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CAFTA Treaty Exports DMCA 377

Posted by timothy from the how-pleasant dept.
PingXao writes "The BSA, RIAA and MPAA successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to include DMCA-like provisions in the recently approved CAFTA treaty, according to CNet. Among other provisions, Chapter 15 of the treaty requires treaty signatories to allow software patents, extend Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death, and make it illegal to produce 'circumvention devices' for protected works."
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CAFTA Treaty Exports DMCA More

CAFTA Treaty Exports DMCA

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  • Cue angry rants. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TexasDex ( 709519 )
    Yeah. I know this is a bad thing. But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'. It's getting damn tiring hearing about our rights being eroded and getting angry about it. So I have decided it's time to give my blood pressure a rest. I think I'll make a cup of tea instead.
    • The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
      -- Thomas Jefferson
      • They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

                -- Benjamin Franklin

        Seems like they knew what they were talking about. Politicians just don't say things like that now days.
        • " They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

                          -- Benjamin Franklin"

          Liberty cannot exist without security. Therefore, this statement makes no sense. Threat of physical harm while performing an activity that one should be free to do, dissuades someone from performing that activity. Therefore, liberty is lost.

          • essential liberty. temporary security.

            These things, these adjectives, they actually mean something and serve the purpose of specificity. Try not to ignore them, will you?

            His point was that you must endure the threat of physical harm while engaging in those activites required to promote and emphasize those principles which are essential to our spirit and freedom (actual freedom, not how the word is used today).
             
          • Liberty cannot exist without security. Therefore, this statement makes no sense. Threat of physical harm while performing an activity that one should be free to do, dissuades someone from performing that activity. Therefore, liberty is lost.

            This seems to be a new meme that without security freedom cannot exist. I'm not sure what spawned it most likely the ongoing "global struggle against extremism". I guess it depends on your definition of freedom. If you believe freedom is a space that you're allowed to ro
            • And just like the shepherd, the government keeps its sheep alive and well to:
              1) shear them
              2) skin them
              3) eat them

              With more laws favourising businesses over people, people get treated increasingly more like sheep.

              Well, this lack of long-term vision will eventually backfire and cause damage far worse than they may be imagining now. The digital age was supposed to mean convergence... but with all the proprietary DRM, media formats and incompatible platforms, it looks more like an age of divergence.

          • Secure from whom, government? It's government that threatens liberty by force of arms at the bidding of the corporate aristocracy.

            Falcon

            "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"
            Thomas Jefferson

          • Liberty cannot exist without security. Therefore, this statement makes no sense. Threat of physical harm while performing an activity that one should be free to do, dissuades someone from performing that activity. Therefore, liberty is lost.

            The key words in the phrase are essential liberty.

            It does not appear to me that CAFTA deals with any issue that Franklin would have considered an essential liberty. Franklin was talking about freedom of speech and due process of law.

            On the other hand Franklin woul

            • Franklin was a printer in an era when copy restrictions in America were essentially nonexistent. Newspapers like the one he wrote for as a boy depended on copying from one another. He trained himself to write well by cutting up copies of Addison and Steele, rewording each line, casting them in verse and translating back to prose: rip-mix-burn 1700s-style. Franklin was in trouble with the law in Boston for saying things the powers that be did not approve of, so he was sensitive to government restrictions on
          • There is no right to do absolutly whatever the fuck you want. If you consider yourself too scared by terrorists to go about your ESSENTIAL liberties you have a problem. Your essential liberties dont include living life the American way. Your essential liberties do not include going to malls. They do not include a calm, safe, and consumeristic life.

            Many people are upset that people want to change their way of life. I am sorry but that is simply YOUR way of life, not a garunteed way to live. The constit
          • Indeed, liberty cannot exist without security. By the same (idiotic) token, if one gives up one's liberties for security, then what's the point of security?

            In the case of CAFTA, the liberty we're trading, is freedom of speech (by acquiescing to software patents, dmca, and copyright fascism) for the security of hoping that by giving away our rights to corporations, they'll be nice and keep innovating and hiring us. The events of the past 12 or so years of NAFTA seem to indicate that no matter what welfare
      • Fuck y'all. I'm moving to a place where the people wrapping themselves in the flag aren't the same people who are holding a subpoena for all the books I read in the library. You go right ahead and keep vigil over your "freedom." What you are calling vigilance looks to me more like sitting shiva.

