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Censorship Your Rights Online

US Plots "Pirate Bay Killer" Trade Agreement 529

An anonymous reader sends word that Wikileaks has revealed that the United States is plotting a 'Pirate Bay killing' multi-lateral trade agreement, called 'ACTA,' with the EU, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland and New Zealand. "The proposal includes clauses designed to criminalize the non-profit facilitation of copyrighted information exchange on the Internet, which would also affect transparency sites such as Wikileaks. The Wikileaks document details provisions that would impose strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods. If adopted, the treaty would impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime imposing new cooperation requirements upon Internet service providers, including perfunctory disclosure of customer information, as well as measures restricting the use of online privacy tools."
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US Plots "Pirate Bay Killer" Trade Agreement

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  • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:37AM (#23516412)
    Too late. Pass all the laws you like, crack down with all the jackbooted thuggery you can muster. Suspend habeas corpus, declare the 4th amendment null and void, force the royal family to submit to regular body cavity searches, install a camera on every corner, give police orders to use deadly force against downloaders...none of it will make any difference. You can't turn back the clock.

    Remember when the RIAA shut down Napster and declared victory over the music downloaders? Remember when they started their pathetic little lawsuit harassment campaign? Tell me, is there a single person here who has trouble downloading a pirated song today? Is there anyone here who couldn't start up Limewire right this minute and find a copy of virtually any song they could want? For all their heavy-handedness, they didn't even make a DENT.

    Times have changed. No law is going to change that. They're just embarrassing themselves trying.

    • You can't turn back the clock.

      True--but you can hurt a lot of people trying to do so.

      It seems to me that that's what the MPAA, RIAA, and other associated organizations are trying to do. They can't stop downloading en mass ... but if they can hurt enough individuals, maybe other individuals will be to scared to continue to download.

      • by xpuppykickerx ( 1290760 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:48AM (#23516554)
        Normally the people who upload/post leaks aren't afraid of a little lawsuit action. It's the jerk-offs that don't seed after they've downloaded files that fear the RIAA. Let them be gone I say.
        • It's the jerk-offs that don't seed after they've downloaded files that fear the RIAA. Let them be gone I say.

          I would guess that a lot of the folks who don't seed wouldn't seed even if doing so was legal. Those who don't seed because they are afraid of the **AA are not "jerk-offs"--they're victims of bullying, even if they're only being "bullied" by proxy.

          I have no sympathy for the folks who take and take but never give back--but I have a lot of sympathy for the victims of bullying.

          • I have no sympathy for the folks who take and take but never give back--but I have a lot of sympathy for the victims of bullying.

            No one is free while others are oppressed.

            Taking but not giving back is a common result of bullying in any environment. And we learn bullying in school; it is ignored by the school administrators as part of the "way things are". Or, it is even encouraged - especially in the mentality expressed in sports programs.

            Our entire system is designed to teach people to be unfair to one another.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by suggsjc ( 726146 )

              Our entire system is designed to teach people to be unfair to one another.

              Mostly true. One on hand, we get caught up in words saying that "all people are created equal" which, IMHO, in a sense they are. However, that means that all people are created with the same basic rights, etc. What it doesn't mean is that all people have equal abilities. People do have natural (dis)abilities. So in a sense, the deck is stacked for/against people the moment they are born.

              ...Or, it is even encouraged - especiall

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by xTantrum ( 919048 )

          Normally the people who upload/post leaks aren't afraid of a little lawsuit action. It's the jerk-offs that don't seed after they've downloaded files that fear the RIAA. Let them be gone I say.
          well obviously if you jerk off you won't seed...
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 )
        True--but you can hurt a lot of people trying to do so.

        No, you can't. See if I download stuff it costs me NOTHING. If government(s) try to police the internet, it will cost them resources. If they try to take me and everyone like me to court, it will cost them resources. If they tie up enough resources persecuting "downloaders" and letting people get away with violent crime, or let their roads collapse, etc, eventually it will be a big political nightmare.

