That specific line was actually written by the editor, not by me. I would not agree that the US and Japan (mostly the US, though) will have trouble shaping the document the way they want. In fact, the US has shaped the document to its preferences to a large degree already.
But, it is more complex than simply the US getting what it wants. The US can't force anyone to sign this agreement. There have to be benefits in other areas for these countries to trade away IP issues. Unfortunately we don't have texts from the other chapters, so we don't really know what these might be. Also, the fact that there is a draft article on traditional knowledge indicates that some of the parties are pushing back with their own preferences (though I think that particular article has zero chance of making it into an agreement).
Hi, I'm the author of the article. I have read the text (well, not all of it, just the portions relevant to my research - mostly copyright and pharmaceutical data exclusivity aspects, as well as the traditional knowledge article). However, I'm not a lawyer, and many lawyers have already analyzed the legal aspects of the text. That's why I linked to Margot Kaminski, Michael Geist, etc. in the article.
I thought my analysis would be valuable if it did something the lawyers were not (and could not) do.
Here's a link with more technical detail. I had to tone down the technical aspects for the Washington Post.
That link does not have full code, but if you want, I can e-mail it to you (I already have for two other people). I didn't post the code online because I wanted to keep track of who was asking for it. But I'm happy to share it.
Author of the article here. You're right, I meant it to be a little funny. As I noted to the GP, most people studying these issues already know where the countries line up. Canada has a history of being different on IP issues than the US (much to the US's chagrin - it's why we put them on the Special 301 "priority watch list" in 2012).
Hi, I'm the author of the article. Thanks for reading it. Originally I thought I might extract the "oppose/propose" and attach it to country names, but I didn't for a number of reasons.
First, as you note, "oppose/propose" by itself tells us very little without knowing the content of what is being opposed/proposed. But even if we do know the content, without the context it may still convey little. E.g., we might find "[US propose: a]" or "[CA oppose: the]". I thought about using Perl's extract_bracketed (and actually did at first), but decided against it.
Second, anyone familiar with these issues already knows where the countries line up. The US is pushing extreme IP laws. Australia doesn't necessarily agree, but follows along in many cases. Canada often tries to do its own thing (e.g., they were one of the only countries to take advantage of a TRIPS provision allowing them to manufacture an on-patent drug and export it to a developing country without manufacturing capacity). So showing people this information wouldn't necessarily add much value.
A "cultured" diamond will sell for considerably less than a mined diamond of the same quality.
I was quite interested in purchasing a synthetic diamond a few years ago, and kept an eye on what the major US players (D.NEA, Gemesis, and Apollo Diamond) were doing.
While the prices of fancy colors (blue, yellow) were much less than colored natural diamonds, I found that (at that time, at least), the prices of colorless synthetic diamonds were about the same or even higher than natural diamonds.
Synthetic colorless diamonds were apparently harder to produce, since color is caused by impurities. The sizes were also relatively limited, e.g., it was hard to find anything higher than 0.5 ct.
The logic is fine. The IF statement is not evaluating whether it makes sense for the government to set prices, it is evaluating whether the government does set prices. Governments in many, many countries and cities do set prices. Given that fact, it does indeed make sense for them to also set standards.
"If it makes sense for the government to set prices" is an entirely different question.
if the standards don't meet expectations, just don't use them, as it goes WITH ALMOST ANY OTHER BUSINESS.
But taxicabs aren't like other business. With any other business, you usually have a range of price points to choose from. With taxicabs, fares are set.
My point is that if the government is going to set the price, then it also makes sense for the government to set standards for the product. If you don't want such standards, fine, but you should also do away with the set pricing.
Depends on what else is going to be regulated. If the city is going to dictate fares to customers (and drivers), then customers should also expect a certain standard of service in return for that fare. If there are no guarantees on what kind of service I'm going to get, why is the service provider getting a guaranteed payment?
I say let them force sharing: if you don't like it, pay more.
I did - that's why I used Uber. Instead of standing in a crowd for 20 minutes with cabbies yelling destinations at hundreds of people who just got off a late train, I paid more and got what I considered to be better service.
Well, it wouldn't surprise me. DC's cab industry is incredibly corrupt. I rarely take cabs anymore, but I recall there being an issue with the way the city set rates - it made it virtually impossible to know how much cash you might need (maybe it was the zone system, which they no longer use). Combine that with the difficulty of finding a cab in many areas, and the tendency of some drivers to refuse to take you to certain destinations, if all you had was a credit card, or not enough cash (or possibly not enough cash, given that you didn't really know how much the fare might be), it created enough of an inconvenience that some people (myself included) were willing to pay a premium for Uber simply to not have to deal with cash, among other things.
