US Says 4.3 Billion People Live With Bad IP Laws 229
bowser100 writes "The US government has released its annual Special 301 report (PDF) in which it purports to identify those countries with inadequate intellectual property laws. Michael Geist digs into the report, noting the list is so large that it is rendered meaningless. According to the report, approximately 4.3 billion people
live in countries without effective intellectual property protection. Since the report does not include any African countries outside of North Africa, the US is effectively saying that only a small percentage of the world meets its standard for IP protection."
Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
309 million people in the US
compared to
"without effective intellectual property protection":
4 300 million people in the other countries around the world
If USA is the country that promotes democracy, doesn't this thing kind of say that the rest of the world does not want US IP and patent laws dictated to the them, and that US should respect it? Just like real democracy.
It looks like ~87% of people in the world doesn't like or want ACTA. Why does US push it to other countries, and why is it done with so secret methods?
While my country also does have good copyright laws, I don't want US to dictate us.
lucky them! (Score:5, Insightful)
ground breaking news, 4.3 billion people with IP laws the US don't like.
hidden assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
"without effective intellectual property protection" != "Bad IP laws"
Just sayin'.
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
A large group of countries consisting of ~4.3 billion people have released a report saying at least 300 million people are living under draconian IP laws.
Does this include... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this study include the 300 million in the US living with bad IP laws? Over restrictive is just as bad as not restrictive enough. The fact that a big company can get a $2 million dollar judgment against somebody for non-commercially (and possibly inadvertently) sharing mere tens of song tracks on a file sharing service MIGHT be a sign that our own system is just as screwed up as the systems with no copyright protection at all.
We are not trending towards a happy medium, at least not if Disney and the RIAA have anything to say about it.
why is parent modded down ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
What trully is inadequate is thinking that "intellectual" entities can be "property"... That's the source of all problems... Period.
Re:Where is the evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have yet to see anyone present objective evidence that the existence of copyright, either in its current term/form the US/WIPO/ACTA is pushing, (or at all) helps the economy in the countries in question compared to other systems or models.
Well that's because it's not about helping the countries in question, it's about helping the US. The US produces a lot of IP, so from a US perspective good IP laws are those which result in a lot of money being paid to US companies. It's fair enough if you ask me, since the US government is just looking out for its own interests, which I guess is pretty much what it's supposed to do. On the other hand, the governments of other countries might be doing their job best if they tell the US to go to hell.
Reality Check (Score:4, Insightful)
yes (Score:5, Insightful)
some of those countries have no respect for the patented gene sequences found in species in their countries by western scientists
ip law is a way of saying that every thought and utterance is not the common good of mankind but is a monopoly that must be respected, and everyone must contribute cash because you were the first to register something many others probably thought of as well, or in a slightly different form. ip law is a farce. it reards distributors and entrenched corporate powers, definitely at the expense of artists and inventors (NOT in support of them). it overly legalizes and bureaucratizes with hefty intrusions into basic freedoms a byzantine scheme to compartmentalize a process which has been free for the vast majority of humankind's existence: the exchange of simple information
and its not even enforceable. no warchest in all the first world nations can adequately shore up the artificial patronage system ip law defenders imagine. nevermind that ip law doesn't even make economic sense, because with all that intrusive controlling, less is earned than simply letting information go wherever its wanted, and profitting off of ancillary revenue streams created by letting it all hang out instead
ip law is an absurd joke, and is not to be respected. it is your moral duty to ignore it or actively undermine or destroy it
US vs the world? (Score:4, Insightful)
So in essence what the lobbyists are forcing the US government to claim is that the entire world is horribly wrong while only the US legal system, which they bought with their own hard-earned money, along with other jurisdictions which were bought out, are the only instances which may be seen as somewhat decent remotely fair.
Meanwhile, the world has enjoyed centuries of cultural and scientific progress and an amazing economic progress, all happening without this sort of totalitarian and draconian type of legislation which is profoundly anti-democratic. In fact, humanity saw great progress being achieved whenever someone found a way to facilitate the dissemination of cultural and educational works, whether by inventions such as writing and the printing press. The internet is the modern day's version of the printing press but can only be a modern day's revolution if the freedom to freely access copyrighted works without the copyright owner's authorization is acknowledged, respected and defended, something which these industry idiots are on a mission to undermine.
Re:You know.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where is the evidence? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is not the people of the U.S. It is the corporate media industrial complex that wants these laws. The people of the U.S. don't want them either.
If we only had a form of government that listened to the people and respected it's wishes. I wonder what we could call it.
