WikiLeaks Releases the Secret Draft Text of the TPP IP Rights Chapter 212
sproketboy writes "WikiLeaks releases the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter."
The Syndney Morning Herald took a look at the leaked documents, from their article: "An expert in intellectual property law, Matthew Rimmer, said the draft was 'very prescriptive' and strongly reflected U.S. trade objectives and multinational corporate interests 'with little focus on the rights and interests of consumers, let alone broader community interests.'"
How do you act (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How do you act (Score:5, Informative)
Traditionally? Revolution and chop of the heads of the a*******. Unfortunately with modern police and military that does not work anymore.
Let me guess. (Score:5, Funny)
They're mandating net neutrality, eliminating bandwidth caps, and dramatically scaling back copyright terms in light of the fact that the Internet offers a worldwide market for copyrighted material with instantaneous delivery of goods?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Let me guess. (Score:5, Insightful)
More like "+1, Almost a laugh but really a cry"
Re: (Score:2)
And something like the OP will happen when pigs fly, making the Floydian metaphor complete.
Re: (Score:2)
Those that studied their Floyd properly know that pigs could fly. I'm only here to make a buck.
If this is the draft version (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are European politicians involved in "negotiations" at all? They could save their time and just sign a document written by the U.S. government. Same result with less effort.
Re:If this is the draft version (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are European politicians involved in "negotiations" at all?
They get travel expenses and fine food plus hook^Wentertainment...?
Re: (Score:3)
Why are European politicians involved in "negotiations" at all? They could save their time and just sign a document written by the U.S. government. Same result with less effort.
There used to be a legal principle that secret laws were invalid. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is only valid when the laws are available.
Now admittedly our laws have taken a beating due to the US Economic Hit Men and some of our politicians have shown themselves to be obedient to their masters. Someone is eventually going to point out that secret laws have less validity than unwritten agreements.
That may be why...
Re: (Score:2)
Not even then. It's only valid when either all the laws are common sense or the number of laws is sufficiently small that a reasonable person can avoid being ignorant of them.
Without those limits on the law, you end up in a society where lawyers run the world, and everybody is constantly having to run everything by their lawyers before they even have a simple conversation in public. We're rapidly approaching that point, assuming
Re:If this is the draft version (Score:5, Informative)
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is only valid when the laws are available.
In the Before Time, in the Long, Long Ago, back when legal principle meant something, the level of ignorance a person could show of the law and still be bound by it existed on a sliding scale. This was the difference between malum en se and malum prohibitum. For instance, you don't need to be aware of laws against beating a man to death in order to be found in violation of the specific law against beating a man to death. That act is malum in se. Evil in and of itself. However, if there's a law against walking your dog by the river on Tuesdays, that act is not evil in itself. It's just prohibited because, I don't know, maybe the local cat trade is huge, and new shipments of cats come in on Tuesdays, and it's really better for everybody if dogs are just kept away from the river that day. Then, you can be guilty of the act, but if it's not well publicized with signs posted saying "Illegal to walk your dog by the river on Tuesdays," but not have done so intentionally and be found not guilty of the crime. Particularly if the law is well crafted and has words in it like "willfully" and "knowingly." That is, you knew you were walking your dog in the dog free zone (because you were caught next to the 'no dogs allowed' sign) and you willfully did it anyway, you're busted.
That is no longer the case anymore, though. Today laws are rammed through congress completely without the mens rea components, which leads to things like the Lacie Act where there are literally people in jail for having possessed the wrong kind of crustacean in the wrong kind of package without having any idea that was a violation of some obscure law.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
They have to put on a nice show that they're doing something, or someone back home may actually catch on to the fraud.
Re:If this is the draft version (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are European politicians involved in "negotiations" at all? They could save their time and just sign a document written by the U.S. government. Same result with less effort.
It's for show, the illusion of representative democracy. The decisions were already decided on a golf course in the Bahamas by the multinational industrialists who really wrote it.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are European politicians involved in "negotiations" at all? They could save their time and just sign a document written by the U.S. government. Same result with less effort.
Why are European politicians involved in "negotiations" at all? They could save their time and just sign a document written by the US content industries (RIAA, MPAA). Same result with less effort.
