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Once-Secret ACTA Copyright Treaty Approved By EU
itwbennett writes "By a vote of 331 to 294, the EU Parliament has approved the controversial and once-secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). According to an ITworld article, 'the most controversial paragraph in the final text leaves the door open for countries to introduce the so-called three-strikes rule. This would cut Internet users off if they download copyright material as national authorities would be able to order ISPs to disclose personal information about customers.... The proposed agreement would also place sanctions against any device or software that is marketed as a means of circumventing access controls such as encryption or scrambling that are designed to prevent copying. It also requires legal measures against knowingly using such technology.'"
Awesome! This just means higher adoption of encryption and more bodies on darknets!
Works for me, and, I suspect, most others here too.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
... to go kill some lobbyists.
So when will the cops nab me for watching DVDs I pay for or rent then play using libdvdcss?
Guess this means I'll have to start buying CP'd things off the street and in person like days of old?
From there to banning FOSS, the slope is slippery...
I thought they weren't going to bother with it on account of not getting the geographical designators. Freedom on the internet may be dead, but at least my Kraft Parmesan cheese doesn't have to be renamed.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
On the one hand I'm angry that it seems like they are cracking down on filesharers and have left open this "expansion slot" to fill in with whatever they want later. On the other hand, I'm even more angry that they are going to start cracking down on CD bootleggers. These people perform a great service for many poor kids who don't have a computer to download files or $15 bucks to buy from the store. These kids would end up stealing and getting into much worse trouble if it weren't for the ability to buy from bootleggers for pennies on the dollar.
By restricting the free flow of information, these cartels have created an artificial scarcity. They exploit this scarcity and the ones who suffer are the poor kids. I can't believe we are agreeing to such heinous terms.
... with no consultation of the people, and by an institution that many of us already consider to be nowhere near democratically accountable enough.
Do they expect us to follow it?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Background info:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement_overview
On the software patent problems (or patents "in the Digital Environment"), it seems most or maybe all have been fixed (provided the the signatory uses the Section II option of excluding patents from that section) but a thorough reading is still needed:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/ACTA_and_software_patents
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
That was fast. Did they not read and discuss it, or were they simply in on it from the beginning?
I have often felt we are one of the more sane countries with respect to the digital age, but seeing this I believe we are all F***ed.
I guess I should start voting Pirate party.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
A government demonstrates that it puts the interests of the rich above the interests of the many, even when the results mean plenty of injustice for the many.
Humans are not competent to govern themselves on a national level.
... with no consultation of the people, and by an institution that many of us already consider to be nowhere near democratically accountable enough.
Do they expect us to follow it?
According to Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann, we've been putting up with it for decades in the US. And now that the SCOTUS says money == speech and corporations == people, we're totally screwed.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
It sounds like... OH BOY! It's the Godwin's Law train!
There is no -1 Disagree.
Yes, yes, I know it was really "linux distros and public domain music/movies" you were torrenting not the latest Hollywood movie and Miley Cyrus CD *wink* *wink*
I am 105% certain that when I pipe the latest Debian DVD into my sound card, it will sound much better than the latest Miley Cyrus CD.
Ezekiel 23:20
It's interesting that you bring the church up as an obstacle to new ideas, research and technology when it was the church that created the very university system that is used to spread new ideas, research and technology (along with the modern court system, hospitals, etc.). Not that I am an apologist for the church (big C or little c), but I do think that if one is to spout off, they should at least get their facts straight.
The real problem is not the occasional copying of a CD for ones personal use, heck, it might not be the same quality, but you can record it off the radio. The real problem is the wholesale mass production of reproducing copyrighted material. Most of this occurs in South East Asia. So, exactly how will passage of ACTA stop it?
A fan of datacore, are we?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
If not, anyone knows if it's possible to get a list of EP members voted for this?
