it's guilt by association. Personally I think this is the MPAA fishing for how extensive they can make ACTA by appealing to the United States government's emotions. Think back to the DMCA and Patriot Acts and how following their passage into law we all sat around scratching our heads wondering WTF was going on with some of the prosecution that was falling under those acts. Wouldn't be surprised if the MPAA ran a campaign saying that passing ACTA into law worldwide will stop terrorists, child porn, small arms traders, drugs, wildfires, Satan, etc.
I'm guessing the MPAA would love to prosecute cases of copyright infringement under the same law (and maybe even penalties) as cases of threats to national security.
My work here is dung.
Why the fuck do THEY care? They don't have enough enemies as it is?
This is a dangerous path to follow because the MPAA would have strong backers for something like this, like the US government. Torrent search engines would be small potatoes, how about people/websites that show what your doing is wrong? Again, like WikiLeaks, but others like the EFF? Don't like that they show your dirty little secrets? Just use the ACTA on them and claim something like "they were using illegal software".
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Ever notice how governments actively seek to forbid citizens from actually -using- their rights? Sure, lets give them freedom of speech. What!? People are critical of the government?! How dare they not use our freedoms to only spread their love of big brother! Lets pass the Alien and Sedition Acts/McCarthyism/ACTA/etc. to stop them from using their freedom! After all, who in a free country would speak out against their government, its like people think the constitution is to protect people who dissent against the majority opinion or something!
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I mentioned the Slippery Slope argument's applicability to this recent slashdot article. The current article is a prime example, and that is all I have to say.
How about giving the MPAA a front-seat at any piggy-banquet for "protecting american soldiers" (not to mention the political acceptance they'd gain from it).
Link to a blog which links to another blog which links to a twitter post:
Pide MPAA en junta de #ACTA que en mexico sea posible cortar acceso/pais a sitios "tan dañinos" como wikileaks. Neto: WTF!
Amazing what's become of journalism in the era of blogging.
Anyway, it sounds like a good tactic on the part of the MPAA as they're trying to sell ACTA to various governments.
"Hey, if you pass ACTA, you may be able to use it to block Wikileaks too!"
you better shutup and mind ur own damn bidness or 4chan and Anonymous will come after you again
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I can think of at least two reasons:
1) Wikileaks has leaked details of draft ACTA proposals, and these have somewhat politically embarassing to the politicians who are doing MAFIAA's work.
2) MAFIAA hates it when people singing songs with lyrics like "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" and they really hate that funky sequel that begins with "6692d179032205".
The MPAA (probably) isn't asking about WikiLeaks for its own interest -- it's asking because it wants the US government on board, and the US government is far more concerned about WikiLeaks than movie pirates.
This is a lesson to all you slashdotters about how to lobby - convince people that you have the solution to their problem. (If it solves your problem, great!)
This isn't so much a move against Wikileaks as a sharing site like TPB, but instead a move against anyone who might expose the collusion between **AA and their government lackeys.
That Wikileaks might reveal things like ACTA ahead of time, allowing users to mobilize support against them, makes Wikileaks very "dangerous" to the **AA's goal of complete control.
We can add some functionalities to Web Of Trust to allow more ratings for websites, by more groups, and allow users to configure their ratings-sources and weights for them. WikiLeaks can be categorized by the mpaa however they wish. And the mpaa can get rated by people as whatever they wish too - for example an unreasonable and unpopular censoship body.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
The thing that irks me the most, isn't the fact that the government wants a more powerful trade agreement. It isn't the fact that this trade agreement would be adopted by most every other first world country. It also isn't the fact that the U.S. government wants to keep it classified due to "national security" reasons. No, it's because our government keeps it classified from its citizens _and_ invites the MPAA in on the deal, or did the MPAA invite them? I don't even know anymore.
How about just requiring that any ISP that takes public funds or uses public land must not engage in any sort of filtering or traffic redirection?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
ACTA was rejected by EU - it is effectively dead.
