Google Attorney Slams ACTA Copyright Treaty 157
Hugh Pickens writes "CNET reports that Daphne Keller, a senior policy counsel at Google, says ACTA has 'metastasized' from a proposal to address border security and counterfeit goods to a sweeping international legal framework for copyright and the Internet that could increase the liability for Internet intermediaries such as, perhaps, search engines. 'You don't want to play Russian roulette with very high statutory damages.' One section of ACTA says that Internet providers 'disabling access' to pirated material and adopting a policy dealing with unauthorized 'transmission of materials protected by copyright' would be immune from lawsuits but if they choose not to do so, they could face legal liability. Both the Obama administration and the Bush administration had rejected requests for the text of ACTA, with the White House last year even indicating that disclosure would do 'damage to the national security.'"
Re:Industrial Last Gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case "national security" means the stability and financial success of their supporters and corporate overlords.
Re:Industrial Last Gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would ACTA have been vital to "national security"?
Because saying so means they don't have to show it to you.
"Intangible products"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this an admission of sorts that the US no longer makes actual things but instead the majority of its GDP is based on intangible products?
Umm, I think ACTA is bullshit, but if you don't think a movie or TV show is an "actual thing" made in the USA, you're fucking batshit crazy.
Don't believe me? Try writing a screenplay sometime. Done? It sucks. It beyond sucks. It's an unreadable POS that makes no sense to anyone but you. But you think it's awesome, so go ahead and make it. Yeah, you'll need some money and a crew and some actors and some VFX houses. And props, makeup, locations, insurance, transportation, post-production, Foley, sound mixing.
You get the point. They make "actual things" and employ real people.
Same goes for video games, computer software, and those other "intangible products" that believe it or not are also "actual things".
Again, ACTA sucks donkey balls. I'm just saying that it is related to a "real" industry with "real" products, not some ephemeral, intangible anti-product. If you're going to debate this, you can't just dismiss the concerns (or existence) of the "IP" industry out of hand, because you'll lose on the facts before you've even started. There are plenty of rationals for criticizing ACTA. Saying they don't make actual things isn't one of them. Hope you enjoyed Iron Man 2 this weekend.
Please, for the kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really, really hope that everyone remembers everything that BOTH the republicans AND democrats have done to take steps to gradually make our country into a police state in the name of "National Security" over the past few years. In reality, personal freedoms are being controlled and restricted by corporate interest and they have little interest in anything other than making a buck.
Please, come election time, research independent alternatives for public office. The offerings may be slim, but can you really say that it would be any worse than what's been going on?
Re:"Intangible products"? (Score:1, Insightful)
If, instead, we want to watch a bunch of home movies on YouTube - we can have that instead by just continuing to eat away at the movie business model by violating copyright.
Re:Please, for the kids... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately the US system is rigged so that if you vote for the party you like a lot instead of the party you like a little, the party you don't like at all wins. You can substitute the last two with "lesser evil" and "greater evil" if you want but it still holds true. The US will have either the Democrats or Republicans in office until a armed revolt introduces proportional representation. I assume I don't need to tell you why the incumbents won't help...
Re:Industrial Last Gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
More specifically, the "national security" claim is the only way to get an exemption from the disclosure requirements imposed by FOIA. It is undemocratic and insulting that it is abused so often. It is appalling that the Obama administration is working so hard to best Bush II in the scope of this abuse.
Re:"Intangible products"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, so that's why Iron Man 2 is going to lose money! /s
Re:Keep in Mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Just how right-wing the US is generally. Even your left-wing politicians are more rightwing in a lot of cases than the most rightwing politicians in some other countries. Our "Conservative" government up here in Canada gets along just fine with Obama's administration, and the association - like that with previous administrations in the States - continues to move Canadian politics to the right.
You folks have no idea what a normal political spectrum is I am afraid, the influence of the Republicans over the past 100 years or so seems to have skewed things greatly to me.
Blatant corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
Secret laws and laws passed out of the public eye for the sake of corporate interests are nothing but simple corruption. Call it what it is.
Re:Please, for the kids... (Score:4, Insightful)
Things like ACTA, DMCA, PATRIOT, etc are what you get with a government that's big enough and powerful enough for five permanent standing armed forces, seventeen different armed civilian agencies. the highest percentage of its citizens in prison of anywhere, ever, and a permanent state of war against a non-political entity (drugs) being fought on over two dozen fronts. You can close down every single one of the programs you listed and there will be exactly as many government employees bearing arms as now.