        The only
        • by Shakrai ( 717556 ) * on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:14AM (#23516886) Journal

          No, you can't. See if I download stuff it costs me NOTHING. If government(s) try to police the internet, it will cost them resources. If they try to take me and everyone like me to court, it will cost them resources. If they tie up enough resources persecuting "downloaders" and letting people get away with violent crime, or let their roads collapse, etc, eventually it will be a big political nightmare.

          You realize that when you say it will cost "them" resources you really ought to be saying that it will cost us resources. Where do you think the Government gets it's funding from? I don't particularly relish the thought of my tax dollars being used for these purposes, how about you?

          How many thousands of dollars/years in jail because s/he downloaded one movie?

          How many thousands of dollars/years in jail because s/he got caught with marijuana?

          But most people know they'll never get caught.

          Indeed. And that fact hasn't deterred the Government from the 'War on Drugs' either. Maybe this will be different -- I'd guess that there are more downloaders out there than pot smokers -- but I'm not nearly that optimistic.

          • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:29AM (#23517150)
            when you say it will cost "them" resources you really ought to be saying that it will cost us resources.

                  Well if I may clarify, you do have a point. I don't live in any of the countries mentioned. In fact, my 3rd world country has a very lazy attitude to intellectual property. It's hard to enforce when the budget doesn't even cover the basics. Oh, and I don't have to pay income tax, by the way. So yeah, what I meant to say is it will cost YOU resources. Thanks for the correction! :)

          • by Volante3192 ( 953645 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:31AM (#23517184)
            You realize that when you say it will cost "them" resources you really ought to be saying that it will cost us resources. Where do you think the Government gets it's funding from? I don't particularly relish the thought of my tax dollars being used for these purposes, how about you?

            Then write to your Congresscritters and tell them you can't stand your hard earned tax dollars being spent on their little crusade.

            Get your friends. Organize rallies. Rent a skywriter. Do something.
          • I don't particularly relish the thought of my tax dollars being used for these purposes, how about you?

            So you have two choices, besides hypocrisy: stop paying taxes, or stop making enough to pay taxes (at least on the books.)

            How many thousands of dollars/years in jail because s/he got caught with marijuana?

            The difference between the war on copyright violation and the war on drugs is that the war on drugs is more profitable. Since so many levels of government are involved, and since we are doing so many things in the name of the war on drugs internationally (It is not a coincidence that we paid Osama a shitpile of money to halt Afghani opium production right before 9/11) there are zillions of chances to siphon off money. The copyright thing is so far only producing money in the form of campaign contributions and bribes. The war on drugs is putting super-craploads of people in prison - what, a quarter of the million or so people in prison are there for non-violent drug crime? I'd have to look it up, maybe I'm misremembering. This produces a shitpile of money for private prison contractors. Any time private interests profit from incarcerating your citizens, you know that things are seriously fucked up.

          • by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @12:11PM (#23518706) Journal
            And that fact hasn't deterred the Government from the 'War on Drugs' either.

            The war on (some) drugs has actually caused the very same problems it was designed to prevent! "Think of the children!!! Pot is illegal so the kids can't get it!!" But ask any high school kid if you can buy pot in his school - any kid can, any day. But you can't buy beer, a legal "non-war" drug, in school.

            "It leads to harder drugs!" No, the laws against it do. The people selling the pot also sell the "harder drugs." If the dealer is out of pot, or greedy, he may well try to sell you the very dangerous and highly addictive crack cocaine. The liquor store guy won't.

            "It causes violent crime!" No, the artificial value of this easily grown weed causes the gang wars between the various factions selling it. You had gang wars and bloody violence over alcohol during alcohol prohibition, but that violence ended with the prohibition.

            Likewise, the "war on illegal file sharing" may ironically kill the very industries that are screaming for those laws. The RIAA should ignore file sharing and do what they've done for a century - sell records. Not ethereal strings of ones and zeros, but physical manifestations of them - CDs.

