Another ACTA Leak Discloses Individual Country Data 133
An anonymous reader writes "On the heels of the earlier leak of various country positions on ACTA transparency, today an even bigger leak
has hit the Internet. A new European Union document [PDF] prepared several weeks ago canvasses the Internet and Civil Enforcement chapters, disclosing in complete detail the proposals from the US, and the counter-proposals from the EU, Japan, and other ACTA
participants. The 44-page document also highlights specific concerns of individual countries on a wide range of issues including ISP liability, anti-circumvention rules, and the scope of the treaty. This is probably the most significant leak to date since it goes beyond the transparency debate to include specific country positions and proposals."
Fascinating (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand why diplomats tend to like their meetings and discussions to be private. It's a hard enough dance between a few select people in a government that it doesn't need to be complicated by the public getting involved.
However, in this case, this is hardly a private conversation. Business is involved, pretty much all the world's governments are involved, and the only group not at the table is the largest and the one with the most to lose: actual people. I'd like to see what kind of justification politicians will come up with to argue that corporations can make suggestions, governments can provide input, but god forbid the people actually have a say in the way this sausage is made.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that the end of the Internet as we know it is near. Too many organizations with too much clout have too many reasons to see the current Internet go away. I don't know what will come in its place, but I'm pretty sure I'll look back at the 90s/early 00s with nostalgia.
Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid?
Basically, they are saying:
"We can't write working code because the only people willing to write this kind of code are incompetent morons. Skilled engineers think this type of code is a bad idea, and won't touch it. Rather than rethinking our position to be more in line with reality, we want laws that make illegal to circumvent the swiss cheese code that we can actually hire someone to write." ...and now we are trying to foist this stupidity off on the rest of the world?!? No wonder they get upset about their dirty underwear going public.
-- Terry
Re:Fascinating (Score:4, Insightful)
On the upside, it could finally reverse the effects of the Eternal September by dramatically upping the level of technical knowledge required to operate anything interesting on the Internet.
Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anti-circumvention is a necessity because unbreakable DRM is an impossible dream; there simply isn't any way to give the user a lock and let them open it without also giving them the key, no matter how much you try and hide it.
Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid? (Score:2, Insightful)
This thinking isn't new. It is the exact same thinking that has been prevalent among law enforcement and the government for as long as I've been working with networked computers. In the early to mid-1990s when I was young and cutting my teeth on all of these systems, there weren't any laws in place to punish offenders. The systems were wide open, using default passwords, hosting services that were wide open, etc. The hardest part of hacking a system was getting access to it, either by finding a dial up via wardialing or actually getting physical access to the site (in terms of phone switches and the like).
Two decades ago the government started passing a lot of laws that made it illegal to access systems that you don't own or have permission to audit. They never really locked down the systems. They never passed any laws that made it necessary to develop secure systems. They just implemented some pretty severe punishments for messing with the systems.
Rather than lock down the systems completely, they are going with surveillance and record keeping. Of course systems are way more hardened than they were in the past, but exploits are constantly coming out. Law enforcement online is like law enforcement in the physical world. They just want to clean up after the fact and try to hold some people accountable for illegal actions.
As responsible citizens our only choice seems to be to stop consuming the content that the corporations want to protect, while at the same time standing up for our Constitutional rights as we drag them online. We should be able to speak freely, peacefully assemble and the like. As far as I can tell, ACTA has to do with copyright law and intellectual property. If you aren't swapping warez or pirating movies and music and books, you should be fine.
Just walk away (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-circumvention provisions, particularly as they have been applied in the US, are often used as an anti-competitive device to block legitimate competitors from making interoperable or replacement products. Anti-circumvention provisions also effectively make legal tasks illegal. E.g., ripping a portion of a DVD for commentary or criticism is allowable under fair use, but the process by which one would do so is illegal because it involves violating the DMCA, even though the end result is not illegal.
Besides, do such provisions actually add anything useful? In order for anti-circumvention to be violated, the underlying work must be copyrighted. In any case of real harm, then the underlying copyright would be infringed as well, in which case you could sue for infringement. If an access control was circumvented but the copyright was NOT infringed, then what harm could there be? On the contrary, it is precisely those situations that we would want to allow for interoperability, etc.
