- Saturday, 21 November 2009
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And the souls mounting up to God, Went by her like thin flames - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Secret treaty to enforce worldwide copyright
A SECRET TREATY might bind the world's countries to act as copyright cops, but no one other than a few lawyers for big corporations is allowed to read the draft.
According to Ars Technica, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will include a section on Internet "enforcement procedures".
The ACTA has worried a lot of people by threatening to become a means for the US to impose its bizarre copyright laws on the rest of the world.
While many have viewed the US government as the movie and music industries' enforcer, there have been some countries that have had a fairly sane view of so-called 'piracy' of copyrighted content and peer-to-peer filesharing on the Internet.
Politicians have known for some time that bringing the sorts of laws that the US wants into free democratic countries might make them about as popular as Gordon Brown, so apparently they have insisted that the agreement be kept secret.
However Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) found out that the US Trade Representative's office had been secretly canvassing opinions on the Internet section of the agreement from 42 people, all of whom had signed nondisclosure agreements before being shown the ACTA draft text.
Those who have been shown the draft text, which we cannot see, are members of the Business Software Alliance and people at Google, Ebay, Verizon, the Consumer Electronics Association, Intel, Dell, the Center for Democracy and Technology, News Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Entertainment Software Association and the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights, as well as bizarrely the Zippo Manufacturing Company.
While it looks like the secret treaty has been handed to Big Content on a plate, actually there are a few people on the list who hate Big Content's 'anti-piracy' campaign and all who sail in her.
However one person on the list is none other than Steven Metalitz, who told the Copyright Office that consumers have no right to be upset after buying DRMed music from a store that goes out of business and takes its DRM servers offline.
Certainly the list is stacked against defenders of people's rights and in favour of the content cartels.
When ACTA negotiations resume in early November in Seoul, South Korea, it seems that the corporations will have had enough time to give their countries' leaders a Chinese burn and tell them what they have to do. Then an agreement will be announced as an accomplished fact that will require all governments to cart people off to jail for copying a DVD that they bought. µ
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Interesting that this has to be secret...
a man in the pub told me that for a first offence you get a crew of 8 goons batter your door in at 4am and put a bag over your head and you play some form of 'russian roulette' involving a dogfood factory?
sounds like something these zealots would do...
Big busuness now runs the world. Secret laws. Police with no badges. The theft of trillions with not one prosecution. Wars fought for lies. The champion of freedom and democracy the USA now torchers, imprisons people without charges or proof ,impose unjust laws onto onto other countries. Corrupt and unjust legal systems. Corrupt banking system, the Fed gave 1 trillion to someone they will not tell who and we the US tax payers (hard working and honest people) are paying for that gift aswell as the other 13+ trillion. I never believed I would be forced into slavery. My grandchildren and their grandchildren will also still be paying. It appears the USA is showing China and the USSR how to oppress the population far better then they ever did.
I don't think copyright is important for a civilization.
It would be a different one but probably a better one.
Imagine everyone actually sharing/helping each other without having to pay for it.
Yes, I know, humans are just too stupid for it.
@Kedas
humans are not too stupid to operate a kind, considerate world, they are guilty of placing too much trust in the people in power who serve only themselves and spin lies to the public.
fortunately, more and more people are waking up to this pretence so it is only a matter of time until the lynch mobs tool up!
@blip - you know the score, but why not emigrate?
And they probably have the gaul to include the last 10 or 20 years and have that apply.
Someone somewhere has been logging every single IP that ever downloaded something, to be put into a nice neat table and then to let the cops sort it out.
Who will pay for this enforcement? Why the very people who are against this steaming pile of horse manure, quite possibly the biggest ever!
Drop da anchor! RARRRRRRRRR! (lmao)
the only reason they put sanction and treaty to force us to buy instead of share, is because they now have the means to measure the qty of sharing and they can now track us down..
let's bring back the old method of sharing, less Massive than World wide torrent, but stealthier..
I'm talking about old fashion duplicate like we use to do with 2 cassette players hooked together.. or BBS on modem that was underground.. that we shared with neighbor and schoolmate at recess..
i'm now sensing that the 3rd world war will be a civil one... Us the people against evil corporation.
i have me pile -o- rocks ready!!
damn greedy, they cant see that sharing turn into benefit for then..
they only ares dogs who cant see past their nose...
between a bone Now or the bone factory later, they choose the bone now!
Never mind the treaty. It is far more important which products we buy. I do not buy Made in USA anymore.