            File sharing no more hurts the record industry than the VCR ("is to Hollywood what the Boston Strangler was to women") hurt the movie industry.
      • by tietokone-olmi ( 26595 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:05AM (#23516766)
        Tell me. Are you frightened of being struck by lightning? Enough to stop going outside?

        Because becoming the target of a downloading lawsuit is currently less likely than being struck by lightning. This state of matters would remain even if the cartels increased their efforts tenfold. Even if they could persuade all police operations to be directed into copyright enforcement, the ordinary citizen could very justifiably not give a hoot.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rvw ( 755107 )
          The only thing I'm afraid of is being prosecuted in the US. I live in Europe, but these kind of agreements scare me. I've seen people being extradited to the US for alleged crimes commited in the US, that were in fact commited in Europe. Those crimes generally result in sentences about 1/10th of those in the US, and it involved American federal agents that tricked people into doing stuff, while this is not allowed in our justice system.
          • by tietokone-olmi ( 26595 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:23AM (#23517044)
            Then your (our, really) problem is not the agreements but your dickless administration. In my native Finland it is legally forbidden for the state to turn a finnish citizen over to a foreign state for any reason. If it's lawsuit blood they want, they can come to this country and try to make their case here... or bribe some cabinet ministers into pressing the matter and telling the courts what to do, that works pretty well too with the current openly fascist cabinet.

            (The reason behind this "no turning over finnish citizens" law is, surprise surprise, those few hundred jews and communists and such that were turned over to Nazi Germany. Bit of an embarrassment to say the least.)
      • by WilyCoder ( 736280 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:09AM (#23516808)
        "Maybe other individuals will be to scared to continue to download."

        Now that's what I call terrorism.
        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Kamineko ( 851857 )
          Dude, nobody's going to be downloading that. That's the most overrated album of all time. (Actually, it sounds like a broken record.)
      • by ParanoiaBOTS ( 903635 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:23AM (#23517038) Homepage

        ... but if they can hurt enough individuals, maybe other individuals will be to scared to continue to download.

        Its scary to me how close this tactic is to the ideal of terrorism
        • by Frank T. Lofaro Jr. ( 142215 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @12:01PM (#23518582) Homepage
          From Wikipedia:

          "Most common definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants. "

          1. The RIAA and MPAA create fear
          2. Ideological goal: support of their intellectual property regime which no longer fits with today's market
          3. Targetting/disregarding safety of non-combatants: How many mothers, grandmothers, and even people without any Internet access at all have been sued?

          Legal terrorism, indeed.
      • It seems to me that that's what the MPAA, RIAA, and other associated organizations are trying to do. They can't stop downloading en mass ... but if they can hurt enough individuals, maybe other individuals will be to scared to continue to download.

        They're working on the SCO principle - sue your customers. Anyone who gets sued by the RIAA and a lot of their friends and other people who know them will simply stop buying RIAA product when that happens. They're going to sue themselves into complete irrelevance. It doesn't look quite the same as the SCO thing, because unlike SCO, they have a significant number of customers :)

        Obviously the scare tactics aren't working. Why not? Because we're all living in fear all the time anyway. There's so many bullshit laws that you can't really live your life without breaking a few and we all do things that could get us in trouble now and then. Sorry, but I don't really know anyone's grandparents who don't have some copied movies, for example (they developed a taste for "free movies" in the VHS days - they might not be able to set a clock but they can press record) and I remember listening to a Metallica interview where they were talking about driving around listening to copied audiocassettes. So if you already live in fear of persecution, what's a little more? They sue, you can't pay, you declare bankruptcy, so what?

        Most people out there don't really have anything to take away. Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose...

        • The best way to defeat these thugs is to adopt encryption tools to make our file transfers invisible. Tools like Tor are a good start. But we need to get enough people using secure protocols that the government won't be able to single out and prosecute individuals for using them.

          So if you care about your rights in the future, start using secure protocols. Contribute code to open source projects. Make these systems work. Use it or lose it!

