EU ACTA Doc Shows Plans For Global DMCA, 3 Strikes 406
An anonymous reader writes "The European Commission analysis of ACTA's Internet chapter has leaked, indicating that the US is seeking to push laws that extend beyond the
WIPO Internet treaties and beyond current European Union law. The
document contains detailed comments on the US secret copyright treaty
proposal, confirming the desire to promote a 'three-strikes and you're
out' policy, a Global DMCA, harmonized contributory copyright
infringement rules, and the establishment of an international
notice-and-takedown policy."
Obama ? Come on ! (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought now there were progressives in the White House and in Senate ? Does nobody want geeks' votes anymore ? How many pirate party will be necessary in order for this madness to end ?
Re:Global government (Score:3, Interesting)
Strange how both the crooked EU and USA have kept this quiet....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/swift_tftp/ [theregister.co.uk]
European home affairs ministers are today set to approve a transatlantic deal that will see them turn reams of private banking data over to US intelligence.
The expected approval signals a remarkable diplomatic victory for Washington. The European Commission and the US had previously clashed over the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP).
TFTP began in secret following the 9/11 terror attacks. It allows US authorities to monitor SWIFT, the Belgian company that acts as clearing house for millions of daily transactions between European banks.
3 strikes - how to enforce? (Score:4, Interesting)
So say you get kicked off the net - how do they enforce this? Just off the top of my head I can think of a dozen ways to browse the net semi-anonymously (coffee shop, library, college, neighbors wi-fi etc etc). Not to mention having internet access at work - does that mean I'd be denied employment world-wide for messing around on the net?
Re:Means nothing. (Score:2, Interesting)
You are unashamedly breaking the law
yes, he's laughing at a body of BAD, UNJUST LAWS.
you see a problem with that? I don't. and I'm not exactly a young kid by any stretch..
if you are not getting justice one way, get it another way. we each have that right and duty to ourselves. justice is not served at only one restaurant, fwiw..
Re:thousands of government bureaucrats (Score:5, Interesting)
versus
millions of teenagers who are
1. technologically astute
2. media hungry
3. POOR
let them pass any goddamn law they want. who fucking cares?
its nothing more than damage to route around, like the internet was designed to do
Consider the war on drugs before you boast. The US is willing to damage millions of people even if the outcome they want is virtually impossible. (And like the war on drugs, the people will favor harsh treatment for "pirates" also.)
Hey, good news for the little guy! (Score:5, Interesting)
The little guy who sells bootleg dvds in order to support terrorism. Damn pirate bay have been cutting into his profits.
Re:Global government (Score:1, Interesting)
America really needs to take on the idea that a corp is == to a person. That is one of the worst conclusions to come from our court systems. IIRC, I believe that a number of lawyers are about to take that on.
3 strikes? (Score:3, Interesting)
yes (Score:4, Interesting)
your random grandmother or soccer mom will lose their internet access for what leachers on their insecured wifi do or what their children's friends do
and all the while the real action will move further underground, further encrypted, steganographed, obfuscated, made sparse, and otherwise evolved to be more and more resistant to any sort of inspection, interception or even tracking
thank you, governments of the "free" west, for breeding the ultimate untraceable file sharing network due to your overzealous protection of your corporate executive friends in dead media industries. fucking blind fools
it does you no good, assholes, to be the losers in the game of technological progress, and not even know it
one should know when they are defeated
I'm a copyright holder (Score:5, Interesting)
As a self-employed game developer, I own the copyright on all the stuff I sell. While I can recognise the need for a unified global copyright system (and unified global laws on sales and export/import tax), my sales model assumes I can sell any given product for 10 years, and I would be perfectly happy if copyright durations were reduced to that. That said, 10 years may well be optimistic, and I doubt I would have any problems if it was reduced to 5 years. Anyone in a who must make their money back quickly is in the same boat — the rest of the profits are just "keeping score".
From what I've seen, this treaty is not going to make the world a better place, it's going to make it worse, especially given how little most people know about IP law (patent != copyright != trademark != database right != industrial design right != geographical indication != trade secret). Short duration IP-monopoly-rights are non-issues for rapidly moving industries, and shorter durations make it easier to move faster.
Re:Perfect Place to Post This (Score:3, Interesting)
I know I shouldn't, but:
The condo stuff you mention is because you didn't read the contract you were signing. I own my home and the ground its on so I can do what I damn well please. Pet regulations aren't just for rabies, they are humanitarian so we don't have streets teeming with unvaccinated starving wild dogs and feral cats like Calcutta. Car insurance is so you don't get hit by a deadbeat who won't pay to fix your car, and is a common protection. Emissions tests are really only in California so you give yourself away as being against liberalism simply to be contrary since you have the choice to live where you will, but then you wouldn't have anything to bitch about, no? Your tax info is just wrong. You have to file one return for State (that includes your whole family), one for Federal, and possibly a local/COUNTY (not country you stupid non-english speaking copypasta) return. Airline security is theater to make sure people don't stop (as I have) using the air transit system since there is little to no REAL security involved in the system. Helmet/seatbelt laws are mainly there to stem the tide of braindead (literally) idiots who we pay to keep housed and fed since they turned themselves into drooling idiots and the government is left with their care when their broke white-trash families can't afford to pay after paying for all the chrome and noise. Mind you I ride, I ride safely, and I wouldn't think about getting onto a road with a bunch of cagers without a lid on.
Re:look at the growth of disk space for $100 (Score:1, Interesting)
Three words: per capacity tax.
