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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.