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WSJ Says Pro-ACTA Forces Helped Drive Anti-ACTA Reactions

Posted by timothy on from the didn't-properly-market-or-disguise dept.

pbahra writes with commentary from the Wall Street Journal: "Europeans will take to the streets this weekend in protest at the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, an international agreement that has given birth to an ocean full of red herrings. That so many have spawned is, say critics, in no small part down to the way in which this most controversial of international agreements was drawn up. If the negotiating parties had set out to stoke the flames of Internet paranoia they could not have done a better job. Accepted there are two things that should never be seen being made in public—laws and sausages—the ACTA process could be a case study of how not to do it. Conducted in secret, with little information shared except a few leaked documents, the ACTA talks were even decried by those who were involved in them."

40 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. From TFA by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Informative

    Everyone is very keen on sharing until it is their stuff that is being shared.

    I guess he has not heard of these people:

    http://www.fsf.org/

    --
    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:From TFA by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Everyone is very keen on sharing until it is their stuff that is being shared.

      "You're (presumably) a hypocrite. Therefore, all of your arguments are invalidated and sharing is objectively bad."

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    2. Re:From TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      FYI, the TFA is the Wall Street Journal, which is (now) owned by News Corp. You remember: Rupert Murdock's gang of yellow journalists, criminals and corrupt police officers.

      The article basically bashes anything anti-ACTA while trying to sound neutral. For example, it quotes 2 scholars who say that ACTA is a good thing, while admitting that their some paranoia out their about ACTA.

      The whole article basically starts off with the premise that "copyright" is real property and that copying real property is "theft":

      If you say copying other people's copyright is an OK thing to do, then you are saying that theft is OK. Everyone is very keen on sharing until it is their stuff that is being shared.

      It's a VERY one sided article that sounds like it was sponsored and supervised by Rupert Murdock himself.

      Of course copyright is not necessarily a bad thing, but demonizing the opposition to copyright and to ACTA in particular just demonstrates how useless Rupert Murdock's brand of journalism is.

  2. This is one scary law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's no wonder they had to do this in secret, giving companies the right to dictate to goverments is bad no matter which way you look t it

    1. Re:This is one scary law by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ah... you think the government has your best interest at heart. The truth is, they don't... and they don't want you finding that out.

    2. Re:This is one scary law by offsides · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And that is EXACTLY why people are up in arms about it. The governments got together in secret, decided what was "best" for their populations, and then held the pile of papers close to their chest and said "Here it is, isn't it great!" And when the people who were ratifying it asked to see it, the were told, "You don't need to see it, it's in your best interest."

      Unfortunately, it might have ended there, since the majority tends to accept that these days. Except that some of the people who signed the bloody thing then came out and said "Waitaminute! This is really crap, and I shouldn't have signed it!" And that got EVERYBODY's attention, and thankfully people who should have been paying attention all along started to pay attention, and now it's snowballing.

      For better or worse, this may be the beginning of the end of crappy, business-centric, screw-the-people laws and treaties. I'm not saying that it'll stop them 100% right away, but after the pullback on SOPA and PIPA, and now ACTA, the people are starting to figure out that they can use the Internet to get real reactions from their lawmakers, and not just lip service on the campaign trail. Politicians may not want to lose all their "perks" from the lobbyists, but they want to lose their elected positions even less, and sufficient pressure applied by the people who elect them appears to be making an impact...

    3. Re:This is one scary law by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, there's an obvious way to get around that problem.

      Keep obviously stupid sh*t out of the process. If you are running a committee then keep on topic and disallow stuff that will obviously alienate the people watching.

      Certain ideas should not even be brought up. If they are contrary to your nation's founding guiding principles, perhaps they should not be sneaked into legislation.

      There is no reason the process can't tolerate full transparency.

      This is equally true for making sausage.

      If the customer objects to the process, you're probably doing something wrong and need to stop doing that sh*t.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    4. Re:This is one scary law by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Informative

      ah... you think the government has your best interest at heart.

      They do, if you matter. Unfortunately, 99% of us don't.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  3. Leaked docs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If anybody has any bad feelings towards Wikileaks, let the ACTA serve as a reminder that the only reason we even know of it is because somebody on the inside provided it and Wikileaks released it.

    1. Re:Leaked docs by g0bshiTe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My thoughts, if someone on the inside thought enough to post it and people for it were so much against it being outed then there must be some bad in it. If you don't want the public to know of a bill being passed then there is something inherently wrong with the bill you are trying to pass.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    2. Re:Leaked docs by Tsingi · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If anybody has any bad feelings towards Wikileaks, let the ACTA serve as a reminder that the only reason we even know of it is because somebody on the inside provided it and Wikileaks released it.

      Yes. At the end of the day, if a law exists that makes a criminal out of the majority, then it does not serve society, rather it serves to subjugate.

      In a free society the primary intent of law is to safeguard the freedom of the people.
      In a totalitarian society laws primarily exist to protect the ruling class from the people.

      It is unlikely that a law will be passed in a free society without the consent of the governed. No such considerations are required in a totalitarian state. Wikileaks is a threat only to governments that have something to hide.

