Pirate Party Pillages Private Papers 210
David Crafti writes "Pirate Party Australia has made the move to host the recently leaked ACTA document in order to highlight the lack of government transparency in the negotiation process. We believe that the document is not under copyright, and we are not party to any NDAs, so there should be no restriction on us posting it. We would like to see what the government (any government) tries to do about it. If it turns out that there is some reason that we have to take it down, then we will, but if this happens, it will only validate the document's authenticity."
Berne convention will block this. (Score:4, Informative)
Countries are bound by an international treaty. shorting copyright is not an option.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works/Articles_1_to_21 [wikisource.org]
article 7:
(1) The term of protection granted by this Convention shall be the life of the author and fifty years after his death. .... ....
(6) The countries of the Union may grant a term of protection in excess of those provided by the preceding paragraph
(7) Those countries of the Union bound by the Rome Act of this Convention which grant, in their national legislation in force at the time of signature of the present Act, shorter terms of protection than those provided for in the preceding paragraphs shall have the right to maintain such terms when ratifying or acceding to the present Act.
So by international treaty they can shorten the copyright to the length it was when signing the treaty, or lengthen it arbitrary, but no country can shorten it below the length set in the treaty.
A pirate party is free to discuss this issue, but is almost impossible to make this a law, unless there was a law before the countries signed the Berne convention that limited the length. The only way to do this is a trick: leave Berne convention, set a copyright of 5 years and then join again. I bet this is not a point a minority party can establish.
What about Ninja's? (Score:5, Informative)
Who do you think gave them these documents eh? Right... nobody... nobody sees the Ninja!
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Informative)
A peck is a measure of volume associated with dry goods. It is rarely, if ever, used to measure liquids. It is equal to 16 dry pints, which is about 0.311 cubic foot. Note the word dry. A dry pint is not the same as a liquid pint. Four pecks equal a bushel.
Now, I'm not sure how many papers (are these US letter, A4, what?) fit into either a pint (are they flat or folded, have they been shredded, if so how finely, what?) or a bushel, but there's a starting point for your calculations.
Re:Well Played (Score:2, Informative)
a) free speech really isn't the law of the land in australia and never has been.
b) i don't really know of any country where libelous speech is protected.
But PPAU still need your membership! (it's FREE) (Score:5, Informative)
They only need a few more members to be able to officially register as a political party and it's now FREE TO JOIN! Just print out the form, sign it, scan/photograph it, email it in and be part of the solution.
Re:Read into the record. (Score:1, Informative)
Two seats, not one - ever since the Lisbon Treaty was ratified.
Re:Read into the record. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure what the flaw in your reasoning is, but I can say with reasonable confidence that if it only took a single Congressperson to put any given piece of information in the public eye without repercussion, we'd live in a very different world than we do today.
Article I, Section 6, Clause 1:
They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
As I recall, SCOTUS has interpreted that to mean legislators have immunity from prosecution for legislative acts; that they don't abuse that right is a sign that they are (sometimes, at least) adults. Of course, Congress could still censure a member if the did something outrageous.
Re:Public Domain NOW! (Score:3, Informative)
> I think 20 years is a bit too short nowadays with videos and such easily
> stretching back that far.
The point is to give authors a financial incentive to create works, not to make sure that they are able to extract every conceivable nickle of revenue from every work. Twenty years is quite long enough to make an author glad he wrote the thing.
Re:But PPAU still need your membership! (it's FREE (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Berne convention will block this. (Score:4, Informative)
Part (7) says countries can maintain their current length as of the signing date (for US 1987) So there's nothing preventing a roll back to the signing date for each respective country.
Part (8) In any case, the term shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed; however, unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work.
Is interesting as well.
What's also interesting is that the US adopted the UCC Geneva instead of the Berne in 1955 because the various clauses in the Berne Convention, such as the life of the author clause, were in direct contradiction with US law.
Incorrect Statement There (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Read into the record. (Score:3, Informative)
It's [fairly] safe to join the Pirate Party (Score:5, Informative)
You're wrong! It's pretty safe to join, without making civilisation collapse.
From the Aussie Pirate Party FAQ:
What are your main policy areas?
We aim to protect civil liberties and promote culture and innovation, primarily through... [various free speech, privacy and anti-censorship issues... ], and
* Reforming the life + 70 years copyright length
* Decriminalisation of non-commercial copyright infringement
Do you support abolishing intellectual property entirely?
No. We believe that the original goals of intellectual property protections, which are to promote creativity and invention, are reasonable. We don't believe that prosecuting non-commercial file sharers for copying a song from the 1940s is reasonable, however.
Do you think that commercial copyright infringement or patent infringement is ok?
No. Our position is that companies should pay for the use of copyrighted works and patented designs.