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Insightful)
Property versus Knowledge
Property can be held, physically possessed.
It is easy to see who possesses a piece of property. Knowledge cannot be physically possessed. It can only be known.
When I take property from you, you no longer have it.
It is easy to see that property is (or can be) exclusive, or what the legal beagles call "rivalrous", a zero-sum game. To the extent that one person uses it, they limit the amount that another person can use it. Knowledge cannot be taken away from you; when I learn some knowledge that you know, you still know it.
Property has a clear origin; you start with raw materials, sometimes you you add labour.
It is easy to see where property came from. It is easy to trace the movements of a piece of property. Knowledge doesn't have a clear origin; it is all derived from existing human culture and knowledge.
http://darksleep.com/notablog/articles/Intellectual_Property_Is_Fraud [darksleep.com]
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Insightful)
Intellectual property is a useful social construct. This post is a bit like saying "manslaughter is a hoax" because all the distinctions between it and murder are subjective. The problem isn't the existence of intellectual property as a concept, but its treatment as a shining jewel of fundamental rights. Ignoring the purpose of something in legislating about it is always a problem.
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Insightful)
Intellectual property is a useful social construct.
Sure. The problem is that these people think that draconian legislation is the answer to a changing marketplace that made their business model obsolete.
Imagine if the buggy-whip manufacturers had had enough money to bribe the government to pass laws preventing manufacture of automobiles...
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
If movie theaters could just show movies without paying the studio anything, how would new movies get funded?
If authors didn't get paid anything for writing books, do you think we'd continue to have as many books?
If software wasn't protected by copyright, would as many programs get created?
Do you really want to live in that world?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe we just wouldn't get so many movies that are crap by people who are only there to make a buck.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
IP may be a SOCIAL BARGAIN but every society currently on the planet only cooperates in Social Bargains when they get something out of it. Nobody on any side is willing to agree or cooperate on anything if they feel they would be betraying their personal convictions and righteous crusades. Nationalism is on the rise, global cooperation is disappearing, misleading and biased rhetoric has replaced facts, and competition for resources is rising by the day. I see nothing to change these factors other than the
Re: (Score:3)
The original idea is good - give that monopoly for a fixed period of time. That way "better" art can be more profitable than "crap." The period of time, however, needs to be reasonable and short. Certainly within the creators lifetime and probably a small fraction of that. I don't make money off code I wrote 10 years ago - it's absurd that an artist would expect the same.
Re: (Score:2)
*I am probably more with you than against you, ultimately*
That said...
"I don't make money off code I wrote 10 years ago - it's absurd that an artist would expect the same."
You would be if you had written and were selling the final product yourself. But something you wrote for your employer? Probably not. Likewise, an artist (maybe a scientific illustrator, for example) who produced art and was paid a salary to do so, probably isn't making any money off of it now.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably, judging by how much content the Internet has for free, but even if not, does it matter? There's more books than I, you or anyone can possibly read, and those written solely for money are unlikely to be great losses.
Seeing how "that world" produced the very tropes and settings current for-profit copyright regime is rehashing over and over and over again.
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Informative)
They did.
You had speed limits of 9 mph, requirements to have a guy waving a lantern in front of you, etc., etc., etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
KHAAAN (Score:2)
people with the knowledge to create new intellectual property are scarce because of artificially imposed scarcity of knowledge, created by intellectual property laws?
Free (or otherwise without charge) educational resources like Codecademy, Khan Academy, Wikibooks, Shmoop, and TV Tropes have been helping to solve the problem of scarcity of underlying knowledge on which to build new knowledge. So has the growing "open access" movement away from Elsevier and Wiley's paywalled scholarly journals, which includes storing preprints in arXiv or Academia.edu. But you're right about the artificial scarcity imposed on, say, contemporary fictional universes.
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the differences between copyright and property are not subjective. That was the entire point of the OP.
The differences here are very real.
Plus the corporate interests want to have it both ways. They want all of the advantages and none of the downside. They also want rights only for them and no one else.
It really doesn't work that way. Trying to will bring the whole house of cards down for everyone.
Re: (Score:3)
Intellectual property is a useful social construct.
