US Negotiators Cave On Internet Provisions To ACTA

Hugh Pickens writes "Ars Technica reports that with the release of the 'near-final' ACTA text (PDF), it is becoming clear that the US has caved on the most egregious provisions from earlier drafts (advocating 'three strikes' regimes, ordering ISPs to develop anti-piracy plans, promoting tough DRM anticircumvention language, setting up a 'takedown' notification system, ordering 'secondary liability' for device makers) and has largely failed in its attempts to push the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) onto the rest of the world. Apparently, a face-saving agreement is better than no agreement at all — but even the neutered ACTA could run into problems, with Mexico's Senate recently approving a nonbinding resolution asking for the country to suspend participation in ACTA, while key members of the European Parliament have also expressed skepticism about the deal."

Comments

software patent liability for ISPs?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

For software patents, the key thing to check is if ISPs will have liability for not removing stuff that a patent holder claims violates his patents. If that's still there, then we'll get DMCA take-down notices for software patents. More on the problem here:

* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/ACTA_and_software_patents

* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement_overview

LOL, they'll be back!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, guys, those provisions will be back soon enough in some other "agreement"!

Re:This is no surprise.

[inordinate]

No, the summary is saying that The US caved to international pressure to take out the "most egregious provisions" from ACTA.

Re:This is no surprise.

[Pteraspidomorphi]

The US was the one pushing all those things (and Japan)Them caving means they agreed to remove all those silly provisions due to pressure from other countries (EU, Canada, Mexico, etc.)

still need to kill it

[j0nb0y]

We can't have secret treaties become law in democratic countries. It would be the end of democracy as we know it.

Re:still need to kill it

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Arms_Limitation_Talks

Those were held in secret. We *knew* they were going on. But until they big flourish of signing the things we didnt really know what was in them.

Secrecy has its place (such as in the salt talks exactly what you were working on and how much of everything you had). But in the case of copyright negotiations? Come on...

Also correct me if I am wrong here but wasnt the DMCA because of a treaty? Yet suddenly all the other countries do not want it. So why exactly did we in the US get stuck with harsher rules? These are questions we should be asking our senators and congressmen.

Re:still need to kill it

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't have secret treaties become law in democratic countries. It would be the end of democracy as we know it.

Democracy has been getting ass raped by corporations and lobbyists for years.

Governments are more than willing to trash democratic principles and legal freedoms in the name of "national security" and "fighting terrorism" bogeymen. They have secret negotiations where they won't tell us what happened, but expect us to live with the outcome.

At any given time, mankind is only a few months away from completely devolving into uncivilized barbarians. A significant portion of the worlds populace doesn't want you to have freedom if it means there is any chance you might offend their religion.

We're all fucked, embrace the horror and ride the rocket all the way in.

Fuck the world.

Re:still need to kill it

[kill-1]

Yes, we really have to teach people what "res publica" means.

Re:still need to kill it

[gstoddart]

Big agree there, I really don't understand why even the draft phases of a law would be kept secret from the citizens it is intended to be applied to.

So the citizens don't have a chance to say they don't agree with the law until things they are already doing become illegal?

Basically it's eroding any actual "fair use" that anybody ever had, and making it so that you more or less need the permission of media companies to use the internet or own a computer. If they don't like you, they'll take it away from you.

People don't actually want the provisions in this awful treaty, and it makes no sense whatsoever for every government in the world to be clerks for copyright holders. This really does subjugate personal/government interests to those of corporations.

Re:still need to kill it

[KarrdeSW]

The same reasons that the text of Bills in Congress is often kept closely guarded for months or years until the Bill is formally introduced:

1) Politicians don't want to tout a bill that lowers taxes and saves puppies only to have the puppy provision removed before the Bill reaches a committee. At least if the committee removes it he has someone else to blame.

2) Politicians also don't want to deal with the blowback for unpopular pieces of a bill until they know it actually has to be in there.