The MPAA just missed the memo.
Who decides what is "dangerous"? That's the issue that I have. BluRay master keys are not dangerous, they are just inconvenient for a tiny group of people.
The only reason they are asking about WikiLeaks is because it's the current website that's "okay to hate/censor". Once they get approval for WikiLeaks, they'll move to other sites that actually target THEIR industry.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
ledgers and might just dump those as well.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The TFA provided links to the twitter account it seems. Are there any other sources? I mean I do not trust anyone that does not speak American.
However if this is true, I say we build more pipelines so it is harder for them to enforce.
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
In 1557 the British Crown chartered the Stationers' Company and gave the company a publishing monopoly in order to stem the flow of seditious and heretical books.
This publishing monopoly lasted for more than 150 years.
After revolution, publishing monopolies were first abolished then limited to 14 years with the Statute of Anne.
The founding USA adopted the 14 year rule.
However, due to pressure from large companies in the US, the monopoly has been continually extended, and is now 95-120 years.
The media associations relationship to the Internet is very similar to the Stationers relationship to the printing press.
I would like to point out that ACTA cannot be used for anything. ACTA requires enabling legislation. After it is ratified, and it will be, it requires, like all treaties, member nations to adjust their laws to implement it's provisions. Ergo, it if congress passes a law (and we know how poor congress is at that) which would either allow or force courts to sanction service providers for not censoring the site, or to do the same to individuals who access it, then yes. However, based on my (admittedly cursory) reading of the latest leaked version, there is nothing which would mandate such an action (or sanction it). And even if there was, the only type of rules a ratified treaty does not supersede is the Constitution, and SCOTUS, despite its currently right-leaning majority, would probably be reluctant to sanction such an exception to the First Amendment. That said, Congress, beholden to the IA's and other businesses as its members are, will almost certainly pass some draconian, unconstitutional implementing legislation, which will undoubtedly be oppressively enforced until the most inexcusably draconian measures are struck down, leaving behind an otherwise intolerably authoritarian remnant, ultimately accepted, sadly, because it will seem better than the original. Before you know it, the idiotic masses will accept their shrunken rights with gratitude. See perceptual contrast.
It's high time the citizens of the U.S. work to dissolve the Motion Picture Association of America. This is an organization that actively works against the best interest of all Americans. It must be destroyed. The freedom and liberty of all Americans -- even much of the world -- is under attack by this organization.
END THE MPAA
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
This is a stupid move by the MPAA for many reasons but, primarily among them, I would imagine this will put it firmly on the radar of the Wikileaks team who might decide that some MPAA laundry needs airing and, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that 1) there is plenty of MPAA laundry and 2) it would be highly embarrassing if it was to be aired.
Only fools pick fights that they are ill-equipped to handle and the MPAA are fools. Rich fools, but fools none-the-less.
According to MPAA/RIAA logic, downloading stuff for free rather than paying for it destroys that industry. So ACTA stops or restricts free downloading, child pornography will become a rampant industry, and nobody wants that.
If we stop ACTA, we stop child pornography. It's as simple as that.
Next up, MPAA will seek the blocking of dangerous sites that speak up for copyright reform... then it'll be websites that talk about movies in a fashion that hasn't been pre-approved by the MPAA...
It's a slippery slope when free speech is censored.
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
> TechDirt typically has insightful commentary
I don't know what site you think you're talking about Timmeh, but TechDirt isn't it.
Call me a foil hat wearing lunatic but I say at this point we've seen more than enough evidence of close cooperation between the American government and America's large industries to call it a budding facism.
Consider: Pluralism has been steadily weakening as congress and the presidents sign law after law giving and allowing the president to take unprecedented power. The courts already lack any real ability to stop this trend.
New laws have made everyone a criminal. Those against whom the government chooses to enforce these laws are being imprisoned and harassed. It's no longer possible to be a law abiding citizen in America -- only on the ruling powers' good side or not. Police all over the US have an "us against them" mindset that has led to countless abuses to the extent that a police uniform is no longer a comforting site even for those who obey the law. It's now illegal in several states to even record these abuses and Americans everywhere are shutting up and keeping their heads down.