Re:Read into the record. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't really think that any parliamentary immunity will be necessary in connection with spreading this document, but as a Member of the European Parliament I can confirm that I have it, in case it turns out to be useful.
Member of the European Parliament
Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party), Sweden
Re:Berne convention will block this. (Score:3, Informative)
If any nation decided they wanted shorter limits they simply have to change any applicable national laws, then withdraw from the treaty. A nation could also just ignore the treaty as well. (Very few countries place treaty agreements higher than national laws like the US does. In most nations when a treaty is signed, it has no force of law until the member nation creates a set of national laws covering the agreement.)
Re:Not copyrighted? (Score:3, Informative)
"We believe that the document is not under copyright"
Uh, how/why?
I mean, I agree with the principle behind providing it, but if somebody wrote a document then the list of circumstances where something isn't under copyright is pretty small. Which one supposedly applies in this case?
"When it comes to the law, the courts have always said there can be no copyright because people are obligated to know what it says." [onthecommons.org]
Re:Not copyrighted? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, this being Australia, this might under the notion of common law copyright, which is a very different animal than statutory copyright.
The notion that authors have a natural right to control their published works in common law is a matter long settled: they don't. However in some jurisdictions (the United States for example), authors have a right to control the use of their unpublished works. So if Wikileaks gets a hold of J.K. Rowling's next novel and puts it on-line, in the US they are considered to have violated a fundamental right of the author to control her unpublished works. Once the works are published, her rights are very different.
The problem with a copyright claim when it comes to something like ACTA is that it's not really about protecting the author's expression. It's an attempt to parlay an acknowledged legal right over expression into an extra-legal power to limit news coverage of government activities. If there is any party whose interests ought to be protected in a case such as this, it is the public who employs the officials drafting this thing. The public's interest is not in revenues from sales of this law's text or possible derivative works from this law. It is in the nature and extent of obligations and restrictions that are going to be placed on them by the law -- something that is not in any sense intrinsically copyrightable.
The status quo ante here is that anyone who gets wind of what's going on with something like this can blow the whistle, if they're willing to take the risk. The rest of society is not obligated to help government officials squelch the leak. Officials are allowed to work without the public scrutinizing every jot as it is written, but if anyone in the process is alarmed enough, they can blow the whistle and the officials have to give an accounting of what they are up to. That's a reasonable compromise.
Re:It's [fairly] safe to join the Pirate Party (Score:3, Informative)
And that's why their position is wrong. Under their rules, any copyrighted material be entirely legal for filesharing. Once everything is legal and free on the internet, good luck selling anything.
Look at the plethora of bottled water manufacturers. How the hell do they make any money when it's legal and free to fill up a bottle from any tap?
PROTIP: it's called adding value, business innovation, and marketing.
Let's be honest here. The Pirate Party believes non-commercial filesharing for a song that came out 5 minutes ago should be 100% legal.
IMHO it should be. I still buy concert tickets, merchandise, DVDs, CDs etc. of artists I like. Why should the law be used to prop up an obsolete business model? Let's be honest here: filesharing is hurting record labels much more than it's hurting real artists. Just ask them [flickr.com].
And then those companies that use that copyrighted material immediately have their work on the internet for free.
It is anyway.
For example, if a movie wants to use someone's song in the soundtrack, they have to pay for it. Unfortunately, the movie itself is available for free on the internet (by the Pirate Party's rules). So, the movie-creators don't make any money. So, they can't afford to pay the musician for his music.
Except that Cinemas aren't struggling by any means. Neither are TV networks, hotels, etc. that would pay for the material. Plus I know I would still pay to have a hard copy of awesome movies like Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness!
The Pirate Party's filesharing stance makes sure that even the "companies have to pay for copyrighted material" stance becomes a lame duck. The only case where creators could get paid is by selling their copyrighted work is in advertisements - e.g. a musician could make money when his money is used in a Car ad, because the Pirate Party hasn't undermined the car-sales market.
I missed the part where the Pirate Party stops artists from touring, selling merchandise, selling CDs, selling DVDs etc. etc.
So, yes, I stand by my original claim: the Pirate Party wants to gut copyright law - making it almost worthless.
None of your claims stand. Including this one.
Re:Berne convention will block this. (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, if the population of a country wants to set puppies on fire they can too.
The thing is, countries sign this conventions because they get something in return from others. If $country wants his copyrighted works to be protected abroad, it has to protect the others' works for the full span of author's life plus 50 years, even if their local copyright laws aren't that restrictive.
Also, if you want to be a member of the World Trade Organization [wikipedia.org], you have to sign Berne.
So a sovereign state can definitively leave the Berne convention, but that doesn't mean it won't have to pay a very large price if it decides to do so (especially if it's a small country with little influence).