Well, let me guess guess for whom it is useful... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Intellectual property isn`t knowledge, it`s various forms of monopoly rights. Copyright is a monopoly right to make copies. Trademarks are a monopoly right to use certain forms of signs. Patents are monopoly rights to make use of various inventions.
The idea of monopolies as goods that can be traded is a little abstract, but it`s similar to lots of other contracts. If you deposit money in a bank, they only need to return it to you because of an abstract concept of ownership. Nothing really changed hands
Re: (Score:2)
I've been making the same kind of argument here on Slashdot for years now; it's nice to see someone else doing so.
I'm not sure calling it a "hoax" helps the argument's case though: the concept of [copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets] is real enough; it's just the attempt to conflate it with actual property that is a lie.
Re: (Score:2)
Allowing the "Intellectual Property [sic]" proponents to frame the debate just makes it that much easier for them to win.
The conflations inherent in intellectual property (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> It's a semantic game around terminology that ignores the real issues
Semantics are the issue. Corporate shills pretend that copyright is a natural right to align their interests with the Bill of Rights when the exact opposite is the case.
Semantics is at the center of the pro-corporate propaganda here.
Knocking down this propaganda is the first step to restoring balance to this situation.
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Insightful)
Without copyright, patents, etc. then you would have fewer inventions that benefit all of humanity.
My father owned several patents years ago, ran a business for years based on them. He is retired now (and of course those patents are long expired), but for a time those provided us a comfortable living.
He invested his parents life savings to make those inventions and get them patented. Do you really think he would have taken that risk without the chance of a reward?
If he had to invest his parents life savings, and in return the government says, "sorry, that is just knowledge, anyone can copy it now that you've invented it", do you believe he would be inclined to do so?
If you're honest, you'll agree that he would not, most people wouldn't.
Could you find an example of someone who would? Yes, of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but the majority of people would not.
Our world would be a very different place (and not for the better) without such laws in place.
(Note: Patents are about right, 20 years... copyright has been extended too many times and lasts too long, I'd personally reduce that to 20 years to match Patents).
Re: (Score:2)
My father owned several patents years ago, ran a business for years based on them. He is retired now (and of course those patents are long expired)
The problem is that copyrights, unlike patents, NEVER expire anymore. Not in the U.S. anyway, and the U.S. is all that fucking counts (because the rest of your pussy leaders will damn well do what the U.S. Government tells them to OR ELSE!)
Re: (Score:2)
If patents lasted as long as copyrights, I'd still be getting a royalty check to this day...
I'm not, because they expire. And I'm ok with that, we were paid for 20 years, that is long enough.
Copyright? Nuts, just nuts... move it back to 20 years...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Those patents are expired, maybe I should spend all my savings and invent something new, only to have you take it for free.
Yea, no thanks. What have YOU invented with all your life savings and then given away?
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
If you write software in your free time as a hobby, more power to you. You're able to do that because you do something that earns you money, and the computer that you write that software on only exists because of people who wanted to earn money.
The patents and copyrights on the hardware and software are what enabled computers to become what they are. Without that profit motive, Intel wouldn't be spending $5 billion dollars to bui
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. Intel lives on the bleeding edge. Patents don't do squat for their bottom line. Keeping ahead of their rivals is what creates their bottom line. A 20 year long monopoly is meaningless in a world where yesterday's technology is considered stale.
Intel is perhaps the WORST example you could have come up with.
Patents exist to encourage the disclosure of trade secrets.
Intel makes money by SELLING THINGS.
Re: (Score:2)
Without patent protection, I could sell the same things as Intel and undercut them because I wouldn't have to spend billions on R&D, I'd just copy them.
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Insightful)
This thread shows one of the biggest failings of humanity, which we see on a daily basis across many issues.
People don't know how to compromise and meet in the middle for the good of humanity. People are taught never to waver in their beliefs, and if they give in even slightly they're taught that they're weak.
One the one hand you have the copyright abolitionists, who would insist that all media be free for the taking from day one. On the other hand, you have the pro-copyright extremists who feel that things are fine the way they are.
Copyright is a good thing, but it shouldn't last for over a century. Things are too much in favor of copyright holders nowadays, and under current law, the public interest may as well be nonexistent.