If these dangerous trends are not stopped the US will be a fascist police state very soon.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
I think that ACTA is now a dead letter.
I hope the motherfucking shitheads at the MPAA and RIAA get raped by rabid bears with spiked cocks. Fucking cunts.
While I mostly agree with you, I think you lay the blame at the wrong feet.
The UN itself has done no such thing. The ones defrauding the US public of their constitutionally guaranteed rights are the elected representatives in the US government, and by extension their financial masters (a.k.a. "donors"), using the UN and other international groups as cover to get what they want. Though given the state of voting in the US (black-box hackable e-voting machines, gerrymandering, overly large constituencies, etc. etc.), the term "elected" might not hold much meaning here.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
makes it only accessible to dangerous and motivated people. (My own truthiness).
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
The free being, corporations of course. this is where unbridled capitalism ends up. nowhere else.
Read radical news here
We can fight on the political side to keep the net free and we can fight on the social side as well. But the chances are that we will need to make regulation either impossible or so expensive that downloading and communications simply can not be blocked. We need programs that can seek the materials that interest us and encrypt them and then send them through anonymous servers. If this is done right it should be next to impossible for a third party to determine what went over the net and who sent and received whatever the item was. If it is expensive enough and difficult enough to penetrate then information will flow freely.
Wanting to stop free speech/freedom of information and suing children/computer illiterates/grandparents without internet/the dead for copying movies. All from one group. It is like they have the copyright on being evil dickheads. I mean, I thought they were greedy pricks before. But with this bit of news it pushes them into 'fucking evil' territory.
But here is the possible up side. The MPAA have been around since 1922. And by my calculations that means that their copyright on evil will run out by around 2200. At which point mad rioters can burn down all the CEO's homes slaughter them like pigs and give them as a blood offering to Satan.
So at least there is something to look forward to.
END THE MPAA
The MAFIAA cannot be put down so easily. There's one thing you have to understand about shutting down a central organization: successors tend to pop up. Napster is dead; long live Kazaa. EDonkey is dead; long live TPB. Likewise, dissolve the Motion Picture Association of America and the major movie studios will just found the American Film Industry Organization.
Free is good.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Move along now; nothing to see here.
If they block the Wikileaks site then some volunteer will post the information on 4chan and then they'd have to block that, and a whole bunch of other sites because volunteers can basically post the information to random websites. This is a complete and utter waste of time.
All they'd have to do is post the information to random sites, forums, 4chan, chatrooms, via a webcrawler botnet.
And it doesn't even have to be that sophisticated, a volunteer could post it or email it directly to certain people who could post it on their blogs or on their facebooks or their twitter.
We know from DMCA that radical new sorta-copyright-related laws will be abused for things far outside the scope of copyright (e.g. preventing the sale of Lexmark-printer compatible cartridges) but that's us. We get that; the mainstream doesn't. (And no, that doesn't mean we're smart; we've just been here before. Our mystical prescience is merely memory of the 1990s.)
It's surprising that MPAA is already talking about using ACTA for political censorship. Doing that is something you do after it's ratified, not before, unless you're truly just 0% unafraid of the Senators voting No to appease their mainstream constituents. I actually do believe the American public doesn't really think the Bill of Rights is based on good ideas and we don't really support them, yet on the other hand we really do try to pay lip service to them and at least pretend that we want free speech. (What can I say? We're a very conflicted and confused people.) No serious candidate in America ever comes out and says, "Fuck America" or "we need more political censorship." But you can't have people excitedly talking about the wonderful political censorship possibilities that a new treaty will give to governments, have Senators approve the treaty, without "Fuck America" being very strongly implied, in a way that even slackjawed MSNBC/Fox viewers won't at least perceive subconsciously.
This MPAA guy really shout have shut his mouth until after it was ratified, or at least kept his comment out of the public eye.
