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'Son of ACTA' Worse Than Original
An anonymous reader writes "TechDirt has the latest on the leaked US proposals for the 'Son of ACTA' treaty and it looks worse than the original. It's practically a checklist for how to kill innovation while making lawyers rich. In particular, they call for expanding what's patentable, blocking people from buying copyrighted goods in other countries and taking them home, expanding liability for ISPs whose users commit acts of infringement, forcing ISPs to identify their users to anyone on demand, and getting rid of third-party patent review while expanding the presumption that they're valid. The only way it could get any worse would be if it were enacted in law."
While I hate all this ACTA and related types of laws (DMCA, etc) the summary for this article is not accurate, for example it says it would forbid third party opposition to patents, which it doesn't say, what it actually says is that it prohibits them prior to the grant of a patent. And as someone with a bunch of patents from little startups, thats a good thing actually, as it would be way to easy for big corporations to make small inventors and startups waste money by filling all sorts of third party opposition during the patent prosecution.
In any case, don't believe the summary article, if you care about a particular point follow the links to the full text and read it in the original.
-jon
Do you know much about how DC works? Seriously I lived there my whole life and I'm tied to the US Federal government closely. I think it's hilarious that people like yourself think there's a huge difference between the two parties. Guess the bullshit machines are working.
Tiger Blooded Bi-Winning Machine
Things that can be copyrighted: Books, nicknacks, travel brochures, the pattern on my boxers...
"Sir, this skidmark is clearly derivative."
"Um, Parody?"
Having the government make laws to give privileges to a selected few is absolutely not what capitalism is about.
This is FEUDALISM.
I'm expecting to see selective enforcement - those running the show won't piss off too many members of the public because it risks backlash (and they're not on such firm 'scare tactic' footing as the TSA are, so they have more to fear from public disapproval), but they'll pull out the clause any time arbitrageurs look to take advantage of an absurd regional price difference in copyrighted goods. End result, of course, is that while the employers take advantage of cheap global labour, any disparity in goods prices can't be taken advantage of by the consumer because the identical, but lower priced foreign goods can't be imported without the permission of the copyright holder. Even without this law, we're seeing exactly that behaviour in Omega v. Costco.
No, they forget that the Trial Lawyers (wing of the D party) are also involved. This is not a (D) or (R) issue, this is a DC corrupt issue. Both (D) and (R) have the proverbial blood on their hands.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Could you Americans please stop trying to force us other in the world to accept your fascist corporations wishes?
Please continue to live in your corporate govern country that you believe is the worlds greatest democracy but STOP trying to force us other to obey your corporate overlords.
Thanks.
Things that can be copyrighted: Books, nicknacks, travel brochures, the pattern on my boxers... Not only will you have to strip naked for the TSA, you'll have to remain naked while crossing national borders.
Forget about the logistics. That's just the collateral damage. The real issue is that it enables price discrimination. Which makes the US and other countries with a high standard of living even more uncompetitive by compounding the cost advantage of foreign countries: Foreign students will get our textbooks for 5% of the US price, which means they have even lower costs and can more easily undercut our wages. Corporations license software in foreign countries for 5% of the US price, making it more cost effective to set up shop Anywhere But Here. On and on.
The reason is that these things being proposed are actually ANTI-capitalist.
You're thinking too idealistically. The capitalist philosophy inevitably leads to crony capitalism. You need a philosophy centred around something other than rational selfishness and regulated accordingly.
Social democracy is an obvious answer, and has worked quite well in Europe in the sense that it gives people a good quality of life rather than in the sense of economic summary statistics suggesting that a country is doing well.
Degrees of socialism - in the sense of worker control of the means of production managed by a sympathetic state - helped much of Europe emerge from WW2 on both sides of the Curtain. Soviet Russia was throroughly successful for most of its life, being America's only equal for most of the last century. The response to resource allocation difficulties which had emerged by the early '80s was to dismantle the socialist framework and waste money on Reagan's arms race - this wasn't the only option. The West has just had a far greater hit to its economy and we didn't respond by entirely abandoning free market principles: we have just temporarily "socialised" elements of banking and industry.
As for communism in the sense defined by Marx, it's never been reached. There are lots of successful independent worker cooperatives - the John Lewis Partnership being one of the most famous in the UK - which give some idea of what worker control of the means of production without state management looks like.
The point being that there are lots of alternatives to a capitalist philosophy, many features of which are currently in use.
Article 4, paragraph 3:
Each Party shall provide to authors, performers, and producers of phonograms the right to authorize or prohibit the making available to the public of the original and copies of their works, performances, and phonograms through sale or other transfer of ownership.
I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but it sounds like they don't want to let you resale things? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Once you get a little bit older you might learn the secret of it all. It is that there is no perfect cure all system. The only thing that works long term, as in your life time, is to constantly find a balance while never actually achieving it.
This is not how people like to think, they want the hero to save the world at the end of the movie. Not spend infinity just avoiding total collapse.
In running a country, there is no end, no financial year, no last chapter. It is an ongoing concern that needs to readjust as the world changes.
Should high-tech firms receive a tax deduction to stimulate them? Yes... we need them to stimulate the economy.
Time passes...
Should high-tech firms receive a tax deduction to stimulate them? No... we got them, now their taxes can help to stimulate other sectors.
See what I did there? I changed a policy as the situation changed. How DARING of me!!! This is what most political parties with an ideology never do. Right - Left, it don't matter. Leave it to a republican and taxes for the rich would go to negative infinity. Leave it to Amnesty International and criminals would be out of jail before they commit the crime. Leave it to the green and humanity would be living on a very small isolated rock less it touch any piece of nature. Leave it to the Libertarians and we would have Somalia.
When you see Thatchet claim that the lady is not for turning, she shows just how bad a politician she was. Ruined the country.
Compromise? Yes, that is one word for it but really it is the realization that the needs of the country cannot be expressed by the needs of a singular group.
We need labour, we need high-tech, we need investors, we need rich people, we need poor people, we need unemployed...
Wait, what? We need unemployed? Yes, we do. Where else is a growing company going to get new people from? 0% unemployment is a nightmare for capitalists who know what they are talking about. Can you say salary inflation? Can you say stagnation?
So you might want to turn off the work stimulation projects BEFORE everyone actually got a job before you run out of people for the jobs. Immigration has proven to be less then an ideal method for solving this and once you got immigration going, it is hard to stop leading to masses of unemployed immigrants.
In politics you can never win because the game never ends. At best you can try to keep the ball somewhat under control. This means you got to shift back and forth on the same issue over and over. Do we build a nuclear plant? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now? Yes, now it is a good idea.
ACTA seeks to create a cure all with no room for changes in the future. That is why it is bad. The patent system might need to be reformed now AND be reformed again in the future. And again. And again. The idea that you can draft a trade law NOW and be done with it forever and ever is just a silly idea that sadly seems ingrained in our conciousness. If only we did X all our problems would be solved forever. Nope.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.