This is why many people have no problem violating copyright, and arguably it is moral to do so, as long as it is carefully restricted to works owned by corporations who wish to de facto abolish the public domain. There's a difference between violating copyright because you want something for free, and violating copyright because you have a philosophical and moral opposition to the current handling of copyright. The latter can arguably be seen in the same light as other famous civil disobedience, the former is just greed and self-indulgence.
Re: (Score:2)
Copyright is a good thing, but it shouldn't last for over a century. Things are too much in favor of copyright holders nowadays, and under current law, the public interest may as well be nonexistent.
I totally agree, and said so in my original post.
20 years for patents strikes me as reasonable. We could debate 10 years, we could debate 30 years, but I doubt any of us think 70 years makes sense.
Copyright? 20 years sounds reasonable to me, again we could debate 10 years, or 30... the current system is indeed too long. Cinderella has been out for 63 years, the people who created it aren't even alive anymore, the fact that it will remain under copyright for well into this century is just absurd.
Re:Intellectual property is a hoax. (Score:5, Informative)
People don't know how to compromise and meet in the middle for the good of humanity.
I do not compromise away rights I believe to be fundamental. I do not compromise on the TSA. I do not compromise on many things if I believe them to violate people's rights. It's called having principles.
Copyright is a good thing
There is no proof of that that I know of. Can you do anything beyond speculate when considering what our society would look like without copyright? I seriously doubt it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
BS. Software I write (with 2 other developers) gets sold for high five figures per copy. We do not rely on copyright at all, but rather on contract law. To say that people cannot get paid without Imaginary Property monopoly privileges is nonsense
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, indeed. But the unmitigated greed of the content industry is trying very hard to prevent people from seeing that, no matter the damage they do.
Re: (Score:2)
You could say I knew her in the Biblical sense.
You mean you found her sort of quaint and near incomprehensible?
Re: (Score:2)
Necessity is the mother of invention, not avarice.
The same argument you use in favor of patents run amok can also be applied to the victims of patent trolls.
Re: (Score:3)
Time, money, and labour are all spent on the development of more knowledge.
Yes. Money that they voluntarily chose to spend. They don't get government-enforced monopolies over ideas just because they can't figure out a working business model, or at least, I don't believe they should get such a thing.
So by preventing anyone from reasonably exploiting the knowledge they have created/found, where is the incentive to continue advancing knowledge?
That's no one's problem but the people who are trying to figure out how to make money from the ideas.
Re: (Score:2)
That free, open source software, is written on computers that are anything but free, that were developed for the purpose of making their companies a profit.
The development work that FOSS is built on was all "for profit" software.
You wouldn't even have a computer on your desk in the first place if it wasn't for "profit".
Yes, there are people who are willing to work on FOSS, but they have an income from somewhere, you can't eat "love and happiness".
T
Well, thank goodness for WikiLeaks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Without them, we might never have suspected that large moneyed interests influence international policy in their own favor.
Seriously, though, good on WikiLeaks. It can't hurt to rub people's noses in the facts -- can it?
Re:Well, thank goodness for WikiLeaks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, though, good on WikiLeaks. It can't hurt to rub people's noses in the facts -- can it?
It is a sad day that we must rely on an donation sponsored organization like Wikileaks to attempt to defend the rights and interests of consumers - our respective national institutions have obviously failed us. Wikileaks and brought some sunlight on the backroom dealing, bribing and power struggle negotiations over the TPP and defiantly hurts the corrupt politicians goverment functionaries and corporations behind it.
If this knowledge now translates into pushback and political action then maybe it will not have been in vain. Given mass media is not interested in informing the masses that their rights and interest are about to be stripped away by this deal then this it is a long shot. We the people get the governance we deserve in the end, I guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop spewing your anti-Capitalism garbage. Seeing the same anonymous cowards spew the same false message over and over gets tiring. Go read what Adam Smith wrote! Capitalism requires regulation. Lack of regulation is what he attributes to be the failures of the mercantile economic system. It allowed for monopolization, false scarcities, price fixing and gouging. The same shit we have today under Capitalism, but not because of Capitalism. It's due to corruption, lack of regulation, allowed monopolizat
Re: (Score:2)
This is true.
Wikileaks is necessary because our own governments won't tell us what they're doing.