I've used it twice. I thought they discouraged tips, suggesting the fee you paid was inclusive of everything? That's part of the appeal. A significant number of cabs in DC don't accept credit cards, and not long ago, it used to be a free-for-all catching cabs at Union Station after midnight, with cab drivers forcing riders to share cabs, refusing riders based on destination, etc. (all of which is illegal). Uber was great for that - call a black car, they pick you up, no waiting, no cash... home in 15 minutes. Yes, it was more expensive than a cab, but the service made it worthwhile.
If they have no other reason to search your computer, then there is probably a 99% chance that no one will even ask you to turn on your laptop.
On the other hand, if they do have some reason to give your more scrutiny than the average Australian, it may be worth it to prepare for your computer to be searched and/or confiscated. The worst that will probably happen is that you may never see your computer again (or you may get it back after 6 to 12 months, maybe damaged).
I don't think I've ever heard of an instance of someone's computer being searched, pirated digital media being found, and then them being prosecuted for copyright infringement. Is it theoretically possible? Sure. Is it remotely likely? No, not unless they want to get you for something else, but that's all they can make stick.
What I wouldn't do is burn all your media to DVD-Rs with handwritten labels and stuff those in your bag, since that makes it look like you want to sell fake movies for $3 on a street corner, and the government believes that helps fund terrorism.
If you really care that much, maybe dump it all in a TrueCrypt partition, or delete it all and pirate it when you get here, or just leave your hard drive at home and have someone snail-mail it to you. I'd say simply send the data over the Internet once you arrive, but being Australia, I'm guessing you might not have the bandwidth or transfer limits to make that feasible.
An AC replying to the parent nailed it - Gandhi would have made salt.
Not really, of course, but the point is that Gandhi led the Salt Satyagraha, a major civil disobedience movement protesting the British colonial salt taxes, which made it illegal for individuals to produce and sell their own salt.
Sure, French used to be an official language in colonial Indochina, but it hardly seems to make sense to consider on par with the other languages listed.
"... the manner in which plaintiff is pursuing the Doe defendants has resulted in $123,850 savings in filing fees alone."
So... they only paid for a single instance of the lawsuit, then unfairly duplicated it, when they should have paid for each individual instance of the lawsuit?
That's lawsuit piracy! Think of all the lawyers who could have been employed had they filed individuals lawsuits.
There are a lot of big name companies opposing this treaty, including ones you wouldn't expect. The "Intellectual property owners association", which is headed up by representatives from Exxon Mobil, GE, and Johnson & Johnson wrote a letter opposing the treaty. Their concern is that they think it sets a bad precedent... get this.. for PATENT law:
By isolating L/Es (limitations and exceptions) from the IP holders’ rights, the VIP (visually impaired persons) treaty negotiations could also set a dangerous precedent for other areas of IP law, particularly patent law.
Let's ignore the massive expansion of copyright without any mention of fair use through free trade agreements, and complain that the one real attempt to clarify limitations and exceptions is "imbalanced." Also from the letter:
"A balanced approach to copyright protection cannot exist when rights and exceptions are treated separately."
That's true, but not for the reasons they think.
Basically, they are saying they would rather blind people have fewer things to read than to even HINT that copyright protection is currently too strong, since that might possibly induce people to question other areas of IP law, like patents. They ought to be ashamed.
For more than 25 years, Lorinda Brandonhas worked in various management roles in the high-tech industry, including customer service, quality assurance and engineering. She is currently Director of Solutions Strategy at SmartBear Software, a leading supplier of software quality tools. She has built and led numerous successful technical teams at various companies, including RR Donnelley, EMC, Kayak Software, Exit41 and Intuit, among others. She specializes in rejuvenating product management, quality assurance and engineering teams by re-organizing and expanding staff and refining processes used within organizations. She has a bachelor’s degree in art history from Arizona State University.
No more crossing your fingers that this eager young face in front of you can really pick up those skills, and no more investing so much time and money in training them on the job.
So, basically, you think it's time for someone else to conduct your on-the-job training at no cost or risk to you.
Slashdot Mirror
That happens to me occasionally with Firefox and the Washington Post. If I refresh the page, it usually fixes itself.
Well, to be honest, I wanted to get it posted to /., so I thought I'd highlight the fact that OSS made it possible.
That specific line was actually written by the editor, not by me. I would not agree that the US and Japan (mostly the US, though) will have trouble shaping the document the way they want. In fact, the US has shaped the document to its preferences to a large degree already.