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
No, for the US, "IP" is the new Colonialism.
The old forms of Colonialism don't work any more, so the USA is trying to make sure the rest of the world is beholden to them.
There are times, when I can't help but conclude that the US is, in fact, rather quite evil and insidious. They only promote democracy if the resulting government will play by their rules. If a democracy decided to tell the US to fuck off, the US would start trying to cause a "regime change".
I don't blame individual Americans for this -- but, US foreign policy sucks. It's largely about protecting American corporate and oil interests.
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Manifest destiny might imply that *everyone* lives in the U.S., but they don't know it yet.
Re:You know.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Preposition 1: IP needs protecting
Preposition 2: We have the strongest IP laws
Conclusion: We protect IP the best
Is the same as:
Preposition 1: We need to reduce crime
Preposition 2: {insert race here} is arrested 3 times as much as any other race
Conclusion: We need to target {insert race here} to reduce crime
Both prepositions are technically correct, but the conclusion is flawed... Why? Because they are combined in a way that ignores their construction. People (Especially politicians) have no problem seeing why the second example is wrong. Yet most have a major problem seeing why the first is wrong...
Re:Democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like most Americans don't want the "Health Care" that was just passed?
Any minority trying to impose its will on the majority through elitism (we're right/you're wrong, we know better than you) is just as flawed as any other.
Both (D) and (R) are guilty of this, and are hypocritical.
Re:Where is the evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's plenty of historical evidence that copyright laws of the kind created by the Statute of Anne and the copyright clause of the US Constitution aided both the economy and (more importantly, I think) the exchange of ideas within their jurisdictions. The UK experienced a veritable boom in publishing after Anne (the dawn of the modern novel and journalism as we know it). Both statutes were author-friendly (rather than publisher-friendly), and didn't significantly restrict the development of the public domain as copyrights expired fairly promptly. It's only with the imposition of absurdly long copyright terms (even just Berne-plus, let alone DMCA and ACTA level) that we've seen the diminishing economic returns, and ballooning restrictions on public freedom. Worse, copyright law as we know it today is much like Prohibition: it's turned too many people into casual criminals, to the point that they question the very real, demonstrable value of copyright altogether.
Re:why is parent modded down ? (Score:1, Insightful)
I've modded sopssa down before, but this isn't right. It looks like someone has a vendetta - even the valid points are down-modded.
Posted anon since I know I'm off topic.
Re:You know.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire developed world (G8ish, or G20 excluding India and China, for the sake of argument) is in a minority compared to the undeveloped world. This does not imply that the developed world should move backward.
That said, within the developed world, US laws have rarely conformed to what the rest of the world has deemed sensible, and when they have, they've been on a several decade time lag in most cases (e.g., universal healthcare, gay rights, social safety net).
Re:You know.... (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, there's a point where you have to step back and realize that you're a minority (by a long shot) and when you are on your own little unique land its *typically* not everyone else that's wrong.
Well, when we were the only country on Earth with a binding written constitution, I'm pretty sure it was everyone else that was wrong. Not that that applies to this situation; in this situation I'm pretty sure the US is wrong, but I wouldn't follow your logic to reach that conclusion.
In other news. (Score:4, Insightful)
In other news approx 2 billion people sighed that they have to live with insane copyright law dictated by a cartoon mouse and a few industrial, and wish they were living in democraty, where voting would matter, and the voice of the people (demos) would be heard. Sadly they will have to put up with the facist(*) geronto-ploutocraty they live in...
(*) (Fascist as the classic definition of "industry in collusion with authoritative governement")
Re:Canada (Score:3, Insightful)
Our border authority's efforts would be better spent preventing illegal guns from slipping across the border and into the hands of criminal gangs.
OTOH, it's easier and safer for them to "seize suspected infringing materials without the need for a court order."
Didn't you know? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think we have a shortage of art looming, and if we do: I don't see that copyright laws in India are the problem.
Didn't you know? Hollywood stopped making movies when China started bootlegging them. That's why Ghostbusters II and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade never got made. Not to mention Titanic, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, or any Harry Potter movies.
In Other News (Score:5, Insightful)
80% of the world lives on less that $10 a day, 50% live on less than $2.50 a day [globalissues.org]
2.5 Billion people don't have access to good sanitation, and nearly a billion use unsafe drinking water [unicef.org]. But let's make sure they have good IP laws, yes? Something about 'eating cake' comes to mind while reading this article.