Good luck with that. Just because it may not have a "Made in USA" on the tag doesn't mean the products you purchase aren't licensed from a US corporation, use US-based services, or are, in part, built in the US. More important than that, the boycott should also include complicit parties, as they are a means to circumvent the exclusion policy.
I have no faith that anyone will bother to that extent though. When it comes to convenience vs. values, convenience usually wins.
Face the facts.
... as long as the rights and means apply equal to *all* copyright owners.
Since all of us in fact are copyright owners, to various degrees, we should then be able to turn the law against those who proposed it!
Surely this is part of Obama's plan to have the most transparent presidency in history (he'll just let others departments do the muddling and manipulating).
Much like the stimulus plan, expect a 1200+ page document to be given to US Congressman with <48 hours to read and vote on it, such that most of the finer points are found after the fact and conveniently pushed aside as minor details.
Gotta pay back the campaign bills... what you thought Hollywood was merely campaigning out of the goodness of their hearts and would not want anything in return? (How cute) This is what happens when you run the most expensive campaign in history (by a massive amount) and yet whine about the impact money has on politics out of the other side of your mouth...
The authority elements of the world are clamouring, they know they are loosing control, hence the secrecy.
A clear example of the opposites of low profile, is Islamic extremists making noise/war, the abuse of children by the clergy, the wealthy wanting more notability, protesters wanting "no hold bars" on freedoms making it's definition changing all the time resulting in social pillars being unstable, (examples in continuum)...
The boisterous sea of people and crowds are far from being quiet these days.
The world's burning passions, the equivalent to an infection below the belt, yelling are crying out and not wanting the right medicine! It continues to spread.
WTF are governments doing getting so worked up over PRIVATE commercial property?
If I get SCAMMED by a business or individual & seek redress, it's called a 'Civil Offence' & NOT criminal & I have to PAY for any legal action in redress.
So why are governments treating businesses different to individuals?
Any copywrite infringement should be a case of civil,NOT criminal offense.
The MAJORITY elect government-governments pander to MINORITIES & their self-interest-result - them & us.
They count-YOU don't.
Hence secretive gov'ts,private monopolies,ID Cards snooping on emails,telephone calls, data farming on personal data by gov't,fat brown envelopes-no questions asked, et'c.
YOU can change this situation-DON'T VOTE..don't shop at these companies...exercise your freedom & your choice by thinking before you act.
I try to sleep, they're wide awake, they wont leave me alone.
They dont get paid to take vacations, or let me alone.
They spy on me, I try to hide, they wont let me alone.
They persecute me, they're the judge and jury all in one.
So you're spoiler-free?
Here's a spoiler: I don't believe this place, it's all new! It's a new set, a new logo... you've got a brand new bitch in the center square... Unbelievable! I've got one question, though. Why the Hell are you still here?! Whose leg did you hump to keep this job? Oh, no, I'm sorry, the correct answer is: "who gives a shit?"
Ve haf yur name und nummer. You vill be hauled befor a U.S. court und be properly persecuted for doink this article. Our courts are fair(ly stuppid), fast(to make mistakes) and haf decided to subject der entire vorld to our judgements. Und dat meens you!!
Der Messiah-in-charge
This from a rag based in a country where it's illegal to put CDs you own on your MP3 player, and which is likely to let copyright owners unilaterally cut internet users offline without proof or due process.
Glass houses...
These laws are an exercise in show-off by Big Content. Psycological war, power demonstration, call it whatever you like. Because if you think there is even the slightest chance these laws are going to be broadly put in use some time in the future, you fell for it. What was the last time you saw more than a handfull of people get arrested for their "piracy crimes"? Hmm... Not many. Also, if we take into account the rate their content is pirated, it will take them more than 765 years for Big Content to sue all the infrigers. "Dear NiteSdw, you were caught downloading britney spears 764 years ago".
What bothers me MOST is the injection of copyright protection mechanisms in consumer devices. Things started with broadcast flag, and now the outrage continues with DRMs, keys, authentication mechanisms etc. The problem starts when some opensource group tries to implement these standards, only to find they are higly kept trade secrets, so even if they want to jump though the numerous hoops required to make a proper implementation, they simply can't because it's a patented trade secret, and "royalities" must be paid and secrets to be kept.
And don't get me started with Big Content abusing the mechanisms. It's my right to record things from TV and make backup copies of DVD for personal use, so you should be obliged by law to put a "copy once" instead of the "copy never" signal you put in your content. But apparently our unbridable lawmakers turn a blind eye on that...