    3. Re:Leaked docs by Hentes · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was also released on Pirate Bay, Wikileaks was not the only reason we know of it.

  4. FTFA by g0bshiTe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    “The agreement is seeking to address a number of very different issues of which some are serious problems of public health and public safety, for example trade in fake medicine,” Ms. Schaake said. “But that issue doesn’t compare to the alleged cost to society of online piracy

    So human life that is damaged from taking a counterfeit drug is worth less than what rights holders lose due to piracy? Or did I just interpret that wrong?

    --
    I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    1. Re:FTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The whole counterfeit medicine issue is a red herring. Counterfeit drugs are not vetted and approved by the FDA/EMA and hence should be prosecuted based on that basis (whether or not they infringe on any trademarks or patents is irrelevant if you're talking about safety; in fact, one could argue the chance that they are dangerous in case they do infringe on patents may actually be smaller).

      Apart from that there are the generic medicines, which are properly tested and approved. Issues surrounding those are purely related to intellectual property law without any relation to safety. And more often than not, those issues are (legal or not) abuse by rightsholders related to continuation patents, fighting parallel imports, or thwarting transport to countries where those patents are not valid through countries where they do apply.

    2. Re:FTFA by FalcDot · · Score: 4, Informative

      At least quote the whole paragraph, if nothing else it makes discussion *here* a whole lot easier.

      “The agreement is seeking to address a number of very different issues of which some are serious problems of public health and public safety, for example trade in fake medicine,” Ms. Schaake said. “But that issue doesn’t compare to the alleged cost to society of online piracy. It seeks to kill 20 birds with one stone. It risks not solving the legitimate concerns but causing incredible collateral damage.”

      I read this as indicating that both issues are simply in different leagues when it comes to importance. The phrasing "alleged cost [...] of online privacy" seems to indicate she sees the fake meds as much much more important and that she's worried that the inclusion of anti-piracy stuff is harming these legitimate concerns.

    3. Re:FTFA by Tsingi · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Exactly my thoughts. If you are creating a product that harms people, whether or not you have the legal right to create that product in the first place is a totally separate matter.

      There are approved medicines killing people all the time. Big Pharma only cares about your money, not your health. In this case the law is not concerned with your health either, only that Big Pharma gets your money and not someone else. It has nothing to do with how dangerous the drug is.

    4. Re:FTFA by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Interesting

      RIAA group: 10,000 employees, profits in the single digit billions.

      Internet: Hundreds of millions of employees, profits in the trillions.

      a) Getting rid of which of them would cause more harm.

      b) If everybody in the USA chipped in $100 bucks they could BUY the RIAA and get free music forever. If you did it at world level it would easily doable.

      c) The RIAA has probably already cost the world than their net worth by wasting everybody's time through their legal/political shenanigans.

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:FTFA by dapyx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, "counterfeit medicine" is a euphemism for "generic drugs", i.e. drugs that have been manufactured and sold without paying the patent owners anything. Some drugs (especially for various types of cancer) cost more than $100,000 per treatment and some third-world countries produce their own local "generic" version of the drug, since they can't afford paying that much for saving just one life. The production costs for a drug sold for a six-figure sum are typically under $100. The "big pharma" try to prevent poor consumers from first-world countries from traveling to third-world countries and buy these drugs, this is all there is to it.

      --
      I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
    6. Re:FTFA by SomeKDEUser · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sadly, you interpret that right. This is coming from the WSJ, where being rich makes you a more worthwhile human. Therefore, as the majority of the pirates have less wealth than the RIAA, they are worth less.

      Also, the thing about wealth? it does not only increase your value as an individual. Once you are rich, it means you deserved it, and you should never be allowed to be poor again. Because that would be unfair.

      So yes, this tripe is exactly what one would expect from the WSJ.

    7. Re:FTFA by L3370 · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is counterfeit medicine that is indeed FAKE (as in containing no real medicinal properties) medicine. U.S. Customs has intercepted FAKE, not generic, drugs like insulin, blood pressure meds, and even chemotherapy drugs. Guess where they come from? China; often in the same shipment as the knockoff FILA shoes and Gucci handbags.

      Hijacking a brand name isn't the only problem with counterfeiting. Sometimes the knockoff products pose true safety hazards.

  5. the chancellor was wrong by at10u8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'laws and sausages' is attributed to von Bismarck. Is it not the case that every RFC is basically an international trade agreement? The process of making them is very different than ACTA. Which produces the more effective result?

  6. Sausages made in public by Kupfernigk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, our local farmers do tend to let people watch their sausages being made (hint: Wessex possibly has the world's best pigs, and most local farmers seem to make foodie sausages ). Laws and sausages should be made in public.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    1. Re:Sausages made in public by royallthefourth · · Score: 3, Funny

      sausages should be made public.

      There's an alarming quantity of websites where people do exactly that.

    2. Re:Sausages made in public by SomeKDEUser · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This. A million times this. There is never an excuse for not being transparent.

      See, if you don't want me to see the law you are writing, clearly it means you know I won't agree. Now in a democracy, who are you to redact a law which does not have popular support? Bismark was not a democrat, and his laws were acts balancing the public interest, yes, but also all the special interests who supported the empire.

