India Attempts To Derail ACTA 162
Admiral Justin writes "Ars Technica is reporting that India is attempting to gather support from other large countries that have been intentionally left out of the ACTA process to actively protest it. India fears that ACTA will eventually be used against it and other countries that were given no chance to be a part of the process of drafting it. Among the primary concerns are the possibility of medical shipments being seized if they use a port in transit that is controlled by a country with a patent on the pharmaceuticals."
Re:Profits are more important than lives. (Score:2, Interesting)
what about Antigua free ip that the WTO GIVE them? (Score:3, Interesting)
what about Antigua's free ip that the WTO GIVE them? What if they get locked out under the ACTA? can they use to for there on line gameing to not be blocked?
India in. Now we only need china, and russia. (Score:5, Interesting)
versus, hollywood.
who do you think will win ?
Re:Profits are more important than lives. (Score:0, Interesting)
At the risk of a very unpopular response, here goes. The "evil" drug companies did not spend billions of dollars so that they give away the fruits of their labor for free. The drugs were developed in hopes of getting some kind of return on investment. If all of you "drugs should be free" types force companies to lose money on every drug they develop, those evil companies will get out of R&D altogether. You wanted a cure for cancer? Too bad.
The answer is not circumvent patents and IP laws on drug companies, it's to remove the billions of dollars of dollars of red tape that it costs to bring new drugs to market, thereby reducing the costs of the drug to the company and thus the consumer. The pills will cost a lot less if R&D costs to recoup are only $200 million, instead of $2 billion.
what i'm wondering is (Score:5, Interesting)
how do these assholes actually expect to enforce acta?
you can pass all the laws you want. but in terms of actually stopping the spread of pirate media, they would have to fundamentally alter the internet in such a way as to also negate any value anyone attaches to the internet. in other words, they would start a revolt. not an armed revolt, just a sort of utter rejection of their vision of complete centralized control
it would also be extremely expensive, and they would also have to somehow control the internet internationally AND completely. they would, paradoxically, turn those outsider countries that aren't on the usa's bff list, into outposts of internet freedom
acta, to me, it seems like a completely desperate ploy, or clueless (or both)
really, in terms of enforceability, acta is a fucking joke
Re:Yep. Yer boned. (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly, it’s not America. It’s not even the USA. It’s the US government (and|,) a bunch of criminals.
And in this case also the EU fake government (as it’s not legally an actual government).
The people of our unions are mostly OK. I don’t have a problem with them.
I have a problem with some dicks who are full of themselves thinking that they deserve to be in charge and to profit trough abuse. I have a problem with them intentionally dumbing down the population (or letting it dumb down), and then using them like a herd of cattle, making them angry with lies or using the “don’t care” that they developed, or so they can make new rules with the sole purpose of abusing people for profit.
It’s how Hitler and Stalin did it. It’s now it’s still done.
Come on. We’re the intelligent people here! It’s our obligation to figure out a antidote for this.
i understand what you are saying (Score:5, Interesting)
they would basically turn the west into the corporate equivalent of the bullshit that goes on with the internet in china or iran: centralized monitoring and control, for the sake of $ (rather than political control)
in other words, they would force a conflict: the ideals of western liberal democracy, versus the corporate imperative to strangle everything to make a buck
now you can be a complete cynic and pessimist about this conflict, but personally, talking completely out of realism i think, they're fucking out of their mind: people won't stand for it. some of us will make it their passionate life pursuit to circumvent such controls, and those who are successful at routing around the controls will be folk heroes
i really don't see this weak ass acta subsuming the ideals of western liberal democracy. i'm sorry, but every goddamn teenager will take it as a personal joy to render acta a joke, and they'll be able to do it: all you need is technical knowhow. it beats all the lawyers, all the laws, all the international agreement
acta is a form of delusion, its doomed. but let them try, just see them crash and burn
Quixotic Attempt I'm Afraid (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that will kill the ACTA treaty is if a significant number of countries refuse to sign it or reject it during ratification. Unfortunately, I fear that any US administration would gladly sign the treaty and the US Senate would readily ratify it. If only the treaty would harm the gay unborn whales...
Re:Yep. Yer boned. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yea, you are going to want to spend some time digging through all the supreme court rulings in that last 40 years or so regards Indian treaties. Granted, the Indian treaties are a very different legal animal from say treatise over copyrights with other countries, but treatise do in fact carry more weight than the constitution in at least very important cases.
If you are not up for the time to do that here is the basic legal theory upheld by the supreme court on the subject (and I am sure there are better ways of putting it):
The territory that the U.S. occupies was found by recognition of a set of treaties that in many cases predate the territorial space of the United States. Thus, the existence and enforceability of those treaties makes everything else contained in the constitution possible. The most important of which is the territorial definition of the U.S., along with lots of nice things like mining rights, water rights, hunting rights, and so on.
For example, this is why Indians have casinos and the individual States in most cases can not really do a whole lot about it. Essentially, most of the United States is under some sort of lease to another government, and if you ignore those "rental" agreements the whole legal mess called the U.S. starts falling apart. Even when the U.S. breaks those treatises, they still have to pay up in court for the damages. One that comes to mind would be things like the Black Hills land claim at the moment. There are hundreds if not thousands of other rulings, and why the U.S. government tends to get its rear eventually handed to them in a court room over breaking those treatise sooner or later.
Re:what i'm wondering is (Score:3, Interesting)
What Hollywood wants is active policing of the internet by all world governments with prison terms handed out to infringes. If governments did go to that step I guarantee they would succeed, at the cost of imprisoning a few million more people while paroling truly violent criminals.
This is the reason the US government hasn't pursued it, but you should be very afraid of the influence the MPAA can exert, before it was just the RIAA, but now with Hollywood behind it there is a very good chance ACTA will force all the WTO countries to enforce restrictions (that includes China). Once the WTO starts imprisoning people the major easy distribution channels will go dead leaving only secure encrypted and very low volume exchanges, reducing the trade to very minimal which is Hollywood's goal. The tax increases to support the enforcement and the destruction of millions of lives will be enormous, but Hollywood doesn't care.
Re:I can relate (Score:1, Interesting)
Grows a pair and overthrow the corrupt corporate-fundamentalist regime in charge of your country.
Re:What the? (Score:4, Interesting)
And this is what makes me chuckle at free-market economists. The invisible hand only works when people have an informed choice, and give a damn. What tends to work better for managing the market is a big fucking stick and the warning, "You can make as much profit as you want, but when you start treating humanity as a source of profits and nothing else, we're going to start spanking." That's what any reasonable government would do, but governments are made of people, and people tend to be greedy...