This just in: Fails all around. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a brain teaser:
Much of the justification lately for not decriminalizing drugs (such as marijuana, ecstacy, etc.) -- ignoring the fact that the scientific consensus now is that both are less harmful than alcohol, or cigarettes, both of which are legal, is that it would fund terrorism. In other words, their argument is that because a small amount of it is bad, we should keep the whole thing illegal.
Yet, here we have IP law -- of which much of it is bad, and yet they tell us we should keep the whole thing legal... or [insert boogieman story here]. I'm not buying. I'll buy drugs, but I won't buy video games or software. What does that say about me? Maybe that I'm just young and stupid... or maybe I'm just seeing things more clearly. Maybe I just don't think the government has any credibility left to it, and so whatever the government says is right... it's a safe bet marching in the opposite direction will be better for you.
Re:This just in: Fails all around. (Score:4, Funny)
I'll buy drugs, but I won't buy video games or software. What does that say about me?
You haven't figured out how to get free drugs using the Internet?
Re: (Score:2)
Not by using bit torrent I haven't. Yet. But once I do, the next challenge will be how to get them from my Downloads folder and into my hand.
Re: (Score:2)
IDoser doesn't count.
Re: (Score:2)
. I'll buy drugs, but I won't buy video games or software. What does that say about me?
That you only buy tangible property and that we haven't invented mindcandy yet?
Re: (Score:2)
That you only buy tangible property and that we haven't invented mindcandy yet?
Basically, yeah. I'll pay for a good, or a service. For example, I'm okay paying for netflix. Videos are a service. Putting a lot of them together on a website is a convenience. I like convenience. That's a tangible thing -- even though it's just electrical impulses, someone sat down and made it for me, and at a reasonable price. Cheaper than what it replaced: Video stores.
But software? No. Not because it isn't also a good, or because it's not valuable -- but because it's grossly overvalued. And yet, partic
Well ask the hypocrits (Score:2)
Ask the artists who openly break drug laws because they claim unpopular laws not supported by the majority of people (so they claim) are immoral.
Ask the artists who support copyright laws because they claim laws that hurt a small minority but have no popular support are moral and those who break said laws are immoral.
The reality of course is that pretty everyone is FOR laws that benefit themselves and against laws that don't.
Companies want to produce in cheap labor markets but preclude consumers from con
Re: (Score:2)
Much of the justification lately for not decriminalizing drugs
They don't bother to justify drug policy these days. They just refuse to talk about it. Petition Obama to ask why Cannabis can't be treated like alcohol, and you get a response that says "drugs are bad, mmmkay" and doesn't mention alcohol at all. They know they can't win, so they simply stonewall.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you've just described the argument for *legalizing* drugs -- by legalizing their production, you're not buying a substance grown or produced in a conflict area where the local insurgent militia takes a cut and provides protection.
Instead, it's grown/produced as part of the above-ground economy at non-risk inflated prices, eliminating the flow of cash to militias and terrorist groups.
CF, the end of alcohol prohibition.
what about patent abuse / junk patents (Score:2)
we need to make so people can just get BS patents and troll useing them.
Re: (Score:2)
Newsflash: it's already that way right now.
I'm filing for a patent on a method and system for making binary decisions based on the launching of a flat round decision support device into the air and making a determination of the outcome based on which side the decision support device lands on. I will also sell these decision support devices. A basic model for $10 is made of copper and is decorated with a picture of Lincoln o
I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Devil's advocate: the reason the negotiations are kept secret is because that a lot of things get put on the table that won't appear in the final draft. The US, say, might put forward a proposal that throws its dairy industry under the bus in exchange for all of New Zealand's gold mines or something. In a public negotiation the dairy industry would read about this proposal and raise an uproar. Then the proposals change, as proposals are wont to do, and the dairy farmer part is cut out. But the average
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's desirable. If the US government is working for the US country, then it should want that result to occur
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
You would have a point if the time from "Final Draft" to final law included time for consumers and community groups to review and contribute to the draft before it is passed into law. As we have seen from past abusive treaties like ACTA THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN in most of the countries that finally signed it. No it is all kept secret and undemocratic so as to keep consumers and community groups off the negotiating table and leave them no time to react once the final draft is released and it is quickly passed into law.