      There is no place for that in a democracy.

    3. Re:Sausages made in public by Nursie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ust like you wouldn't want to see the pieces of pig snout and various orifices going into the grinder and coming out as your lunch, you wouldn't want to see the bickering, infighting, back-stabbing, and other types of anti-social behavior that are combined to make our laws.

      I think that's the point - good quality sausages don't have all that crap going in. Allowing us to see the process tells us whether we want to buy them or not, because we can see what goes in.

      The same goes for laws. If we see our politicians behaving like spoilt children, or obviously working against their own constituents, or just shoving cronyist crap into law, we should know, even at the early stages, so we can get rid of the laws and the assholes,

  7. I would love it by Kupfernigk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If more people would share my company's software. So long as they know where to find us when the users discover they need training and the management realises they need consulting to make use of what they are now finding out, because these are the hard things.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  8. The guy from Dirty Jobs should visit Parliament... by captainpanic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If making a law is so dirty, it's about time it makes the show.

  9. Got it backwards: SHOULD BE made in public. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The old adage is about how you might not want to know how sausages and laws are made; it has nothing to do with making them in public. In fact, that's rather contrary to the premise of the rest of the post.

    As unpleasant as it may be to watch the process, laws and sausages are precisely the kinds of things you DO want to be made in public, so you can see just exactly what goes into them.

  10. This may be an irreducible conflict by FoolishOwl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is an underlying problem: our model of intellectual property simply doesn't make sense for the real world, and more importantly, this is obvious to nearly everyone, and is at odds with how we actually use digital information. The deeper issue is that this starts to bring into question models of property. We have always had artificial scarcity layered on actual scarcity, as a sort of exaggeration. That works when the disparity between actual and apparent scarcity is not too great. But it's obvious to most people that scarcity in copying digital media is wholly artificial. Pushing too hard may lead to people asking questions the WSJ would rather they didn't ask.

    1. Re:This may be an irreducible conflict by Tsingi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You sound like an economist, but I agree with you anyway.

      From TFA:

      “If you say copying other people’s copyright is an OK thing to do, then you are saying that theft is OK. Everyone is very keen on sharing until it is their stuff that is being shared.”
      He said that there was a lot of misinformation about the agreement. “It does not alter the underlying law. It is an agreement, not an Act.
      “It is more like a convention of mutual support between signatory countries that they will work to enforce intellectual property rights of individuals or businesses who can prove their rights have been infringed.”

      The problem with copyright is that it is too severe. Copyright originally existed to limit the power of private individuals to own what belonged in the commons. To answer to this, a limit was placed on the amount of time that works that should be considered culture and a benefit to society, could remain private property.
      The problem being that they (The booksellers) owned all culture, and if you could not afford to pay their prices, then that culture, your culture, was not available to you. Under these conditions, culture is restricted from society rather than being a benefit to it.
      Modern lobbying to extend the length and breadth of copyright is taking us back to that very same situation, where all works are owned privately by big media, and public ownership of culture (the commons) is fading away.

      You must pay!

      The response to this by the public has been to ignore copyright altogether. It isn't so much that the concept of copyright is viewed as wrong, it's that it has become too restrictive.
      Any law that would have the majority of society guilty is a bad law. If it doesn't look bad on the surface, then maybe you have to look deeper, but the fact remains that it is a bad law.

  11. There's an old saying... by tkrotchko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig.

    No matter how you went about pushing ACTA, people would have been upset. It was kept secretly because big content companies were hoping that it would be passed before anybody realized it was happening.

    ACTA could not be passed in most places with a fully informed public & electorate.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
  12. The main drive behind anit-ACTA reactions by Hentes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is ACTA.

  13. I would love it by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    if people would stop using the subject as part of the message body. It's not, it's a totally separate field (for a reason)

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  14. I'm ok by sakdoctor · · Score: 5, Funny

    with it.

  15. I don't by qbast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    agree

  16. they don't go backwards. by fedos · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least

  17. To give you a summary. by jpapon · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's supposed to be a summary of what the full message contains. Not the first half of the first sentence.

    --
    -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
  18. Preference is irrelevant, purpose is the point. by jpapon · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We were discussing the intended purpose of the subject field; and that is to give a short summary of what the full message contains.

    This allows readers to skip over messages they are not interested in, and use their time more efficiently.

    It's not about what I prefer, it's about efficient communication.

    To follow your pointless analogy, it would be like not labeling containers of cold rice pudding (or labeling them as something else), forcing everyone else to waste their time checking to see what's actually in the container.

    --
    -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
  19. Yoda by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Funny

    As does.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  20. Helsinki protester checking in. by blind+biker · · Score: 4, Informative

    We're going to protest on Saturday, in Helsinki, in spite of the cold. I hope that there would be at least about a hundred people, but I might be pleasantly surprised.

    At any rate, I'll be there: one day my son could ask me what did I do while they were trying to silence the internet - and I don't want to have to say that I was just sitting around. Even if it's a lost battle, I owe it to him.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.