      • The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
        - Thomas Jefferson

        Can someone PLEASE un-break the 2 minute gap check?

        Its been broken for a while, and it seems to ALWAYS hit me if I post anonymously.

        I think it might be intentionally broken, to make anonymous posting less possible. Not eliminate it or put in an obvious restriction - just reject the post with an error that makes it seem like there is buggy code in the system.

        Taking away the freedom to post anon effectively and make it so no one will protest since
    • I think this works quite nicely for the lawmakers. People get full of righteous indignation to begin with, but by the time their final rights are taken away, people grow apathetic. It's the seige tactics of the 21st Century: continually erode people's rights, until they capitulate and you can seize the whole bally lot of them.

    • But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'.

      I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass. I'm really sick and tired of these greedy companies and these greedy Congressmen stripping me of my rights for the sake of the all mighty dollar.

      Unfortunately our politicians are SO CORRUPT that they've sold their own soul as well as the souls of their constituents to these FAT ASS companies. I'm already planning to take several weeks out

      • Waste of time (Score:3, Insightful)

        by hackwrench ( 573697 )
        The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.'"

        'Odd,' said Arthur, 'I thought you said it was a democracy.'

        'I did,' said Ford, 'It is.'

        'So,' said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, 'why don't the people get rid of the lizards?'

        'It honestly doesn't occur to them,' said Ford. 'They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.'

        'You mean they ac

        • Run with this. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by 955301 ( 209856 )

          How about we all get together and write an application which makes tracking bills and resolutions easy for the layman. You can pick and choose the ones you agree with and the app will create a report during election season sumarizing who to vote for based on your picks?

          Instead of the crap the politicians are spewing.

          Then it won't matter who belongs to what party.

          • Good idea, but the key is committee votes - that's where all the action takes place, not on the floor.
          • I agree, excellent idea!

            Do it the way Yoda does things.

            Seriously.

            I'll help because the US corporations are exporting this shit now. They've tried software patents in Europe which was blocked but they did get some sort of DMCA into the EU.

            What kind of intellectual sewage are they feeding you down there? Voting behaviour in the USA is astounding to me.
      • [1] But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'.

        [2] I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass.

        If you really want to help, devote yourself to helping these guys [sourceforge.net] or these guys [sourceforge.net], or you can start your own project. No offense to anyone here, but if I was a betting man I'd put my money on the average Slashdotter's Technical skills, not his/her ability to win hearts and minds...or affect social opinion.

        The demographic that voted us
      • I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass.

        Say that again when you're in your thirties. In college I used to call into radio talk shows and argue my libertarian views. I also argued my athiest views with fundamentalist Christians. It all seemed so important to me at the time. Philosophy. Truth. The way things should be. Now it makes me yawn just thinking about it. God. Who cares? Theres nothing you can do about it. If someone really do

        • Say that again when you're in your thirties.

          Already there!

          I went through my angry phase in my early twenties. Settled down a bit and am revving back up. The corruption is just growing too much, too fast. Our politicians aren't just for sale, they're advertising that they're for sale. They don't even care that it's immoral.

        • Another realistic plan might be something like the Free State Project except with guns to defend against the inevitable US military

          FWIW, as a fromer member of the armed forces I can say if it comes down to large scale civil insurrection where sending the [FBI|BATF|DEA] isn't enough, you'll likely find yourself standing next to a lot of the US military rather than in front of it.

          • FWIW, as a fromer member of the armed forces I can say if it comes down to large scale civil insurrection where sending the [FBI|BATF|DEA] isn't enough, you'll likely find yourself standing next to a lot of the US military rather than in front of it.

            That's actually one of the GOOD things about having a military which is drawn primarily from the general population. It doesn't go over too well when a tyrant wanna-be tells them to mow down their friends & family.