TechDirt typically has insightful commentary,
Unlike Timothy's posts, then.
By painting all libertarians with a wide brush, by declaring them to be fanatics devoted to the elimination of government acts to marginalize and to keep the status quo in power. That would be no different than painting all democrats as evil socialists hell bent on having the government control every aspect of the economy. Might be true of some of the loud ones, but isn't true of most.
Like any other group it is composed of varied individuals. There are hard core extremists that want to nearly completely (or sometimes completely) eliminate the federal government but there are others that just want to reign it in a bit. They recognize that big government has some problems and thus you don't want it getting too big. You might say they want it as small as practical. Not eliminated, not gutted, just scaled back in some areas.
Part of making our government better is to first stop fighting amongst ourselves so much over silly issues. Part of the reason political parties can get away with so much is the people who identify hard core with a party and believe all the others to be evil. They paint The Other Guys(tm) with a broad brush and thus denounce them without ever listening.
There are some real good parts to the libertarian ideals. It is a bad idea if over applied, but then so are nearly all ideas. However fundamentally the idea of scaling the government back some isn't a bad thing.
I'm sure things like copy protection codes are well within the remit of wikileaks.
Joe Biden is bought and paid for by the media industry. While technically the VP does nothing than preside over the senate, you are kidding yourself if you don't think the president listens to his advice.
Wouldn't this be a bad idea for the viability of ACTA in the US? It would seem to me to be a pretty cut and dry violation of the 1st Amendment? Granted a fool judge might not see it that way, however I think it is more likely than not that the US federal courts would strike down such a provision and possibly the entire treaty. Surely someone would point out to them that they have to be careful not to ask for too much or else they will lose everything.
Ah, but then again, it is perfectly possible that they are too arrogant to see things that way.
Nope, that is exactly the libertarians today. They want government OUT of rich people's business and businesses' affairs. You even said so earlier: no protection for minorities, no universal healthcare, etc.
Especially and obviously in healthcare, the libertarian ideals are "eat shit and die, I've got mine, fuckers!". Genuinely want people dying because they are poor and infecting others just because companies demand bigger profits on their drugs.
Funnily enough, you're right in that these "libertarians" do not want government out of contract law, copyrights, patents etc. Or, indeed homeland defence (richest people of all). And when they find there's a riot on, boy do they want the police...
And to spycraft-fu, it's no more a wide brush to paint libertarians like this than it is to say that government is wrong like the libertarians here are doing.
Building on the (slightly modified) epic works of the Backstreet Boys:
We don't care who they are
Where they're from
What they do
As long as we LET them.
I as a computer expert always had the idea to go selling CPU's But then it occured to me could reverse engineer my designs and sell computers them self based on my design.
With this in mind i started selling computers that are completely encased in a fireproof and tamper proof safe, so they could not see the design of my computers, and all cases are locked to a place at the customer so they can use them only at designated locations that have locks available. I even throw in some free stickers "you would not steal your computer".
Now if i only find a cheap safe design. I looked at pirate bay, but nobody provides a good video how to create such a safe. Can you tell me how i download this "how to build a safe" video from the internets? I am willing to pay. My credit card number is ************ and my expiry date is **/**, or to you know a better way to pay?
EDITED11:36AM:/* credit card number erased in a edit by the anology police */
After careful analysis, I've concluded that it's in Spanish.
I thought I would make a lot of money selling my sexual services to women. Then it turns out you do it for FREE! STOP stealing the money out of my mouth!
And you are a car mechanic. How many inn's have you put out of business were people used to stop during coach travels to rest for the night?
The point (yes I got one) is that YOUR business plan is NOT sacred. Just because YOU think that the world is waiting for you deliver a service they will pay money for, doesn't mean the world is obliged to do this.
A simple example? A street performer. I can WATCH and NOT pay. There is no law, could be no law, that says you got to reward a street performer with money.
Sucks for street performers? Why yes, but that is life.