Re:Means nothing. (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing is, I don't have a problem with the basic principle of copyright, and frankly, I'm not sure most people do.
Sure, it sucks if you want the latest and greatest works but you can't afford the asking price. Life is tough. But whenever we have these discussions, no-one in the "everything should be free" camp seems to have a credible alternative system that still produces plenty of high quality works.
So, why don't you see if you can do better? Describe a credible system in which anyone can copy anything without restriction but there is still sufficient incentive for people to produce and share high quality work in the first place, and I'm sure the sceptics like me will be interested in what you have to say.
Assurance contracts (Score:5, Interesting)
Describe a credible system in which anyone can copy anything without restriction but there is still sufficient incentive for people to produce and share high quality work in the first place
Assurance contracts [wikipedia.org]. The author specifies a bounty amount, fans pledge money, and if the sum of pledges meets the bounty amount, the author is contractually bound to publish the work under a free license.
Re:Means nothing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider the xbox360 or the PS3: Unless the hardware is subverted, one unit at a time, they will refuse to execute code that hasn't been cryptographically blessed by their respective overlords. Now, because the games are pressed onto disks for retail sale, this system would still be vulnerable to bit-for-bit disk clones; but in the (very likely) future download-heavy environment, this will likely be replaced by signed unique-per-device binaries, and devices that will execute only binaries that are designated for them, and signed.
Audio and video would be harder; because of the market pressure created by the large amounts of legacy material; but that is nothing that buying the right law couldn't fix.
As long as DRM is based on trying to build uncrackable systems, it is(as you say) absurdly impossible. Any one crack means a plaintext copy circulating freely. If, however, you create a DRM scheme that is "default deny" instead of "default allow", it suddenly becomes a great deal more plausible. If a device will only interact with material signed by a trusted party, a plaintext copy is useless. If some trusted party does sign a pirated copy of something, they can simply be revoked.
Sure, there'll still be hacked devices(or built from scratch devices) floating around that can read plaintext copies of things) and people who play cat-and-mouse by stealing signing keys and signing pirated material and circulating it until those keys get burned; but it will be radically harder than it is now. Even worse, depending on how exactly you design the crypto key hierarchy, you could even use it as a means of punishment. Say, for instance, that (because of strong pressure from holders of legacy non-DRMed material) our hypothetical DRM system allows users to sign previously plaintext material themselves, in addition to automatically signing future documents they create. If material you have signed ends up circulating P2P and your key is revoked, all your documents become unreadable. Any number of unpleasant elaborations are possible.
Re:A Plea to the Rest-of-the-World (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a common point, but it's not really true.
Yes, at general elections there are, practically speaking, only two options. However, the US has a very open primary system. I'm not American, but my understanding is that all one has to do is check 'Democrat' or 'Republican' on voter registration forms to be allowed to participate. At primaries there ARE a broad range of ideas and philosophies presented. So yes, the final choice is between two... but those two are in turn selected through a democratic process by a self-selected, interested subset of the general population.
So if members of the public find both options undesirable, they should be participating in the optional primary system as well. i.e., don't bitch about your choices when you have a say in what those choices were in the first place.
Re:DOA in the US Senate (Score:3, Interesting)
What's more, because US treaties are backed by the power of the Constitution, they are very difficult to repeal later down the road if they turn out to be a bad idea, or, as is more often the case, the other governments back out of the treaty and leave the US holding the bag. Few countries put as much force of law behind treaties as the US. This is also one of the reasons the US never signed on to Kyoto, because it was assumed that the other countries wouldn't be able to make the ambitious targets and would quietly back out, whereas the US would be stuck with it.
Not true. Treaties ratified under the Treaty Clause [wikipedia.org] can be superseded by ordinary law. See the Head Money Cases [wikisource.org] (emphasis added):
In fact, treaties can be even easier to repeal than laws. There have been multiple occasions when the President has decided to withdraw from a treaty without even asking Congress – like Bush withdrawing from the ABM treaty.
On top of that, you can always implement a treaty in the form of an ordinary law. Treaties can be passed as "non-self-executing", in which case they have no legal force themselves at all. For instance, the United States ratified the Berne Convention, but 17 USC 104(c) [justia.com] says "No right or interest in a work eligible for protection under this title may be claimed by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto. . . ." Instead, the Berne Convention was implemented as the Berne Convention Implementation Act [wikipedia.org], which was passed by both houses of Congress as a regular bill.
A treaty that we're a party to might not even necessarily have been implemented. I recall reading a Supreme Court case (sadly, I can't remember which) where a treaty we were party to would have prevented the execution of a Mexican citizen, but the Court dismissed the appeal, on the basis that the treaty was not passed as self-executing and wasn't implemented by any law. Thus although the international community recognized us as a party to the treaty, our own courts found it unenforceable under domestic law. The Supreme Court basically sai
The first rule of Swap Club... (Score:3, Interesting)
You see there isn't a respectable IT firm anywhere in a developed nation that doesn't have a bit of a 'Swap Club', sharing pirated material by USB drives, SD cards and cheap terabyte class drives around the office. Back in the day they shared stuff on CD-R because the internet was rubbish. Now these things are now ubiqutous, inexpensive and expendable. Terabyte range drives are less than 10c per gig for a while now, if you find a good deal.
What happens when these things inevitably become alot smaller and alot cheaper?
What really scares me is what might be done to try to control this form of piracy.
Re:Assurance contracts (Score:3, Interesting)
Most obviously, how does a new artist get started this way
By publishing a free debut EP.