Re:Canada (Score:3, Insightful)
Well now, define important. To the US and its Corporate Entertainment controllers, the IP legislation issue is the most important thing. To the Conservatives, remaining in power after the corruption scandal that's currently hit the presses rolls on through their reputation, so that they can remain in power and Harper can continue to suck up to the USA is likely more important. Its always so embarrassing for Government when the corruption that everyone expects is going on daily actually gets exposed and everyone has to backpedal like mad. No, I don't think the Liberals would be any better to be honest. The NDP perhaps, but Jack Leighton? Seriously?
In the meantime though I hope the US Entertainment industry will stay the fuck out of my country. No one else wants the draconian legislation they are trying to shove down the world's throats it seems, but because the US is the biggest and nastiest dog in the scrapyard, everyone else is caving in. They don't want to get beaten up and they want their share of the bone, so everyone else seems to be Finlandizing sadly.
Are you sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure of that? I remember a time when one got a lot of entertainment from radio and television where the only way we paid was from buying the items they advertised in the programs.
The greatest enemy the media industry faces today is their own greed. They have forgotten the main principle of the capitalist market economy: "KEEP THE CUSTOMER SATISFIED". They have replaced it with one they borrowed from the socialist world: "ACCORDING TO OUR PLANS, WE SHOULD GET THIS MUCH PROFIT"
The very simple fact is that the market has rejected business plans that say people should pay $0.99 for a song, or $17 for a CD, or $15 for a DVD.
Entertainment should be cheaper, much cheaper. I would be dead in a short while without oxygen, or water, or food. But I can subsist much longer without entertainment. With no pressing need, I'm not willing to pay too much for it.
Bring me the $0.10 song, the $1.00 CD or the $1.50 DVD and I'll readily buy them. At higher prices, I will not buy *anything* from the media industry.
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
All residents of the US are living with bad IP laws [wikipedia.org].
Re:Democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder what makes the US intellectual property laws superior.
The only thing that seems to drive them are money - but that doesn't make them superior. In my opinion they have passed over from promoting progress to inhibiting progress. It's something like the air/fuel mixture needed to make a car engine run well - too little or too much are both limiting the performance and the speed.
Today the innovation in the US is limited by the patent trolls and copyright panic.
Re:Democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in the US. And I have bad IP laws.
If copyright only no more than 20 years and breaking DRM to allow fair use, personal backups, device shifting and format shifting were not crimes and if software, math, genetic expressions and human behavior could not be patented, them maybe I would have good IP law as well.
Moderation problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for pointing that out. Though marked -1 Troll, sopssa's posts there appear to me to be his opinions (right or wrong), honestly held and reasonably expressed: not attempts to incite trouble.
Even though this is off topic, I think it is worth mentioning. If not here, where? Moderation affects all Slashdot discussions. If too many mods forget how and why the system works, it can break down. It works reasonably well (unlike most mainstream news sites I have seen) because it focuses on the quality of discussion, not whether one agrees or disagrees. Modding down is meant as a last resort to weed out posts that harm reasoned discourse. It is not supposed to be used merely to express disagreement. It's too late to do much good, but as I seldom spend all my mod points I used some there.
Does everyone really need IP protection? (Score:1, Insightful)
Part of those 4.3 billion people don't care about IP laws because they're more concerned with how they're going to get food and water for the coming day.
Sure there's a few developed countries cited in the report, but the fact is that a lot of the developing world still have peasants (for lack of a better word) for the bulk of their population that generally have no need for IP protection. When you're a farmer miles away from any industrialized city still using oxen to plough your fields, or you're living in the slums of Mumbai, how can IP possibly apply to you?
Dear IP lobby, (Score:1, Insightful)
Dear IP Lobby,
Get Fucked!
On the order of things that the rest of humanity needs, IP law for any given country is in the teens at its best. Death, disease, adequate food supply... You know, the ability for people to survive, and propegate far exceeds your ability to protect Intellectual Property and profits. Once again you assume that without IP law, the world would crumble into nothing. You obviously live in a reality distortion field if you don't think humanity can destroy itself regardless of whether or not you exist.
In essence, Get Fucked!
Sincerely,
The rest of the world
Re:Where is the evidence? (Score:1, Insightful)
Friendly tip - Whitespace. Use it.
Re:Democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to not approve, until I actually looked at how other countries have it.
A lot of businesses choose to operate in the US BECAUSE we have the best IP protection around.
Not saying it's PERFECT and there are definitely problems (patent thicket no doubt), but it's still the safest for businesses. Many European countries, for example, have what basically amounts to a stronger copyright law. For those aware of the details of IP protection, this is obviously not enough.