    • by Tom ( 822 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:50AM (#23516584) Homepage Journal

      Times have changed. No law is going to change that. They're just embarrassing themselves trying.
      Except that, like in the "war on drugs" they can ruin thousands upon thousands of lives while they do.

      This is serious, even if you're sure that in the end they will fail. You could be one of the victims steamed over on their way to embarrassment.
      • by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:08AM (#23516790) Journal
        I think it's particularly serious because it will fail. It will just justify a potential snowball of draconian bullshit legislation and heavy-handed enforcement.

        =Smidge=
      • by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:12AM (#23516854) Journal
        There is a small portion of this equation that seems to have been left out. This law seems to be ostensibly aimed at protecting the **AA and associated groups and their business models.

        What happens to their business models when artists won't sign with them in protest of what they are doing to consumers? What happens to their businesses when barely anyone is buying their products?

        In this one point, a good boycott of **AA et al and their products, say something lasting 2-6 months, the industry would get the message. When you make ZERO or vastly negative income for a quarter, investors go somewhere else with their dollars, your stock drops to penny range, and people laugh when you complain to the media. In fact, after 6 months, buying products from the **AA et al might become passe' and forever cause even further declines in their revenues.

        When they begin prosecuting every tiny detail they can, imprisoning people for downloading etc. then you will see plenty of people ready to boycott and demonstrate. You might even see people who own guns get angry.

        The truth of this is closer to the argument that bad laws should not be followed nor enforced. These are bad laws. Drug laws are bad laws. When your law criminalizes a huge percentage of your population, it's a bad law, and quite obviously not on par with community standards of conduct.

        A federal law should only be enacted to protect the people. Who do laws like this protect? Directly, they protect the **AA et al. Indirectly, who do they protect? IMHO, nobody! I believe that this is the definition of 'bad law'. YMMV
    • by bertilow ( 218923 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:52AM (#23516616) Homepage
      elrous0 wrote:

      is there a single person here who has trouble downloading a pirated song today?

      Trouble finding songs I want to download? Absolutely. There are hundres of songs that I'd like to download but can't find anywhere. The torrent sites have a very thin and boring choice of music. Only the most popular stuff is easy to find.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rumith ( 983060 )

      We still haven't seen them act to the full extend of their ability. If they imprison a thousand people (preferably worldwide) for copyright infringement, TPB usage will plummet. If they imprison a thousand more nobody in their mind would touch bittorrent with a ten foot pole. After that, they will only need to jail a couple of people per month and heavily advertise these cases (and the sentences imposed) to keep interest in file sharing low.

      You're completely correct, it's impossible to kill file sharing by

      • by internewt ( 640704 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @11:03AM (#23517766) Journal

        ...After that, they will only need to jail a couple of people per month and heavily advertise these cases (and the sentences imposed) to keep interest in file sharing low.

        No, it'll keep file sharing under the radar. There are many more private file sharing sites these days than there ever have been, and the private networks are actively increasing their privacy and security. There will be future busts of some of these networks, but they will be "small-fry" or due to flaws in the networks' security (though defending against a RIAA controlled spy is obviously difficult).

        You're completely correct, it's impossible to kill file sharing by targeting the middleman. However, I think it will not be hard to do if they target the consumers engaged in file sharing.

        Oh yeah, targetting the users has worked so well with drugs it'll definately work here!

  • by SaDan ( 81097 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:39AM (#23516444) Homepage
    And we (the US) are pissed at China for what, now? Sounds like this is taking a page out of their playbook for censorship.

    Information wants to be free!

    A shift in the way we think about copyright has to happen, or this is going to get out of control in a hurry.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by schnikies79 ( 788746 )
      Go ahead and post your name/address/SSN/DOB and mothers maiden name. Since information wants to be free and all..