But, it is more complex than simply the US getting what it wants. The US can't force anyone to sign this agreement. There have to be benefits in other areas for these countries to trade away IP issues. Unfortunately we don't have texts from the other chapters, so we don't really know what these might be. Also, the fact that there is a draft article on traditional knowledge indicates that some of the parties are pushing back with their own preferences (though I think that particular article has zero chance of making it into an agreement).
Hi, I'm the author of the article. I have read the text (well, not all of it, just the portions relevant to my research - mostly copyright and pharmaceutical data exclusivity aspects, as well as the traditional knowledge article). However, I'm not a lawyer, and many lawyers have already analyzed the legal aspects of the text. That's why I linked to Margot Kaminski, Michael Geist, etc. in the article.
I thought my analysis would be valuable if it did something the lawyers were not (and could not) do.
Here's a link with more technical detail. I had to tone down the technical aspects for the Washington Post.
That link does not have full code, but if you want, I can e-mail it to you (I already have for two other people). I didn't post the code online because I wanted to keep track of who was asking for it. But I'm happy to share it.
Author of the article here. You're right, I meant it to be a little funny. As I noted to the GP, most people studying these issues already know where the countries line up. Canada has a history of being different on IP issues than the US (much to the US's chagrin - it's why we put them on the Special 301 "priority watch list" in 2012).
Hi, I'm the author of the article. Thanks for reading it. Originally I thought I might extract the "oppose/propose" and attach it to country names, but I didn't for a number of reasons.
First, as you note, "oppose/propose" by itself tells us very little without knowing the content of what is being opposed/proposed. But even if we do know the content, without the context it may still convey little. E.g., we might find "[US propose: a]" or "[CA oppose: the]". I thought about using Perl's extract_bracketed (and actually did at first), but decided against it.
Second, anyone familiar with these issues already knows where the countries line up. The US is pushing extreme IP laws. Australia doesn't necessarily agree, but follows along in many cases. Canada often tries to do its own thing (e.g., they were one of the only countries to take advantage of a TRIPS provision allowing them to manufacture an on-patent drug and export it to a developing country without manufacturing capacity). So showing people this information wouldn't necessarily add much value.
A "cultured" diamond will sell for considerably less than a mined diamond of the same quality.
I was quite interested in purchasing a synthetic diamond a few years ago, and kept an eye on what the major US players (D.NEA, Gemesis, and Apollo Diamond) were doing.
While the prices of fancy colors (blue, yellow) were much less than colored natural diamonds, I found that (at that time, at least), the prices of colorless synthetic diamonds were about the same or even higher than natural diamonds.
Synthetic colorless diamonds were apparently harder to produce, since color is caused by impurities. The sizes were also relatively limited, e.g., it was hard to find anything higher than 0.5 ct.
Things may have changed since then, though.
They imposed a sales tax on "computer services" that created such outrage, it was repealed before it even went into effect.
The author's name is Raphael Mudge, but Mudge from L0pht is a different person named Peiter Zatko.
The logic is fine. The IF statement is not evaluating whether it makes sense for the government to set prices, it is evaluating whether the government does set prices. Governments in many, many countries and cities do set prices. Given that fact, it does indeed make sense for them to also set standards.
"If it makes sense for the government to set prices" is an entirely different question.
That's why I said IF the government sets the price, THEN it makes sense to set standards.
if the standards don't meet expectations, just don't use them, as it goes WITH ALMOST ANY OTHER BUSINESS.
But taxicabs aren't like other business. With any other business, you usually have a range of price points to choose from. With taxicabs, fares are set.
My point is that if the government is going to set the price, then it also makes sense for the government to set standards for the product. If you don't want such standards, fine, but you should also do away with the set pricing.
And it shouldn't be.
Depends on what else is going to be regulated. If the city is going to dictate fares to customers (and drivers), then customers should also expect a certain standard of service in return for that fare. If there are no guarantees on what kind of service I'm going to get, why is the service provider getting a guaranteed payment?
I say let them force sharing: if you don't like it, pay more.
I did - that's why I used Uber. Instead of standing in a crowd for 20 minutes with cabbies yelling destinations at hundreds of people who just got off a late train, I paid more and got what I considered to be better service.
Well, it wouldn't surprise me. DC's cab industry is incredibly corrupt. I rarely take cabs anymore, but I recall there being an issue with the way the city set rates - it made it virtually impossible to know how much cash you might need (maybe it was the zone system, which they no longer use). Combine that with the difficulty of finding a cab in many areas, and the tendency of some drivers to refuse to take you to certain destinations, if all you had was a credit card, or not enough cash (or possibly not enough cash, given that you didn't really know how much the fare might be), it created enough of an inconvenience that some people (myself included) were willing to pay a premium for Uber simply to not have to deal with cash, among other things.