This thing is taking years to draft and refine, why would anyone want to be blamed for text that may never make the final version?

Keep in mind that my answer to your question still supports the notion that politicians suck. I do not mean to say their secrecy is justified, merely that there is a reason for it.

Much of these same principles apply to treaties. Either way, at least in the US, the Senate has to ratify any treaty (by two thirds no less) that the President signs. It's not like this could easily be snuck in overnight.

Re:still need to kill it

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

demacracy is failling, that's why.

as the wealth gap between the poorest and the richer becomes wider, the developed nations are moving towards a form of corporate feudalism, where the general population becomes serfs of large conglomerates, subject to their rules, whose objective is to syphon money and power to themselfs, leaving to the people barelly enough to stay alive an feeding the corporate lords.

it's not paranoia or a conspiracy theory, is just how i see it, so feel free to disagree.

my rationale id that big money doesn't like democracy, they like money and power. mostly because power allows them to earn even more money, and both can become an adiction. a well organized democracy, with enlightened voters can be an obstacle to large corporations to earn more money and power, so they try to corrupt it. the result tends to a kind of feudalism.

to avoid this, it takes an educated people to vote for high taxation for large corporations and wealthy citizens. leave them enough to re-invest and create jobs, but not enough to corrupt the sytem. but i don't see this happing anytime soon anywhere in the world.

Re:still need to kill it

[MozeeToby]

I think the difference is that most treaties affect the signing countries at a government level, whereas ACTA affects the signatories at an individual level; i.e. there are provisions in that treaty which will require many hundreds of thousands of individuals to change their behavior or face punishment. Yes, Arms Limitation obviously affects all the individuals in a country, but it doesn't take cooperation on an individual or corporate level to follow the treaty, nor is there punishment on an individual or corporate level.

Other way 'round

[Brown]

I think you've misunderstood the sense of the "cave" - it was the US government that was pushing for the more draconian measures (the RIAA/MPAA line), not for sanity and consumers' rights in the first place. The "cave" is in fact an acceptance that the rest of the world thinks that the DMCA-like measures etc are dangerous/stupid.

In other words, this looks like a (partial) victory for the people.

Doesn't look too bad - right?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

First line of page 8. The general worry would be that patent holders would gain the power to, by sending a letter, turn ISPs or other parts of the distribution chain from innocent bystanders into entities that are "knowingly" taking part in the infringement. But, this text doesn't look too worrying - anyone agree/disagree?

Each Party shall provide that in civil judicial proceedings, its judicial authorities shall have the authority to order the infringer who knowingly or with reasonable grounds to know, engaged in infringing activity of intellectual property rights, to pay the right holder damages adequate to compensate for the injury the right holder has suffered as a result of the infringement.

Also good news is that the whole part ("Section 2") might explicitly exclude patents altogether, if the USA's footnote is approved: (end of page 6)

{US: For the purpose of this Agreement, Parties agree that patents do not fall within the scope of this Section.}

What other parts need scrutiny?

The fix it!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the system is broken, then join the people working to fundamentally change it at the core.

It is either that, or continue to complain but have absolutely no effect whatsoever. Which is preferable?

Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone just ignored the "products" of these big media firms then none of the copyright legislation would have come into existence.

But people want their bread and circuses. Therefore *you* are to blame, not malevolent lobbyists and corrupted politicians.

Democracy is already dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, it was never alive. Representative Republics are not Democracies. Frankly, Democracy should scare the hell out of you. Do you want the people watching Jersey Shore directly enforcing their will upon you?

The picking of nits aside... I'm starting to believe the loonies who buy tons of desolate land and huddle in their basements while armed with enough firepower to end any zombie uprising aren't so crazy. Yes, yes, so it's not the UN attempting to eliminate our sovereignty; it's something far, far worse - the MPAA and RIAA.

Re:Democracy is already dead.