Yes, someone can pirate your video. So don't rely on video to make a living. Does that mean no more video's are produced? It might. So?
There are more more coaching inns, no more pony express. I can't get goal delivered. My dreams of a career as a gas-lamp lighter were cruelly dashed.
Why don't we have allows that force YOU to stop by EVERY new road-side diner. In fact lets ban home cooking to save the dreams of everyone who wants to own a restaurant?
This is very hard to grasp for some, the entire media industry for instance. But the world does NOT owe you a living of your choosing. Yes, that is mean. Suck it up. If it did, we would not just still be using lamp lighters, but have businesses unable to move because the local eatery depends on the business it generates. We would be forever stagnant for fear of someone somewhere loosing out.
You worked years on something without figuring out if your business plan was viable in the real world.
It is like you spent a million on a eatery beside a railroad station, without checking the plans for the closing of said railroad station.
Your business dream simply wasn't viable because others can copy the idea cheaply. It is all to common.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
When they end up "only" blocking TPB, the defense will be, "At least they're not blocking Wikileaks."
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
There's no updates on Wikileaks anyway these days. Used to be several per day. Now it's only been 2 updates since early last winter. They asked for massive amounts of donations, got it, and then it was silent again. The only two leaks has been the rather harmless CIA Red Cell pamphlet and the pretty useless Afghanistan log files. Then Assange flailed his dick in Sweden. Wikileaks has been dead for a year already. That's really sad, I had high hopes for the world at one point thanks to Wikileaks. I even offered to volunteer as development/tech guy. Now we're all back in teh suck again. I hope some more able people than Wikileaks will start a similar endeavor.
I've looked for certain bits of media online, specifically firearms-related references, how-to vids, and software, and not found them. All these things are distributed on DVD but they haven't, as far as I can find, been pirated. A few well-known examples are egregiously overpriced, too, which makes this state of affairs all the more curious.
I guess the viability of producing such content hinges on knowing your audience and their culture. Some audiences just don't pirate the same as others.
. . translation. . . I don't read Spanish, but this makes little sense. What good would it do to block Wikileaks to the US? I thought the goal was to keep this material out of the hands of the enemy. RN
some are community-centric:
( restrict as little as possible, so long as community remains healthy & non-threatened )
and some are self-centric:
( restrict as little as possible, so long as any individual does anything they want without being threatened by community/belonging/enforcement/anything )
The Problem(tm) is, .. and, and..! :) are able to accomplish autonomy/aware-self-determination that single-cell-type masses ( self-first, no/little cooperation/coordination ) can't possibly match.
that Nature has proven that multi-cellular organisms, with specialization/diversification AND cooperation in them ( think of your Liver! your Spleen!
Therefore, Nature's evidence is, that the community-centric paradigm is righter.
Humanity's in the equivalent situation:
either Me-First, but the selfishness slaughters the ecology/world from under humanity, extinguishing our great grand-children just as we extinguished so many species/ecologies, OR
Living-World-First, but then the individuals have to compromise as required, to minimise the ecological-cost of our living, so that continuing will be, and our great grand-children will be allowed by what's left, to live...
"Compromise AS REQUIRED", however DOESN'T mean enforced-obedient-compliance/conformity/enforced-belonging, however.
It means ... What It Means(tm) :P
(:
Ignorance is strength, keeping info about the US out of the US is keeping it out of the hands of the enemy, aka the public.
http://freenetproject.org/
I dunno, $20 for a book seems a bit steep to me. Maybe if he'd priced it so the whole thing came to around $5 or so (if memory serves, about the price of a paperback in 1999)?
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Now where did I do that? Quote it for me, becuase I can't see it anywhere in the above post, in fact I don't think I was really advocating anything.
All I can assume is you are pretending that I'm somebody else. What is it with the stupid style of argument of pre-emptively screaming "strawman" at somebody before you adopt the tactic yourself? It seems to be common now, is it something you catch from cocaine-addled radio shock jocks?