      Information doesn't know or care if it's free or not.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Holi ( 250190 )
      The day I see copyrighted material fall into the public domain is the day I will respect copyright.
  • by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:40AM (#23516454) Homepage Journal
    you vote SHIT like these into power, just because they ranted about conservative values, and they make a total crap out of everything.

    thats why world hates you. nothing else.
  • by Nursie ( 632944 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:40AM (#23516458)
    Whilst I can understand and to some extent sympathise with the desire to take down the PyratByran, Wikileaks is in no way part of the same phenomenon. It's a site exposing what we, the great unwashed, are not supposed to know.

    Fuck this!
  • Time for Tea? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hanshotfirst ( 851936 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:41AM (#23516480)
    When do we head to Boston and Ctrl-Alt-Delete this out-of-control government?
    • by SaDan ( 81097 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:43AM (#23516496) Homepage
      Right after you head to Washington D.C. and find them in the right town. ;-)
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      When do we head to Boston and Ctrl-Alt-Delete this out-of-control government?

      You get a chance every two, four or six years, depending upon who you're looking at.

      Now, if you keep voting for (D) or (R) and expect things to be different, you're clinically insane! Both of those parties are for bigger government, just differ on which parts to make bigger.

      Between the two of them, both sides are getting the big government they want, while bemoaning the big government they don't want. Convenient.

      Want to make a difference? Send a statement you don't like who is running. I don't like BHO any

  • by narrowhouse ( 1949 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:43AM (#23516498) Homepage
    Next step is to tie the passing of this legislation to fighting terrorism or child pornography thus removing the stink of corporate favouritism. Maybe throw in some sort of muttering about intellectual property protecting American workers from having their jobs shipped over seas and this will fly through with barely a comment from most people.
    • by bsDaemon ( 87307 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:00AM (#23516714)
      Most legislation flies through with barely a comment from most people. Unless it is something HUGE that the media can make a sensation out of -- PATRIOT ACT, assault weapons, etc -- there is no coverage except maybe on CSPAN.

      The media is not going to raise awareness of a bill that benefits the media. No one will know about this except people who go out of their way to care, if you try and bring it up, most people won't want to hear it, etc. Maybe, if you're really lucky, you'll get called a "conspiracy nut," like when people try and raise awareness of plans for the "North American Union" and things like that.

      Sad thing is, most people don't give a shit and don't want to hear anything that makes them feel more discomfort than they can reasonably handle based on the limits which they have received from the programming received from TV and school.
  • Finally (Score:4, Funny)

    by chickenrob ( 696532 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:48AM (#23516550) Homepage
    The full and unequivical end of file shareing! Don't you think?
  • Well done! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LockeOnLogic ( 723968 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:48AM (#23516562)
    You just outlawed every search engine!
  • by tietokone-olmi ( 26595 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:53AM (#23516626)
    The copyright cartels are already broken. Musicians, moviemakers and other participants of creative industries are already exploiting the Internet as a means of distribution. This genie certainly won't go back into the bottle unless another "trade agreement" enacts a system of strong guilds such as that found in Mussolini's Italy.

    Besides, one international agreement does not make enforcement any easier. Millions of people just in northern europe have come to accept torrent downloading etc. as an everyday thing; international agreement or not, no country is going to toss even one percent of their population in jail for something that was not previously a crime. Not to mention actually catching and prosecuting etc. those people... matter of scale, really.

    Also, trade agreements such as these don't have the power to override national legislation. Even if the EU signs and ratifies this, it will only be at the level of the EU -- i.e. they can pass a directive which EU member nations are perfectly free to implement as laxly as they please. Remember, the EU is not a federation. Not to mention how this would meet rather stiff resistance in the euro parliament, members of which have lately been strongly turning pro-privacy and pro-free culture.
    • Prohibition (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      no country is going to toss even one percent of their population in jail for something that was not previously a crime.
      Does this include the United States' prohibition of some drugs, starting with bans on cocaine, alcohol (repealed), and marijuana?