There are other benefits to being in the US, but businesses are simply risk minimizers about these things. If you're operating in China you run a very large risk of one of your workers handing the design documents over to his neighbor, who can undercut your price because he didn't foot any of the R&D cost.
Besides, it would behoove us to protect our country's post-industrial/manufacturing industry. If you can't enforce who takes your products and who doesn't (because most of the capital cost is for a "digital" product (thinking design documents here in a PDF)), then you can't afford to produce those things. If you develop a kick-butt iPod competitor in China, you'll never gain any traction in the market because you won't have the resources or political clout to keep someone who got a hold of your design documents from producing the thing you just designed.
Grass is always greener, but rest assured the other guys have their share of weeds, too.
Re:Democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where is the evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously there are significant businesses that thrive now and could only exist with strong copyright protections. Entertainment, media creation, information aggregators and sellers - all require strong copyright to exist. Without these protections they would be hurt, somewhat, and some would go away.
I wouldn't say that is obvious at all. It is assumed that those industries need strong copyright protections to thrive and I'd agree that is true if they wish to maintain their current business models, but there is nothing to say that those industries couldn't still be profitable without strong copyright protection and new business models.
For example, reduce copyright to shorter amount of time (say 10 years). Disney could no longer rely on their backlog to stay profitable (re-releasing every old move over and over), instead they'd have to innovate and create new content and services.
Freeing musicians to legally sample older works more readily without jumping through licensing hoops would also have some interesting implications on the music industry. People could build off others' ideas more quickly without fear of repercussions. Yes there would probably be a ton of remade garbage, but it wouldn't be a select group of people remaking the garbage like the current pop music scene. Thought Britney Spear's remake of "the beat goes on" sucked? (it did).. well then you are free to try and do it better.
Personally I want to see creativity pushed to its limits, where people have to continually innovate. Rather we have a culture where you can have one good idea then sit on your laurels and profit off it.
Re:Democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
You are assuming that those 309 million approve, which is not the case.
But the people paying for the campaigns and perks for our congressmen DO want it. So a few thousands lobbyists are paying a lot of money to a few congressmen, to get their version of "fair" shoved down the throats of 6.5 billion people. Welcome to America.
Re:Moderation problems (Score:3, Insightful)
I seldom spend all my mod points I used some there.
Didn't you negate any moderation you did by posting in the same discussion?
Re:Moderation problems (Score:3, Insightful)
If too many mods forget how and why the system works, it can break down.
Follow the money. A lot of astroturfers and their sock puppets are now mod'ing up/down for advertising purposes. It's quite common for example to see +5 zero content posts saying how wonderful some product is within minutes of a new story. Clearly intended to direct the conversation. They've probably got slashdot accounts to get an early view and mod points. It is less common with non-product based stories but you still see valid posts mod'ed as trolls because they conflict with some company or organization's commercial propaganda. Different company's do it differently. For example, while Apple seems to have a lot of astroturfers they don't seem to manipulate the mod system, just try to drown out alternative points of view. The RIAA/MPAA (ie. media sentry) on the other hand used to mod up/down all the time though they don't do it so much now because the numbers are against them. I also suspect slashdot itself is also mod'ing to quickly suppress trolls and spam, and to create controversy promoting discussion.
---
Advertising pays for nothing. Who do you think pays marketer's salaries? You do via higher cost products.
Re:Democracy (Score:1, Insightful)
That's one of the very few posts I've seen from someone who favors strong IP laws that gives credible reasons for it. Most of them are
However, I think there are more negatives to society than the positives offered by restrictive IP laws. I think the US will suffer for it.
Re:Democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
We here in the US are now completely buttfucked by the greedy corporations that have bought all our elected officials.
Obama has become nothing more than a trained monkey on a chain.
Pity, I liked the guy too and hoped he would be different.
We traded a bunch of whacked out right wing conservative asshats for a bunch of whacked out left wing asshats. All of which still serving the corporations that bought them as whores.
American used to represent freedom. Now were hogtied under corporate dictatorship
Would someone out there please invade us and liberate us from the terrorists now in control. Pretty please ...
Re:Democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of businesses choose to operate in the US BECAUSE we have the best IP protection around.
Best IP protection for businesses, maybe. But that's only because it's the strongest. If the US reduced the term on copyright to something sane, like 10-20 years, and stopped issuing patents on genes and mathematics, it would still have IP protection more than strong enough for businesses to stay and thrive here. And we the people would get our rights back!