            I think it's a pretty typical tactic for t

        • Re:Cue angry rants. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by jdigriz ( 676802 )
          So you're willing to give your life for your country, but not to live for it? Arguing with people who disagree with you is not particularly useful, unless it's for the benefit of an audience, because if they were reasonable in the first place, they'd already agree with your arguments, assuming you yourself are reasonable. Quite frankly, the people running the parties right now are completely inept and it would only take a few thousand coordinated like-minded individuals in each state to take each party or
    • Tiring of getting angry over your rights eroding and making a cup of tea is exactly what they want you to do.

      If the people all get sick of hearing about this stuff and sink into apathy, they are much easier to control.

      Don't give up, dude.

    • Yeah. I know this is a bad thing. But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'. It's getting damn tiring hearing about our rights being eroded and getting angry about it. So I have decided it's time to give my blood pressure a rest. I think I'll make a cup of tea instead.

      Instead of a cup of tea perhaps a cup of traiters' blood? Well I guess we could have another Boston Tea Party.

      Falcon

      • "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...

        And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. T

        • Nice. But the government troops were fighting with muskets and maybe cannons. It was relatively easy to fight them back with muskets. Today the anti-government forces would at best have small arms like rifles with laser sights and maybe some light kevlar body armor for protection. Except for the lasers and body armor, the government has advanced like half a century past that stuff. It's like the current US military fighting against WWII Germans and Japanese. It would be a massacre, not a battle.

          How do you f
    • That's how horses, elephants, and people break in - they get harassed long enough.

    • Yeah. I know this is a bad thing. But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'. It's getting damn tiring hearing about our rights being eroded and getting angry about it.

      Anger's function is to enable us to do something about the situation. Frustration and fatigue build up when we can't. If you do a few things to act against the erosion of rights, whatever, you may find that your anger discharges in a positive way, rather than burning you out. Doesn't mean overthrowing your Government, or anything -

  • extend Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death

    Today in class, the professor handed out some copies that came out of IEEE Computer from January 1982. Under current copyright law, the copyrights on those articles will not expire until well after I do. But to what end?

    Really, how commercially valuable is a 23 year old article about parallel computing? It makes me shake my head. If you can't extract the majority of the commercial benefit of your creation in the first couple of decade

    • that's right, YOU don't get the copyright, the mega-worldwide-super-uber-dooper big ass company bent on world domination that you work for does.
    • It's not about whether a tech article or other informational writing will be worth protecting.

      It's all about entertainment and keeping those few songs, movies and such securely locked up for as long as the corps can turn a profit.

    • Today in class, the professor handed out some copies that came out of IEEE Computer... ... how commercially valuable is a 23 year old article about parallel computing?

      Sounds like your school found a viable purpose for such an article, and as part of your education I assume you (or someone else) is paying for, it is being commercially used. Did you professor violate copyright in handing it out, or did he actually pay for the rights to use it?

      • Youre in idiot, if you think that educating people constitutes commercial usefulness.

        Should my grade 3 math teacher have paid somebody for teaching us long division? Its been useful, but hardly more useful to very specifuc private companies than to the public.

        If you think using a patent in an undergrad university class constitutes commercial use, please stop using your car or computer, because they simply wouldn't be affordable to you if the kind of bullshit you spewed were taken verbatim as justification f
  • Central American Free Trade Agreement

    Captain Obvious (?)
  • It must be kind of nice to be a superpower, I think. You can make laws that inhibit productivity and innovation, without fear of hurting your position in the world, secure in the knowledge that you can impose the same laws on others. I mean, even if the countries this treaty pertains to don't like the intellectual property part of it, they still have much to gain by signing it. It's an opportunity I can imagine they wouldn't easily pass up. A nice illustration of how bad lawmakers aren't only a problem to t

    • It must be kind of nice to be a superpower, I think. You can make laws that inhibit productivity and innovation

      Instead of removing stupid laws that limit things at home the solution is to export them to reduce the ability of others to compete as well?

      People should realise that this sort of thing will only be relevant so long as the USA is considered a more important trade partner than China.

      Australia is already showing which side they would back after getting screwed on a trade deal with the USA - eventu

  • I'm sure glad Special Interest wasn't allowed to influence US policy. BOHICA
  • For CAFTA members. Developing countries get increased access to our markets and we get to enforce our IP schemes.