If the argument is because it stops the spread of anti-circumvention tools, it doesn't. Dozens of DMCA-violating tools are a click of a mouse button away from being installed.
Re:History being made. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think people are upset because this accord is being hammered out in secret behind closed doors, and citizens of the affected countries are only aware of progress on the treaty through leaks.
There's a correct way to "come to grips" with these problems, and that way is by discussing these issues in the open, and allowing for review and comment on what's going on.
Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because without it they couldn't stop you from breaking the DRM and disseminating the How-To to a wider audience, who would then be very hard to catch actually infringing.
Yeah, that's worked real well. How many tutorials for ripping DVDs [google.com] can you find in a few seconds on Google?
With Anti-Circumvention laws you can both discourage people from breaking the DRM (or at least telling people about it) and take legal action against anyone who does, whether they've actually done anything "illegal" beyond circumventing the DRM or not.
If they haven't done anything beyond circumventing DRM, why should we care? The harm comes from infringing copyrights, not from circumventing DRM. Anti-cirumvention provisions are an "attack the tool" approach that's both ineffective and misguided.
The irony of trying to keep ACTA secret (Score:5, Insightful)
does anyone else find it comic and rather ironic that almost exclusively
because the countries involved have tried to keep this a secret, that ACTA
negotiations now get far more attention than they would otherwise?
I feel this needs even more attention, and more clearly explained and broadly
disseminated explanation of what is at stake both for individuals and for
emerging cultures as they join the ranks of "western" strong-copyright regimes.
Re:History being made. (Score:5, Insightful)
For good or ill, I sense history being made here, folks.
Me too. This is the DMCA all over again.
Basically the multi-national corporations are coming to grips with a global communications system, and is hammering out an accord on how it can be used.
FTFY.
Re:As long as we do not criminalize (Score:2, Insightful)
How can you explain your children that they are 'criminals' if they download music or video?
You don't. You explain to them that corporations and governments are criminals and then teach them how to defend themselves from them by using darknets, etc.
Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all secret so everyone gets to blame unspecified others. When it comes to publish this thing governments will be disowning provisions they worked very hard to put in place. Why couldn't the public participate? Well YOUR government fought hard for that but the others wouldn't let them, of course.
Governments are supposed to have power because they also have accountability, but that requires transparency. Even if all the politicians really were doing their very best with only our interests at heart that would not be good enough. They must be seen to be doing so, just like justice must be seen to be done, an agent must be seen to act on behalf of his principal and a professional must be seen to be independent.
We give them some room for national security and so on, in the hope that the bond of trust is so sacrosanct they would be unable to break it, or at least that someone would feel it and the truth would come out. Naive perhaps, but it's happening right here with these leaks. There's a good egg somewhere.
Government is run too much like a business (Score:3, Insightful)
Business culture has saturated government to the point where it can only communicate via the means established by business. People in government are more comfortable in business meetings and negotiations than they are listening to and communicating with the electorate.
When they have to communicate with the electorate they resort to pure pr or advertising strategies.
Boycott (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Not Fascinating but Depressing (Score:2, Insightful)
For those of us who love what the internet has to offer in terms of information, entertainment and news the very idea of the Internet becoming "the CorporateNet" is depressing.
After the takeover we will still be able to do many things - after we have logged in with our credit card.
Then CorporateNet can charge us for every download and access (and it will not be cheap!)
What can we do? If we fight like hell we can delay things for a while, but eventually money will rule out. So be prepared.
Re:Fascinating (Score:3, Insightful)
I suggest we just isolate all of them and lock their web browsers to the URL they are probably going to anyways..... 4Chan. (kidding)
Seriously... I *fucking* hope so. It's apathy right now that keeps people from obtaining the skills needed to be creating/operating the kind of networks and infrastructures capable of truly stopping ACTA's goals.
Mesh networks are not the complete solution (no interlinks between cities and peer/transit relationships connecting them to the rest of the world), but I believe that if you couple Mesh Networks with technologies like TOR, FreeNet, and Darknet connected to the standard offerings we can create a layer of communication on the Internet that is effectively impossible to police and stop.