Your post is like the case of a man running past with a pack of rabid weasels clinging to his form and his shoelaces untied, and you saying "I know how to fix the whole problem, let's just tie his left shoe!".
Re:"Intangible products"? (Score:4, Insightful)
it comes down to a simple equation: If people want to watch movies with major actors / actresses, superb visual and audio effects, etc. there will need to be a business model in which the people producing these movies can make money. The actors, set builders, makeup artists, visual effects people, caterers, property managers, etc. all need to be paid.
If, instead, we want to watch a bunch of home movies on YouTube - we can have that instead by just continuing to eat away at the movie business model by violating copyright.
Doesn't bother me any. In the end, writing, acting, and directing are important. The rest of it is nice, but not essential. For example, I remember seeing 'Driving Miss Daisy' -- the play, not the movie based on it -- back, oh, over 20 years ago, now. IIRC, the whole thing had only three actors, and the props consisted of two stools, a telephone, and a table to put the telephone on. While lower budgets might change what sorts of movies get made, I think that there will continue to be plenty of good ones. And if audiences are called upon to use their imaginations a little more to fill in details, then I don't think that's a problem either.
Re:Please, for the kids... (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's the problem, I no longer like either party and I'm not alone in this. It's sounds cliche, but in all reality if you don't stop thinking this way, then it will never change... ever. The best thing you can do is vote neither of these parties and start making some change. Start locally, grow nationally.
Yes, it won't happen over night, but if we start electing some independent congressman and senators and get rid of the status quo or at least throw a monkey wrench into the existing system, then I'm afraid of what this country will become in 20-50 years. We're slowing turning into what we fear, a police state nation. Our freedoms are being stripped in the name of liberty and corporate profit.
It's sad really, but looking back in history you see all these government controlled "police" agencies, like the KGB, SS, etc, things we were brought up to fear so much all got their start the same way. To protect the people in the name of national security. Look at what's happening with the TSA and Border Police. I'm not saying they're that evil yet, but we are just seeing the tip of what happens when someone gets to much "power". We have to make a change.
Re:Industrial Last Gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful. Kagan is a neo-con kook at heart. His writings assume a US-Israel hegemony and he represents the worst kind of conventional wisdom that posits the world would be better off if we just let smart people like him make the decisions. He's also tends to be an "ends justify the means" kind of guy when it comes to military entanglements, with the ends usually meaning oil or profits for military contractors. He's an excellent writer, but his books tend to be delicious apples with worms at the core. Basically, an apologist for the military-industrial complex, masquerading as a liberal with "everyone's best interest in mind" as long as their "best interest" involves a huge adventurist US military and support for Israel. He and Bill Kristol were co-authors of the "Project for a New American Century" which was the neo-con blueprint for the Bush Administration's plans to invade Iraq long before 9/11 or even the 2000 election.
Caveat emptor. I suggest digging for some of the critical reviews of his books before accepting any of his conclusions as gospel.
All proof to the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a few stories down from here on /. is a story that they just charged a bunch of people with selling counterfeit Cisco gear. They even confiscated it. Yet the powers that be (big buisness) would have us believe that is completely impossible with the current laws. It is just like when the US came up to Canada and threatened a trade war if we didn't put in an anti cam-cordering law. Well we did. And some one was convicted of recording a movie in a movie theater. Only they didn't use the spanky new law that was put in just for that purpose, they didn't need it. So what was the point of the US interfering in the laws of a sovereign country again?
If the US wants to make themselves completely incapable of competing in the global economy because they give only a few companies the right to produce any thing, and those companies no longer feel a need to compete then fine. That is their business. But leave us the hell alone!!!
i am against corporate cash in our government (Score:2, Insightful)
however i am far more against armed revolt. plus, it won't happen unless people are hungry
the point is: don't romanticize revolution. it is ugly and brutal and full of more suffering and cruelty than the worst corporatistic abuses of our democracy. peaceful change is the way to change things. armed revolt is for idiots who don't even understand the problem and will only make things far worse
finally, you have no control over the outcome, when you write about "an armed revolt introduces proportional representation" is just a fucking joke: NO ONE controls a revolution, and no one controls the outcome. you don't throw a revolution to get {xyz}, you throw a revolution... and anything is possilbe. in fact, the range of choices about what comes on the other end of a revolution are far, far worse than our current problems
so please stop romanticizing revolution, it is far, far worse than our problems with corporations, really. romanticizing revolution is for true idiots only
Re:Please, for the kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
The countries which, as a group, dominate all the "nice things" stats show you to be quite incorrect. As a matter of fact, those occupying top of that group, the Nordic countries...have way more social mobility than the US (which is at the bottom of "highly developed" countries, together with the UK). Canada is equally good.