    Move along because their's truly nothing to see here.

    It never ceases to amaze me that the savvy /. crowd is outraged about this kind of thing.

    -Capitalism is about owning things so you can capture the wealth making capacities of that thing. Variations of capitalism that conflict with the american version are not welcome.

    -The U.S. gov't wants IP/whatever to remain in total control of the current


  • Listen to this MPAA speech from a couple of years ago!

    http://be.back.l8r.net:8000/mpaa_speech.ogg [l8r.net]
  • People have rightly called Teddy Rooseveldt's foreign policy "Gunboat Diplomacy", and you might ask a Japanese national how much they appreciated it. It has been rightly condemned for decades. (Ignoring that somewhat similar tactics continued to be practiced under differing names.)

    But last time, at least the country that was underwriting the gunboats got some of the money. This time it's a rip-off of everyone. This one is targeted at unions, workers, the environment, environmentalists, fair trade, truth

  • Let's stop this now (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Rambo666 ( 699645 )
    Here's an idea. Let's find out who these asshole law makers are and publish their names and make sure they don't get re-elected or work in the tech industry again?

    • Let's find out who these asshole law makers are and publish their names....
      Done [house.gov] and done [senate.gov].
    • Such idealism!

      The legislative districts are so gerrymandered in some parts of the country you could literally prop up a cadaver in a wheelchair and he/she would handily beat the opposition (alluding to Strom Thurmond). In many parts of the country people would rather have no representative than a [pinko democrat/jesus-freak republican].

      Of course, we all know independant candidates aren't going to win, so basically you're stuck with the guy you have now until redistricting in 2010.

  • WTF (Score:2)

    by Thaelon ( 250687 )
    What a bunch of fucking bullshit!!!

    What the fuck is congress doing making laws that benefit massive coroprations at the expense of the fucking citizens? And then trying to inflict them on other countries?!

    I think we're fast approaching the time to switch to the jury box, if not the ammo box.*

    *"There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now." - Ed Howdershelt
    • > I think we're fast approaching the time to switch to the jury box, if not the ammo box.

      Too late for the jury box. The courts are totally sewn up with pro-corporate, anti-individual extremists.
      O'Conner was one of the last dominos to fall.

      This is EXACTLY why you've been hearing so much rabble about "activist judges" and "legislating from
      the bench" and "nuclear options" lately. The corporations needed to lock the door of the courts to
      keep people like you and me out, and now they've done so.
  • I just sit and laugh. The USgov is in debt for TRILLIONS of dollars. [brillig.com] Like Pretty soon, the people buying these bonds wil figure out what the corporate masters figured out decades ago:

    It Ain't Gettin' Paid Back. EVER.

    The idea is to loot the treasury while they can, and then move on to greener pastures elsewhere. 70 years on copyright? Who cares? Once the economy implodes, the USA will crumble like the CCCP did in the early 1990s. The debt will disappear because the USgov disappeared. Oil will be largely

    • "Remember: YOU VOTED FOR IT."

      I didn't vote for it. In fact, I didn't even vote for Kerry, like what's the point? I have no way of checking that yes, my vote was counted correctly after I cast it. Trust the gov't approved officials who are out to get themselves reelected? Why don't we just let the Supreme Court decide it all from the start, instead of wasting hundred millions of people's precious time? And let's have the president elected by the Supreme Court nominate people for the Supreme Court. Yeah, foxe
      • Well, SillyBilly, I didn't mean YOU...

        ;-)

        The second amendment thing is a red herring. The right wing militia types like to get all worked up thinking it will save them from pure fascism. Even an M16 isn't much help against a remote control drone loaded with high explosives flying at night, and certainly won't stop a stand-off bomb. And in terms of actual fighting, you can take an M16 with fulltilt rock and roll and you're going to have a real hard time against a Cobra gunship.

        The only even marginally

  • ...legislate ourselves in to irrelavence.

    You watch, in 20 years we will be second to China or Russia in the grand scheme of things.

    And maybe that's for the best, with the kind of people we have in this country.