      Remember, the EU is not a federation.
      Yet.
  • Broad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by esocid ( 946821 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @09:59AM (#23516690) Journal

    criminalize the non-profit facilitation of copyrighted information exchange on the internet
    seems like a very broad description of what should be criminalized here. So if I start a website with just text that describes how one can obtain copyrighted information on the internet, that makes me a criminal who deserves to rot in prison?
  • by cashman73 ( 855518 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:01AM (#23516720) Journal
    First, they killed Napster. So we moved to Limewire. Then we moved to Kazaa. Then, after a bunch of **AA lawsuits, we moved to bittorrent. Now, what in God's name makes them think that we won't move someplace else? They're never going to kill filesharing. What the fracking industry has to do is come up with content that has value and that we actually want to pay for. Piracy will never go away; it's been around in one way, shape, or form since the age of exploration. But, if content is good enough, the majority of people WILL spend money on it. The problem with radio, television, movies, and music today is that they've been feeding us crap since the early 90s, and no one but a select handful of zombies and drones wants to throw their good, hard-earned money at it.
    • by drspliff ( 652992 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:13AM (#23516874)

      Have you also noticed a trend in growing numbers with each new technology adoption.

      • First it was Napster, fairly popular, but still restricted to a smallish number of users.
      • Then Limewire whos user base is slowly growing, although still relatively small.
      • Then it was Kazaa, limited to Windows computers and spammed with viruses, but still got quite a few users and was very widespread.
      • And now it's BitTorrent which is easy to use, available for every platform imaginable and has a massive user base.

      Because of this I can't see the **AA, associated industries and local/non-us counterparts adopting it widespread until the next tech move comes along which will no doubt help them bounce back from slowing sales trends.

      While at the same time they're lobbying the governments to restrict P2P, tighten up copyright laws and and generally make it difficult for anybody involved. Isn't this counterproductive?

      Surely they should be encouraging new services, new ways of distributing and using content to get the ball rolling - then jump in afterwards after they've seen different techniques tried & tested and use their financial might, industry and marketing experience?

      Oh sorry, what have I been smoking, I'm obviously not thinking like an estoric PHB.

  • Open Source Planning (Score:3, Interesting)

    by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:09AM (#23516804) Journal
    I believe that most people are willing to pay *something* for the content that they download. It's time we put together an "open source" business plan for downloading. I'm sure with the collective knowledge available on this and other sites, a workable plan can be developped. After all, they're going to be spending millions of dollars to shut down millions of users in the vain hope that those millions will buy their product at current rates... and we all know that ain't gonna work.

    I propose that the service will have to:
    • be cheap for the consumer
    • provide ad-free content
    • be producer neutral (ie not restricted to a particular label/cartel)
    • be country agnostic (in the sense of nationality, not music genre. (although...))
    • classify content, and provide easy parental controls for those that want it
    • be otherwise unrestricted
    • pay content providers based on both the number of hits, but for the volume of material they provide (so as to encourage them to post more stuff)
    • provide both streamable and downloadable versions
  • liars (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nguy ( 1207026 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:11AM (#23516832)
    "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement"?

    These people are dishonest even in naming their legislation. This is the "Anti-Copying Trade Agreement", or perhaps more aptly, the "Anti Fair-Use Trade Agreement".

  • by AmonEzhno ( 1276076 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:13AM (#23516868)
    Doesn't it seem kind of absurd that there is a multinational effort to shut down 1 website?

    Really?

    Maybe instead of protecting us private media interest we could start protecting private citizen interest; a la leave us the hell alone. There have been few bigger wastes of time this decade.

  • Too much power (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:17AM (#23516948) Homepage
    This is exactly the problem with the world today, corporations have way too much power. Even when they lose under the law, they simply create new laws to suit their needs. They never lose. Thus there is no balance between any power citizens may have and corporations have.

    Let's face it, if piracy is as rampant as the content industry claims, then it necessarily follows that the vast majority of citizens do not want such draconian laws protecting copyrights. Why should corporations, who cannot even vote, have more rights to create laws than the citizens governments are supposed to protect?!
  • The WTO (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:26AM (#23517090) Homepage Journal
    As I have been saying all along the WTO is the most insidious thing to come along in generations. This only is another example of why i think this way.