So much for "American dream"; it's just that, a dream that has been sold to you. With "nanny states", as you surely like to call them, actually having more freedom.
PS. Student loans? Trashing good cars? Ridiculous stimulus packages? What's that?
PPS. Governments are a reflection of theor society. Don't kid yourself that isn't the case.
Re:Please, for the kids... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just 'free market as a panacea' nonsense, and I say this as a registered libertarian. A good public education system propelled America into the 20th century. The money you invest in teaching your children is reaped when they become skilled workers. Health care can have the same benefits - you take care of people, and they get back to work.
Saying that you can't have health care and freedom is just as absurd as arguing you can't have education and freedom. I'm curious how furious you are at our entitled 8 year olds.
The free market is usually a good idea. It does not solve every problem. Get over it.
Re:"Intangible products"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't bother me any. In the end, writing, acting, and directing are important. The rest of it is nice, but not essential.
I couldn't agree more (mod parent up xP), I've been wanting to say precisely this in other copyright related slashdot threads but JS bugs kept gagging me.
I am beginning to think I'm only one in 10% of the population not dazzled by Avatar's popcorn factor. And the only one who willfully hasn't seen it yet. (Yeah, can you imagine? I've downloaded it and everything, but can't be arsed to spend the block of time required to watch it!) I'm not that enthused by another rehash of Pocahontas or The Smurfs. 8I
I've watched 2 movies in "3d" in the theaters. I barely even go to the theaters anymore because the price is so high to begin with, why would I want to pay 50% more for eyestrain and a headache? Is the "future of entertainment" really that objects flying at your head gimmick that was done to death in the 50's with Anaglyph? Does anyone really believe this is the most important improvement to home entertainment since color television? How can a generation of people who couldn't figure out Magic Eye decouple their monocular focus from their binocular so easily without an aneurysm?
And the funny thing is, I wouldn't give a damn if the rest of the world wanted to waste their money on bullshit, except that I'll be dragged into court should I chose to download ineffable information just to keep track of what everyone else is talking about, or if I produce a video of my own that coincidentally contains four bars from some 1963 crooner off of the ice cream truck passing outside.
Copyright has absolutely nothing to do with compensation. I'd like one copyright holder to come forward and tell me when they've ever had to sue someone, and then perhaps illustrate how the court costs actually shielded their bottom line without dipping into the unprovable "lost sales" schtick. "Oh, anyone could have gotten my material for free had I not acted quickly!" Of course, anyone CAN get your material for free right now, so that argument is not admissible.
No. Copyright is only used in today's society — and only by very wealthy interests with the resources to invoke it indiscriminately — for the sole purpose of laying land rights over every permutation of thoughts individuals are allowed to think so that they can charge a toll. Our natural evolution as a society is driving us to communicate in memes. Name dropping, movie quoting, television show referencing, and textbook citing have become the new parable. Today's copyright industry exists solely to force us to pay to participate in this new language [blogspot.com].
So I back kangarooski in saying, bring on the copyright free world where "no content will ever be created again". Seriously, I'm calling your bluff. Because if none of y'all will create anything without charging per view, then I will and I don't mind being the only one at the mic. There is value in creating beyond tithing your audience. Anyone who doesn't see that can go without and leave more room for people with vision.
Participate in the primaries... maximize choice? (Score:2, Insightful)
People have very little choice in an election; just a choice of two party candidates, and most voting districts have been gerrymandered to the hilt. One solution for the voter is to participate earlier... in the primaries. This is where actual choices are. The candidates have to run the gauntlet of very few people in the party to get selected to run. The election itself is too late. Most states are gerrymandered anyways, so just forget about the election and participate in the primaries of the likely winning party in your district. Only Iowa ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering [wikipedia.org] ) has little to no gerrymandering.
Don't worry about party affiliation in the US, just register R or D and vote in the primary of the most likely party to win that will have a choice of candidates. Will this work? I'm not sure, but it doesn't require election reform or redistricting to implement. You may have to register a party affiliation you don't like if you in the minority in the district, but at least there may be a chance of having a moderating voice in the selection process.
Re:No, it's you. (Score:1, Insightful)
And yet, until recently, when we started introducing leftist ideas and gender/identity politics and the same welfare policies as all those hundred other countries, our country had skyrocketed to cultural, monetary, millitary, and scientific top dog in a very short period of time while others stagnated. I wonder why that was?