  • As an Australian IT professional, I'm well aware of the USA's tactics; it's political suicide for a foreign government to knock back a free trade agreement with such an august country as the US. So, the really nasty DMCA/IP laws get inserted into the country's laws as a predicate to signing the agreement.

    It has already happened in Australia [efa.org.au], and I believe it also occurred when the Singaporeans signed their FTA.

    Now, I don't begrudge the USA for trying this; hey, each country is out for all it can get, righ

  • The great thing about treaties is that you can break them. Unfortunately I don't think any of these countries will break away from the treaties for ridiculous copyright measures anyhow. Although, the other great thing about treaties is that you don't have to follow every part of them. CAFTA members can soak up all the free trade measures and not even take a glance at the copyright measures if they choose. Then when the BSA/RIAA/MPAA/Devil lobby hard enough, CAFTA will ask member countries to obey the copyri
  • The BSA, RIAA and MPAA successfully lobbied .....

    Lets get to the point, the above just gave a huge chunk of cash to congress in order to make it happen.

  • The following are circumvention devices or may be used as such and should be outlawed immediately

    1) pencils
    2) paper
    3) calculators
    4) finite state machines of any sort
    5) eyes/ears memory and voice/hands
          - an individual may have eyes/ears and memory, or voice/hands and memory. But any combination eyes/ears and voice/hands clearly consititues a circumvention device.
  • Thanks for finding yet another way to export more jobs; screw workers; spread corporate values; and tie up IP in copyright.

    Knew we could count on you. And you know you can always count on us to ignore your abuse of power. Yes, you do as you please--we'll just wave our little flags and get bent out of shape every time some gay wants to marry or somebody doesn't want their kid turned into a Jesusbot at school.

    As Mencken memorably wrote, "Democracy is also a form of worship: it's the worship of Jackals b

  • These people suck.

    Feinstein Voted Yes.

    Per her website:

    CAFTA Implementation (S. 1307)
    169 6-29 Y Frist motion to proceed to the bill. (61-34)
    170 6-30 Y Passage. (54-45)

    Here's the record of Democrats who voted FOR the bill:

    Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
    Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
    Carper (D-DE), Yea
    Cornyn (R-TX), Yea
    Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
    Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting (GUTLESS FUCKER)
    Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
    Murray (D-WA), Yea
    Nelson (D-FL), Yea
    Nelson (D-NE), Yea
    Pryor (D-AR), Yea
    Wyden (D-OR), Yea

    now, of c

  • shocked (Score:2)

    by jafac ( 1449 )
    Not at CAFTA's passage, or it's nasty provisionses. But check my User ID - I've been reading and posting on slashdot for a long time.

    I've seen this debate hundreds of times. Usually, slanted towards the libertarian philosophy - and when I logged in to read this discussion, I expected a balance, or slant towards that direction. After all, this is a debate on free trade. But the character of these discussions has changed in the past several months. Fewer pro-lassez faire opinions. Fewer sustained discu
  • I read the PDF and did not see anything about software patents, I could have missed it I guess. Can someone point me to that part please?

  • There is still time to fight it! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Garabito ( 720521 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2005 @02:20AM (#13228747)
    For those of us who live in Costa Rica, Nicaragua or Dominican Republic. Congress (or equivalent) of each one of these countries have not yet approved the treaty.

    But it will be a difficult fight, tough. The American market and is very important for the economy of these countries, and not approving the agreement could hurt it badly.

    In Costa Rica, there is a huge PR and marketing campaign promoting the "TLC" (as the treaty is known here), the benefits it's supposed to bring and how thousands of jobs will be gone if it doesn't get approved. Mainstream media is also pro-CAFTA. As a result, most people are not aware or are misinformed of all of its implications.

    We see this posted on /. because of the issue with Software patents/DMCA, but that's just a sample of what DR-CAFTA really is: a bill that gives more power to U.S. corporations in the region. Thanks to this treaty, Big Pharma will extend their drug patents +5 years. Governments will have to compensate corporations if they get in the way of their right to make profits.

    It's a shame we are so dependent on the U.S. that we have to accept crap like this.

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