Also now that we know that "the wheeling and dealing" involves spying on the negotiators or anyone else in key positions that stands in the way of the worst case clauses of the agreement - basically blackmailing them into agreement wherever possible. This is another important reason why no self respecting democracy (are there any left) should allow such negotiations to be held for so long in secret, nor run by a small select few of power brokers operating in the dark.
Re: (Score:3)
They keep these treaties secret as long as they can because they know that the people they represent would otherwise not countenance the agreements. They know this because every time they have tried to push forward these sorts of acts and people HAVE gotten wind of it, their constituents have raised a fuss and forced their representatives to back down. So now the politicians try to keep these laws hidden as long as they can, in order to provide the shortest opportunity during which people can voice their di
Re: (Score:3)
Negotiations of any kind are seldom held in a public forum.
What people should be outraged over is the US Government negotiating on behalf of trans-national corporate interests, none of whom have any vested concern in supporting the goals or purposes of nation-states, including the government that is negotiating on their behalf. Which leads to the only and obvious conclusion that not only is the US Government not willing to act in the public interest, it's only concern is in furthering trans-national corpor
Power is the missing discussion in economics (Score:2)
Markets are a great economic system, but a really crappy religion. Will it be power of economic and political winners that takes us down, or will it be computers and robots who forget the three laws?
If we're going to continue on with some semblance of democratic citizen rule we need to under
do something about abandonware / stuff not sold (Score:2)
do something about abandonware / stuff not sold any more.
Lot's of people with old versions, beta versions, rare games, tv shows and movies have saved them for all. But other people with them have used the they are under the 75+ year copyrights even when they are no longer made and are sitting on old platforms that can fail and take the last few copy's with them.
The collusion is second only to the confusion. (Score:2)
Reading this document is like reading the mind of the collective consciousness of the economy. This is perhaps the closest thing to a genuine "conspiracy" we are going to see and it's riddled with disagreement and apparent contradictions (or at best logical knots). For example, FTA:
goods or services may not be considered as being similar to each other on the ground that, in any registration or publication, they are classfied in the same class of the Nice Classification. Conversely, each Party shall provide that goods or services may not be considered as being dissimilar from each other on the ground that, in any registration or publication, they are classified in different classes of the Nice Classification.
So if they are of the same class that doesn't mean they are the same and also if they are of a different class that doesn't mean they are different. OK then...
Now I must admit that I haven't read T whole FA yet and if you ha
Medical Clause (Score:2)
At least they make a special exception for medicine:
"The obligations of this Chapter do not and should not prevent a Party from taking measures to protect public health by promoting access to medicines for all..."
that's when I long for Groklaw's PJ (Score:5, Insightful)
she would have parsed, pieced, and posted all that we, techies, needed to know about such a document
Someone remind me... (Score:2)
Mr. Kafka to the White Courtesy Phone (Score:3)
No surprises (Score:2)
Pigopolists feel that the consumer's only rights are to give them money, consume the shite (once only, you unindicted pirate), and go the fuck away.
Perfectly rational in an utterly amoral "maximize profits by any method we can get away with" sense.
Copyright and patent value delusion in the treaty. (Score:3)
One reason the treaty has been kept secret is the copyright and patent privileges do not have socially redeeming intrinsic value matching the legal measures proposed.
My point of view as a citizen bystander is it appears that copyright and patent privileges are becoming too inflated in their value. The organizations that hold or depend on copyright and patent privileges are aggressively and systematically are trying to use law and trade treaties to close all the ways in which others might evade paying for the use of their privileges.
The point I wish to propose to Slashdot readers is: The intrinisic worth or value of the fact or accomplishment underlying a copyright or patent privilege is a modest dollar amount. What is happening in our society is the percieved value has undergone an enormous inflation. The companies are effectively policy prisoners.
In previous centuries, novel and plausible arguments about the intrinsic worth of things has set off revolutions. Adam Smith instantiated time, money and energy beginning with his Theory of Sentiments. Karl Marx redefined another similar set of relationships and launched a political restructuring.