[shutdown -p now]

It's only the US which has this peculiar "republic not a democracy" interpretaton. In the rest of the world, we've long been using the word "democracy" to mean any political system where people vote in free and fair elections, clarifying it as needed - i.e. US is a representative democracy, Greek city-states were direct democracies, etc.

Still despicable and unacceptable

[airfoobar]

The DMCA stuff was merely the tip of the iceberg. There's still a lot wrong with this document -- like, making just linking to illegal content illegal, the conflation of counterfeiting (trademark law) with copyrights, internet "copyrights" and patents, the way infringement penalties are calculates (as lost sales), border controls on medicines and other products in transit, and let's not forget the despicable way in which the entire thing was written in total secrecy without input from the public (the stakeholders).

I personally refuse to allow ACTA to pass into law (i.e., member countries' laws will need to change, despite earlier claims to the opposite), because not only does it bring even more draconian enforcement of intellectual monopolies (which I disagree with at a philosophical level), but because it sets a terrible precedent that gives politicians and lobbyists even more freedom to take away our freedoms.

Follow us to Mordor...

[digitaldc]

Aside from all the talk of Intellectual Property rights laws and protectionism, the video game company Turbine and the band Radiohead have a successful 'pay what you want' model that is profitable.
Lord of the Rings online has DOUBLED its revenue since becoming free to play online. You can then pay a-la-carte for upgrades, etc. but you can still play for free if you like.
An interesting business model that may be the the one model to rule them all...
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/07/lord-of-the-rings-online-doubles-revenue-since-going-free-to-pla/

Kill it

[mbone]

As a "non-treaty treaty" negotiated in secret without any attempt at public accountability or a public vote of adoption, ACTA represents an abuse of process and should be opposed even if all it did was support Motherhood and Apple Pie.

Re:Kill it

[grahamd0]

As a "non-treaty treaty" negotiated in secret without any attempt at public accountability or a public vote of adoption, ACTA represents an abuse of process and should be opposed even if all it did was support Motherhood and Apple Pie.

At first I read that as "Motörhead and Apple Pie" and was thinking that sounded like a pretty awesome treaty.

What.

[Rydia]

The submitter is talking about takedown provisions as "egregious." Considering the alternative to a takedown notice is just opening up with a lawsuit, I'm not sure what about it is so evilly anti-consumer.

big companies just dont to pay for Health Care now

[Joe The Dragon]

big companies just don't to pay for Health Care now but in 2014 then people will have more choice.
But how can the big McDonalds have so much over head in there min med plan? and THE Republican ARE THE ONES who WANT TO KILL THE Health Care bill so ANY THING CAN BE A pre existing conditions so if you get sick and run up a big bill they have a way out. SELL OVER STATE LINE will just lead to ONE STATE being the only place to get Health Care and it will be the one that lets them have lowers forced stuff they must cover with no price control.

and the Republican are the ones WHO VOTED DOWN THE punish companies who ship jobs overseas bill!

Here's a common tactic

[Spatial]

Pitch something completely ridiculous and unacceptable instead of what you actually want. Tone it down gradually. Congratulations, now your awful idea is a compromise and a relief rather than an outrage.

Which US representative will sign this?

[rcb1974]

Will someone please tell me which of our elected US representatives plan to sign this? I want to know so that I will never vote for them and so that I can encourage all my friends and family to never vote for them.

Stupid question :)

[disi]

Do you think we ever make it past those policticans that punish us with laws?

New laws are very rarely, if any, removed once implemented. There is no way back after they did this to us. I am wondering if we are still allowed to watch DVD on Linux O.o since it is forbidden to circumvent protection technologies.

free play

[falconwolf]

Aside from all the talk of Intellectual Property rights laws and protectionism, the video game company Turbine and the band Radiohead have a successful 'pay what you want' model that is profitable.

The Grateful Dead, who John Perry Barlow one of the founders of EFF was a lyricist for, allowed concert goers to record their music.

Falcon