The European Parliament has absolutely zero legislative power, it's only there to make a noise and keep hasbeen politicians in an all expenses "job"
No worries, citizen! You can upgrade your status by incorporation for a low fee. Then you too, can enjoy all of the rights, with none of the responsibilities of a living, breathing hoo-man being.
Actually, I thought the entities we refer to as "corporations" were non-corporeal. So does that make them spirits?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I have some rather mixed feeling about this....
On one hand your have the music and film industry complaining about piracy of their product and being completely ignorant that their business model is out of date.
On the other hand there is the chance of counterfeit components appearing on cars, trains or aircraft that produce a serious hazard in a situation where potentially lives are at risk.
Mind you we have a third problem in that we have fake politicians that don't really know anything but what their advisors tell them.
This is not the consent vote, this was only a resolution reminding the comission on a couple of things.
I welcome whatever legal device they think is going to stop file sharing. The only affect it will have is pushing the open source community to whatever will eventually replace torrenting even faster.
I'm confused about this results page.
It's not about being right, it's about who contributes most to campaigns, and who offers the most lucrative consulting positions after they leave elected office.
In the US, anyway-- the music and movie industries pump a lot of money into lobbying and campaign cash, and I wouldn't be surprised if they offer nice consulting positions for those who vote for laws they like, such as the Sonny Bono Act and the DMCA.
And for the media business, it's not about the money, it's about dominating the market and the culture through complete control...
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
It was fun while it lasted, but this is the beginning of the end for digital freedom.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"The more you tighten your grip, Lord Vader, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
The European Parliament just narrowly failed to adopt a joint resolution demanding that the Commission should clarify and assess the consequences of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA. The numbers were 306 in favour, 322 against, and 26 abstentions. The resolution had been put forward by the Green group (including the Pirate Party), the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Left. A resolution from the Green group (where I was one of the co-signatories) was also defeated. Instead, an alternative resolution by the Christian Democrat group EPP and the Conservative group was carried. This resolution basically welcomes what the negotiators have been doing so far, without placing any specific demands on the Commission for further clarifications or assessments.
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/acta-resolution-failed/
basically, these kind of right wing capitalist parties everywhere, are those stripping any freedoms if any profits at stake. this includes any kind of constitutional indispensable, unalienable amendments.
way to go. and there are still morons who are defending the philosophies of those zygotes. im sure a few will pop into comment after this post. its not like they 'know' that those philosophies will work. its that they WANT them to work, despite it havent worked at any point in human history, for the benefit of the average citizen.
Read radical news here
No it didn't.
The church built its learning institutions on the model of others, and there were secular learning institutions alongside them.
The church is in conflict with the forces of reality. It has a long history of oppressing the free spread of knowledge, and of couching its tyrannies in the language of benevolence. And of coopting institutions and traditions and pretending they were the province of their religion all along. It's only typical that they would pretend to have invented higher education, and would call it open and free exchange of ideas.
Does anyone know who voted for? I want the names.
No it didn't.
The church built its learning institutions on the model of others, and there were secular learning institutions alongside them.
The church is in conflict with the forces of reality. It has a long history of oppressing the free spread of knowledge, and of couching its tyrannies in the language of benevolence. And of coopting institutions and traditions and pretending they were the province of their religion all along. It's only typical that they would pretend to have invented higher education, and would call it open and free exchange of ideas.
They are not the ones pretending. It is the European Scholarly Community who make the claim, not the church itself. But, if you want to say that the historians are wrong and your opinion is the correct one, then go for it.
Obviously, you have some deep seated resentment towards organized religion, which is your perogrative. But in trying to justify your position, don't claim things that simply are untrue.
Don't get me wrong, the church, and I assume we are talking about the Roman Catholic Church in all of this, has done plenty of bad things, but they, as many institution have also brought about much good.
If the church is so against the spread of knowledge as you purport, then why are all of those craters on the moon named after Jesuit priests? Why is the father of geology a catholic priest? Why was the first person to extrapolate Einstein's theory of relativity into what we now call the big bang also a priest?