Unlesss....... they outlaw encryption entirely and start running around with drones triangulating rogue transmissions to put those people in a 're-education' camp. A darker more futuristic version of Pump Up The Volume.
This is where it has to go before we can finally put a stop to this stupidity. I guess what I am saying is that I want the war to start already dammit. While I am still young enough to fight it.
Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid? (Score:3, Insightful)
A better analogy would include a car and would go something like this... It would be like if you bought a car that would require an oil change every 6 months but once the 6 months had expired, your car would not work at all until you changed the oil again. You, being a knowledgeable, handy, and attractive male, attempt to change the oil filter yourself, only to find that you can't use any filter, you have to buy their filter, or your car won't start. In addition to being knowledgeable, handy, and attractive, you also happen to be clever and dismantled the original oil filter, and used parts of it to make your car start regardless of the unapproved oil filter. You hop in and pull onto the street, only to be pulled over and given a $250,000.00 fine by the most evil cop ever (likely a T-1000).
Re:Fascinating (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to see what kind of justification politicians will come up with to argue that corporations can make suggestions, governments can provide input, but god forbid the people actually have a say in the way this sausage is made.
Easy - the people already had their say when they elected said politicians.
Re:Anyone else think anticircumvention is stupid? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I should be allowed to break into my own house if I want to. I bought the house (DVD). Just because it came with a lock (DRM), why should I be prohibited from opening it?
We Need To Hire Our Own Lobbists (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, we must destroy the music and media companies. They are a big threat to freedom world-wide (organised religion and moralism is in front). We need some kind of advertising based model for media delivery, over the internet. Think about if there was a website where you could play any song you wanted - like pandora or whatever. You could submit your music and it would get voted based on "views". Once it hit a certain number of views, we would create a CD of your music and sell that in stores or wherever. Young people (who buy music), often hate corps like Monsanto or whatever they see as bad. So lets use all those stories about teenagers sued by the RIAA to create a negative PR campaign, so the Obama voter types will hate the RIAA go for the service as an alternative.
Re:Fascinating (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever heard the phrase "If you want a puppy, ask for a horse"? This will be cut up and re-worded to sound less offensive than it is, and will pass through anyway. Or, it'll creep up to this current standard after a neutered version has been drafted.
Don't for one second think that we have any say. Any. We lost that say when the UK became bi-partisan like the US (Tories and Labour), and Europe is impotent (UK police keeping DNA data, ISPs snooping on net traffic etc etc).
Re:Fascinating (Score:3, Insightful)
This will get a title like "child-pornography and terrorism prevention and cute puppy feeding initiative" and anyone who opposes it will be labeled as a terrorist, baby-rapist, puppy starver.
Re:Fascinating (Score:3, Insightful)
Business is involved, pretty much all the world's governments are involved, and the only group not at the table is the largest and the one with the most to lose: actual people.
We're not people, we don't matter. All that matters to the world's governments is the rich. If you have less than five million dollars in the bank, you're not people.
Who cares about us? We don't matter. We've gone back to feudal times, only now we have the illusion of representative democracy.
Re:Fascinating (Score:3, Insightful)
And who is going to investigate? Who is going to expose? Fox, CNN, the Guardian, are all owned by the corporates. They stand to lose if this is investigated, so don't expect them to investigate. NPR and BBC? They're government, and also stand to lose if this is investigated.
Nobody will get in trouble over this. The corporates will get what they want, as always.
Re:Fascinating (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy - the people already had their say when they elected said politicians.
You really think my one vote trumps the billions of corporate dollars that go into corporate-sponsored political propaganda? The media are controlled by the corporations, and the only information you're going to get about the candidates is from them. You're going to vote for who they want you to vote for, and you'll do so logically and rationally.
Re:The irony of trying to keep ACTA secret (Score:2, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
Your point would hold if the major news outlets in the US are reporting this story. Instead they focus on what high-profile individual is having extramarital sex with whom.
There is no liberal media; there is only the corporate media, and ACTA serves to further their interests. I'll lay you 10 to 1 that the moment a reporter tries to get a story on ACTA is the moment he is threatened with job loss from his editor or executive.