I've used it twice. I thought they discouraged tips, suggesting the fee you paid was inclusive of everything? That's part of the appeal. A significant number of cabs in DC don't accept credit cards, and not long ago, it used to be a free-for-all catching cabs at Union Station after midnight, with cab drivers forcing riders to share cabs, refusing riders based on destination, etc. (all of which is illegal). Uber was great for that - call a black car, they pick you up, no waiting, no cash... home in 15 minutes. Yes, it was more expensive than a cab, but the service made it worthwhile.
He's now in the private sector.
If they have no other reason to search your computer, then there is probably a 99% chance that no one will even ask you to turn on your laptop.
On the other hand, if they do have some reason to give your more scrutiny than the average Australian, it may be worth it to prepare for your computer to be searched and/or confiscated. The worst that will probably happen is that you may never see your computer again (or you may get it back after 6 to 12 months, maybe damaged).
I don't think I've ever heard of an instance of someone's computer being searched, pirated digital media being found, and then them being prosecuted for copyright infringement. Is it theoretically possible? Sure. Is it remotely likely? No, not unless they want to get you for something else, but that's all they can make stick.
What I wouldn't do is burn all your media to DVD-Rs with handwritten labels and stuff those in your bag, since that makes it look like you want to sell fake movies for $3 on a street corner, and the government believes that helps fund terrorism.
If you really care that much, maybe dump it all in a TrueCrypt partition, or delete it all and pirate it when you get here, or just leave your hard drive at home and have someone snail-mail it to you. I'd say simply send the data over the Internet once you arrive, but being Australia, I'm guessing you might not have the bandwidth or transfer limits to make that feasible.
An AC replying to the parent nailed it - Gandhi would have made salt.
Not really, of course, but the point is that Gandhi led the Salt Satyagraha, a major civil disobedience movement protesting the British colonial salt taxes, which made it illegal for individuals to produce and sell their own salt.
I'll leave the analogies to others...
Sure, French used to be an official language in colonial Indochina, but it hardly seems to make sense to consider on par with the other languages listed.
"... the manner in which plaintiff is pursuing the Doe defendants has resulted in $123,850 savings in filing fees alone."
So... they only paid for a single instance of the lawsuit, then unfairly duplicated it, when they should have paid for each individual instance of the lawsuit?
That's lawsuit piracy! Think of all the lawyers who could have been employed had they filed individuals lawsuits.
There are a lot of big name companies opposing this treaty, including ones you wouldn't expect. The "Intellectual property owners association", which is headed up by representatives from Exxon Mobil, GE, and Johnson & Johnson wrote a letter opposing the treaty. Their concern is that they think it sets a bad precedent... get this.. for PATENT law:
By isolating L/Es (limitations and exceptions) from the IP holders’ rights, the VIP (visually impaired persons) treaty negotiations could also set a dangerous precedent for other areas of IP law, particularly patent law.
Source.
Let's ignore the massive expansion of copyright without any mention of fair use through free trade agreements, and complain that the one real attempt to clarify limitations and exceptions is "imbalanced." Also from the letter:
"A balanced approach to copyright protection cannot exist when rights and exceptions are treated separately."
That's true, but not for the reasons they think.
Basically, they are saying they would rather blind people have fewer things to read than to even HINT that copyright protection is currently too strong, since that might possibly induce people to question other areas of IP law, like patents. They ought to be ashamed.
About the author:
For more than 25 years, Lorinda Brandonhas worked in various management roles in the high-tech industry, including customer service, quality assurance and engineering. She is currently Director of Solutions Strategy at SmartBear Software, a leading supplier of software quality tools. She has built and led numerous successful technical teams at various companies, including RR Donnelley, EMC, Kayak Software, Exit41 and Intuit, among others. She specializes in rejuvenating product management, quality assurance and engineering teams by re-organizing and expanding staff and refining processes used within organizations. She has a bachelor’s degree in art history from Arizona State University.
No more crossing your fingers that this eager young face in front of you can really pick up those skills, and no more investing so much time and money in training them on the job.
So, basically, you think it's time for someone else to conduct your on-the-job training at no cost or risk to you.
That's Pop-Tarts®. You'll be hearing from our lawyers shortly.
Sincerely,
Kellogg Company Special Counsel for Intellectual Property Issues