You have the right to believe whatever you want about the church (Catholic or otherwise), however, just because you believe it does not make it true.
> they should at least get their facts straight.
Ummm, no, churches are at the forefront of suppresion of new ideas... oh except for crazy ones like condoms causing aids... they're all about getting the 'facts' out about that.
Case in point they hated the idea of translation of bibles from latin to ${LOCAL_LANGUAGE}, or indeed, any literacy amongst the unwashed, because then the laiety wouldn't need the clergey... or rather... the clergy couldn't just wave a book around and say "it says in the book to burn and destroy"... people could look it up for themselves and challenge. Likewise creation of the printing press, no co-incidence that a bible was one of the first books printed... it was all about the technical arts trying to break down the authoritarian rule of the clergy.
It is a virtual certainty that for every sick person they've nursed, or poor person they've fed they have cost another their life through religious skirmish... they are a blight upon the global with no redeeming facets, past nor present and the quicker we disabuse ourselves of belief systems based on superstition and fear the sooner we can realize how much we have held ourselves back as a species.
Yes, we are dumb all over... and maybe even be a little ugly on the side.... thanks Frank.
I think that Galileo Galilei and a few other scientists who were persecuted (if not outright murdered) down the centuries by various Churches and other religious "institutions" would tend to agree with you. Organized religion has always been the single greatest threat to scientific and technological advancement. One may claim to speak for God, but if at the same time one is willing to attack the free expression of logic and reason because it is a threat to one's hegemony ... well.
Because, you know, when you think "church" you immediately think "progress."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
european parliament DOES have the kickass legislative power, since lisbon treaty a few years ago. they are de facto the approval body of european union. nothing can pass, without their approval since 2 years or so.
Read radical news here
eu parl, has the approval power. if it doesnt approve, it doesnt pass. and eu parl, have demanded that acta be rejected, items against individual liberties removed, with 630 to 30 votes, last year.
Read radical news here
Chances are Bill C-32 will do a lot of what ACTA is planning to do and more.
That's actually a brilliant idea. It's a shame we couldn't get some independent director and/or studio to shoot a brief commercial and then pool resources together to show it during prime time television (since most of the population isn't aware of anything unless they're fed the information via TV--sadly). Better yet, make it look like a movie preview with a dark overture of sorts, including the same baritone narration style common to previews. I'd imagine it could start off something like this:
[Camera pans through a dark office complex or government building with people in suits walking passed. Perhaps a gray haired actor playing the part of a high powered government official could be seen shaking hands with a corporate CEO of sorts.]
Narrator: Drafted in the darkest bowels of the US federal government lurks a treaty...
[Scene shifts to a young 13-14 year old boy basking in the soft glow of his monitor.]
Boy [sounding panicked]: Oh... no...
[The breaking of glass can be heard in the background as his mother screams. Trampling boots thunder through the house before the door to his room is broken down and armed agents grab the child, dragging him away.]
Narrator: ...that threatens the very essence of our freedoms.
[Scene shifts to a group of scruffy and clearly homeless individuals gathered around a burning barrel sharing stories.]
Bearded homeless man 1: I remember back when I used to be able to buy anything I wanted on the Internet.
Homeless man 2: Yeah, then they took it all away from us for sharing music. Now, we can't even buy groceries. Ol' Jack over here was forced to give up a kidney for sharing a movie, weren't you Jack?
*laughter*
Homeless woman 1: Oh yeah? They took everything away from me just for feeling up a TSA agent.
*more laughter*
--
(Okay, that last part was stretching it a bit.)
Anyway, you see where this is going--and maybe it's even a little overboard. Regardless, I think your idea is excellent! It needs to be professionally produced, written, and directed in order to capture the attention of the average viewer. Then it needs to be posted to Youtube.
He who has no
The future is here. One of the better examples of what you suggest is this vid: Stealing Home. Except it's not propaganda.