Consider the level of corporate belief in the value of their copyright and patent privileges. Some corporation decided to invest in tipping the trade treaty towards their business benefit. Lets estimate, each well qualified lawyer dispatched to edit and ammend the international trade treaty costs $2m dollars per year. Suppose one company sent one lawyer and they budget 3 years of lawyering and 1 year of waiting. For their 6 to 10 million dollar expenditure, how much gross sales do they require to recover their expenditure?
On the other side, suppose we look at taming the financial stupidity of "charge all the market will bear" patent and copyright licensing. What model to use? Well the Uniform Commercial Code is a body of business law that is a model of fairness. I would start with that.
To estimate the "intrinsic value" of a patent, we could first figure the labor and material cost for the first embodiment. How about one engineer year plus some electronic equipment; $250k. For the next 12 patents, lets cost those at $250k for all 12. Suppose we say a fair profit is 100%. That makes $1m/13 = $77k each for a bundle of 13 patents. Suppose we license the entire industry of 10 companies, each company paying $7,700 each for a lifetime of the patents license.
Re: (Score:2)
Until everyone figures out that due to maintenance cutbacks your gun has rusted tight due to years of neglect and decay, and that you no longer possess the skills to competently load the gun, having replaced the loading procedure with an MBA designed "just in time" ammo delivery system designed to minimise the total number of idle bullets in stock, and in any case you no longer possess bullets due to even more cutbacks and the recent outsourcing of the last factory in your country that actually makes them.
B
Re: (Score:3)
Until everyone figures out that due to maintenance cutbacks your gun has rusted tight due to years of neglect and decay, and that you no longer possess the skills to competently load the gun, having replaced the loading procedure with an MBA designed "just in time" ammo delivery system designed to minimise the total number of idle bullets in stock, and in any case you no longer possess bullets due to even more cutbacks and the recent outsourcing of the last factory in your country that actually makes them.
But don't worry, you still have enough credibility left to bluff .... oh, wait.
If the US's gun gets too rusty, and multinational corporations need to use another country's gun to force the people of the world into submission, it would be inconvenient, but not disastrous for them. They really aren't subject to weakness like "patriotism" or "community" or anything like that that us humans are.
Business as usual (Score:2)
No! Really?
You idiots keep electing rich fucks, and then everyone acts amazed when they continue to create and enhance systems designed to benefit rich fucks and leave the rest of your mucking about in the gutters. Since you've proved you're just exactly that stupid, I guess it'll never change.
Cheers. :)
Re: (Score:2)
No! Really?
You idiots keep electing rich fucks, and then everyone acts amazed when they continue to create and enhance systems designed to benefit rich fucks and leave the rest of your mucking about in the gutters. Since you've proved you're just exactly that stupid, I guess it'll never change.
Cheers. :)
Who were you replying to? The text you quoted is from TFS.
Re: (Score:2)
WHY are these agreements secret in the first place??
I don't think it's a huge surprise to anyone that the actual content of the treaty is anti-american and anti-consumer and just .. but why keep it secret, (scum)? It's not like drugged out TV watching fast food gobbling Americans
has the interests in mind of __scum__
are going to read it, so why all this fuss over keeping it secret when you could send copies of it to every mailbox in America
and that wouldn't change a thing?
Because while most of the country may be drugged out coach potatoes, there are those that would make issues and cause them problems, such as the EFF.
Re:The real news is these "agreements" are secret (Score:5, Insightful)
No surprise there. No wonder why it must be done in secret.
Protip: if you must conduct international negotiations in secret, then you're probably not representing the people of the nation you are negotiating on behalf of.
Re: (Score:2)
But we are going to have public mutual no-spying agreements.
because the system knows what matters and what doesn't.
Re: (Score:2)
He used armies to conquer. What he should have done is negotiate secret treaties with countries to get them to slowly give up their sovereign rights voluntarily.
Look up Anschluss. Pretty much forced the Austrian government to fold without ever firing a shot.
idiotic anynomous coward (Score:2)
You can't be a traitor if it is not your country.
Wikileaks wasn't American. Manning who did the big document dump was arguably a traitor (but only arguably, the motive of treason is clearly missing.)
Even in the case of treason, people die for nothing all the time; like for every war since since WW2. Self sacrifice for a noble cause is a trait we want in our military; as well as being mindless psychopathic drones. Great effort is put into fostering both, but you can't have everything you want; at least not