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Proposed Final ACTA Text Published
ciaran_o_riordan writes "The US Trade Representative has published a text which, subject only to a last legal review, is proposed to be the final text of ACTA. The differences between this text and last month's, from the Tokyo round, are mostly cosmetic but there's an important positive change giving signatories the option of excluding patents from section 2. As for software patents, most harm has been avoided. If signatories make use of the section 2 exclusion option, there might be no harm at all. Lobbying for this will be important. Meanwhile, the many problems regarding Digital Restrictions Management, and the extra powers given to businesses to obtain personal and identifying information about accused copyright infringers "in the Digital Environment" are still there (mostly section 5). Earlier texts were much worse. The improvements in recent months are surely due to public outcry, leaving us indebted to the anonymous friends who scanned and leaked the various secret versions and the activists who made text versions and spread them across the Internet. There's a chance we can still influence the text in this legal review phase, but the bigger task ahead will be working on the national implementations. It's not yet clear what procedure the US will require for its own ratification."
The U.S. Senate simply needs to not ratify it.
Right?
expandfairuse.org
Remember, the original goal of copyright was to give exclusive copy rights to the authors for a limited period in exchange for their work to become public domain after that limited period.
A lot more people would agree to abide by copyright laws if they had not been twisted into the lifetime + 50 years locks that they are now.
Now, now you two. There's enough blame to go around.
Part of the cause of that is the lack of proportional representation, though. So people get stuck in the whole "Go ahead, throw your vote away" dilemma.
They end up voting for the lesser of two corporate ruled evils, as opposed to a party that is more in line with what they actually want.
Well, that coupled with People believing myths due to either propaganda or outright stupidity (ie. republicans being for small govn't, which is patently false these days; or that dems are going to implement any sort of democratic social reform... maybe token measure here and there, but it's still by the corps, for the corps.)
Being an outsider looking in, the whole setup looks like sheer lunacy to me, but...
Sent from my PDP-11
No, large patent holders shaped this. Politicians, democrat and republican alike, that had little idea what any of it meant, took their money and happily let it go on through. As Ralph Nader once wisely said, our two party system is a two headed dragon. There is no difference between the two parties. People like you who seem to think the democrats are somehow less corrupt are causing the problem more than the people that vote republican.
If you didn't vote Republican in 2008, you asked for this.
I've found that...
If you voted you asked for this.
If you didn't vote you are responsible for letting it happen.
is true of about 2/3rds of what the governement does... if not more.
they have to survive, they have to take care of their Farmville.
FTFY.
OK, not universally true, but true to an extent that pretty much guarantees the success of...OOH SHINY!
"Panem et circenses." Our culture surely has the "circenses" part down pat.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I voted Independent in 2000.
In Florida.
My bad.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Aww, isn't that cute? The little AC still thinks he has a major party looking out for his interests!
Your brain is not a computer.
acta proceedings were prepared during bush years, with republican senate and house. it was well underway in 2006 when democrats got the houses. and it was already being negotiated in 2008. not that it would matter much, since democrats are too in the pockets of the private interests. but, the head of the snake, were republicans.
I think it might be more accurate to say the head of the snake were politicians.
Because you know... ACTA and more powerful, more draconian, more extensive copyright and business method/software patent protections are one of the few things there is bipartisan support for.
The fangs of the snake will be whatever president signs ACTA, if it gets signed. Because the clincher is approving the rule -- no matter who drafted it
And no... neither republicans nor democrats "really" decided what should go in it. This was done by corporations that have become scarily powerful, so scarily powerful they can apparently buy enough supporters now to get whatever laws they want.
The opposition who aren't getting their numbers artificially increased by corporations paying people, don't really stand a chance, unless there is a full-blown revolt by the masses.
Earlier texts were much worse.
Stalin: Let's execute all dissidents and paint the Mausoleum green!
Minister: Why green, comrade Stalin?
Stalin: I knew there would be no objections about the first part.
The treaty spends a lot of time on "pirated copyright goods", and the bits about "counterfeit trademark goods" seem tacked on. I could find no mention of the public good, the rights of licensees, fair use, public domain, media transfer/backup copies, etc. There is a good bit about the minimum civil and criminal procedures and penalties that should be in place and made available to businesses and rights holders. It seems to be exclusively intended to ensure that organizations like the RIAA can sue and harass "pirates", and god willing, get them a healthy jail sentence too. This is interesting in that it might provide some cover for rights-holder actions that are an abuse of the court system (mass filings) and criminal harassment.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
There are issues on which they disagree, but this is not one of them.
Like any short term contractor, a politician has to use at least part of the time while they're in their current position to line up their next position.
Once you get a contract which is paid a fixed rate no matter what your performance, it doesn't make too much difference what you do during that time. In a contractor position where your job is mostly about "networking" not networking, but "networking", in reality, as long as your talking with your friends and bitching about your enemies, you are in fact doing your job.
So, while you have this 2-6 year contract, you have the perfect opportunity to find what's next. Treat busting a teenager with coca chewing gum from Columbia as a major drug crime, advocate the need for coca chewing gum detectors in the airports and you can get an officer position at a security firm lined up with a limo and personal driver when you're done with your current job.
It makes no difference if you're democrat or republican. They're both so full of shit that they had to paint their offices brown so as not to worry about the splatter marks when they hit their desks in exclamation (while yelling at the inanimate object displaying the broadcast of a modern alternative to the Greek arenas).
The real bitch of it is, as the house grows, it becomes easier and easier for a politician to spend all their time on their next job because they can easily be lost in the crowd.