Bugger.. Considering that I need to circumvent encryption just to view a DVD. Aahh well looks like I'll just stop spending my money on buying DVD's ! I'm sorry to say making laws to protect the rich and suppress the poor does seem a bit like returning to the middle ages. Am I the only one seeing this or am I just paranoid.
The end is near.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Your retort reeks of the Wikipedia page on universities, so I'll reference a few too.
University of Bologna is widely accepted as the first and oldest (11th century) western university. And madrasahs - which certainly do have origins in religion - predate that. (See Al-Azhar University) But I don't think you're trying to connect the big C Church to Islam, and we're talking modern university origins, not 6th century Roman religious scholars. (See Cassiodorus)
The thing is, Bologna didn't start teaching theology until almost 300 years after it was formed, so it's highly unlikely it could be considered a monastic school. http://www.eng.unibo.it/PortaleEn/University/Our+History/default.htm
Even after the printing press was invented, I don't believe the Church was actively encouraging common folk to read the bible themselves in their own language. Better to hear it from the pulpit by an official that knows Latin. (See Bible Translations) "New ideas" as you say, are precisely the thing the Church found most dangerous, especially when things got competitive and educated men started discovering things with technology. For a good while there, it was Aristotle or bust. (See Galileo Affair)
This measure did not pass thanks to opposition from the 13 Labour MEPs who voted AGAINST their fellow social democrats.
It looks like that ACTA is going through because of some kindergarden-esque quarreling between MEPs.
The British UKID MEP Bloom was removed from the meeting because he accused the German Schulz of being a 'fascist'. Subsequently the Dutch PVV MEPs left the meeting because Schulz has called the Dutch Van der Stoep a fascist earlier and was not punished for that.
None of the PVV and UKID MEPs voted. I expect the 4 Dutch PVV MEPs to have voted for the proposal (anti-ACTA). It seems that the UKID MEPs walked out as well, because they didn't vote either. Does anyone know what the UKID MEPs would have voted?
BTW, it was a very close call: 306 against 322: http://votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?id_act=1189
- for the European pirate party. I was afraid, they'd never get above 2%.
Strange, since the University of Bologna was actually the Cathedral school before it was called the University of Bologna (as was Oxford and Cambridge). As for my sources:
Charles Home Haskins, in "The Rise of Universities (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957). According to him the university was an utterly new phenomenon in European history. Nothing like it had existed in ancient Greece or Rome.
Lowrie Daly, who held the Church developed the university system because it was "the only institution in Europe that showed consistent interest in the preservation and cultivation of knowledge." Source: Lowerie J. Daly, The Medieval University, 1200-1400 (New York:Sheed and Ward, 1961), 213-14.
With regards to people not reading the bible in their own language, that's not true, either. There are surviving translations of the Vulgate (the official Latin Bible) in numerous languages, particularly German, predating the Reformation. Of course only the very wealthy could afford to have a hand copied manuscript made, but they did exist. Once the printing press was developed, these were then printed, however, the for the most part the public was illiterate, and had to rely on hearing it explained, because even if they could afford one of these mass produced bibles (for the time anyway), they couldn't read it. So please, don't confuse what the churches (it wasn't just the catholic church that had illiterates) did to accommodate the educational reality of the time with trying to suppress knowledge.
As for Galileo, the church never said he was wrong and actually agreed with his findings, however, what was really going on was a political battle. His arrest had nothing to do with the science.
It's interesting to note that while Galileo was living comfortably in his house arrest, it was the church who was paying him to do more and more scientific inquiry.
Which "European Scholarly Community"? The Vatican?
My opinion of religion is seated deeply because it's based on fact and persistent experience. The Church's habit of giving a coin to a poor kid to dispense its sin of murder is just one of those facts.
I don't deny that there are religious people who have advanced science. But if their science is at all in contravention of a church's teachings, they will find out about that church's position on knowledge.