    It usurps a countries sovereignty and will force the entire world down to the 'lowest common denominator' in all things, not just the veil of 'commercial trade' that the treaty hides behind.

    If we keep pushing this, it will come back to bite us in the end as another country will demand the same thing, and negate our laws.

  • One Word. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by malkavian ( 9512 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:26AM (#23517100)
    And it's a country.
    Antigua.
    Considering how even the WTO considers the US is way out of line, and the US refuses to make the reparations, or hold it's end up of the 'fair rules of trade', Antigua currently has a lot of leeway to act as a hub for this kind of thing. And if the US wants to make a trade treaty that'll stick, first they have to open up a lot of markets to Antigua that'll cost billions.
    So, this bill gets put live, and every site suddenly stops paying their local ISPs and relocates to Antigua inside 24 hours.
    Net result, no difference to the file sharing, loss of money to US/EU ISPs, and Antigua gets better investment in it's infrastructure.
    The usual "big stick" the US uses to bully people into submission on this (the WTO) won't bat an eyelid about Antigua doing this.
  • Antigua (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jackjeff ( 955699 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @11:00AM (#23517706)
    Since the US have been condemned and keep on refusing to apply the WTO decision to allow online gambling in the states... Antigua will have legally the right to become a PirateBay Heaven :)
  • by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @11:04AM (#23517774) Journal
    Governments (Well, mostly the US right now) pull this sort of stuff all the time. Come up with a "noble cause" to push through a bill which purportedly can further the noble cause, and bring perpetrators to justice.

    In fact, as many here have pointed out, there are a huge number of reasons this won't work. However, the MEANS by which it is supposed to work, that is the tools it places in the hands of the government, will have been put into law. This is how every anti-terrorism bill has failed to prevent terrorism, but has succeeded in reducing civil liberties.

    Furthermore, by signing an international agreement they can then pressure other signing countries to limit freedoms of _their_ citizens, and also use that as a stick against non-signing countries. ("Your policy doesn't match international standards--fix it, or we'll all have to impose sanctions.")

    Pirate Bay, wikileaks, any of these 'undesirable' sites are merely (a) the excuse, and (b) collateral damage.
     
  • by Stanislav_J ( 947290 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @11:10AM (#23517866)

    Considering how many people worldwide are involved not just in the actual downloading/uploading of such material, but also the number of folks involved in indexing P2P, writing software for same, and creating and marketing those "online privacy tools," if they are going to criminalize such activity, I hope this treaty makes provisions to allocate funds for a whoooole lotta new prisons.

    That's why this is a quixotic fight. When you have so many people involved in an "illegal" activity, any attempt to enforce laws against it becomes a lost cause. But then, such logic has yet to mitigate the "War on Drugs"(TM) -- yeah, how's that working out for everyone? They'll make a few high-profile busts of Pirate Bay-ish sites here and there (and those will probably just relocate their servers to a country that is not a party to the treaty), and maybe hit a few random private citizens to try and throw a scare into everyone, but most file sharing will go merrily on, unimpeded. What's that quote about insanity consisting of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by servognome ( 738846 )

      When you have so many people involved in an "illegal" activity, any attempt to enforce laws against it becomes a lost cause.
      Same could also be applied to drinking and driving, do we just legalize that?
  • by trongey ( 21550 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @11:14AM (#23517924) Homepage
    ...I'll become more powerful than you can imagine.
    Oh, wait, bad analogy since he really just became a ghost that didn't seem to be able to do much besides spouting motivational speeches.
    But it sounds good in this context.
  • by LM741N ( 258038 ) on Friday May 23, 2008 @11:57AM (#23518528)
    Is what worries me the most. If applied broadly, that could apply to many types of software, that have legitimate purposes. e.g Anonymous proxies, OpenSSH, Freenet, etc. Basically anything that hides or obscures your communication from eavesdropping could become illegal.

If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro

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