EFF, Public Knowledge Sue Over Secret IP Pact

Cowards Anonymous writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have filed a lawsuit against the Office of the US Trade Representative in an attempt to get the office to turn over information about a secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement treaty being negotiated to step up cross-border enforcement of copyright and piracy laws. ACTA could include an agreement for the US, Canada, the European Commission and other nations to enforce each others' IP laws, with residents of each country subject to criminal charges when violating the IP laws of another country, according to a supposed ACTA discussion paper [PDF] posted on Wikileaks.org in May."

Show us the money!

Why hide it if it's beneficial to the elected people? Isn't that your argument for trampling our rights, each and every time? If you have nothing to hide...

Shine a light on these roaches! Protest!

ACTA is something that has not seen public debate and that's remarkable for such sweeping and draconian legislation. Because the U SAP at RIOT ACT was passed without time for legislators to actually read it, and torture is AOK bills, I'm not surprised by much the US does anymore.

What, exactly do they tell EU and Asian officials to make shit like this happen? It looks like they convinced/bribed key legislators that this is all dry technical stuff best handled by subject matter experts and then stuffed the panels with copyright/IP warriors. The sad fact is that most legislators are too old to realize the implications of the laws they are producing. John McCain, who has never used email, may be sadly typical. Protest will surprise these legislators and start to convince them there's more to this than dry technical details.

Corruption

The U.S. government has become EXTREMELY corrupt.

Re:Shine a light on these roaches! Protest!

> John McCain, who has never used email,

Wow... Not to go too off-topic here, but I'm surprised people are still parroting that. It's been rather clearly shown that McCain understands and uses email he just can't type it himself. Here's an article from 2000 [forbes.com]; ctrl-f "Vietnam" to jump to the relevant paragraph.

Back on topic, age has nothing to do with it. The fact of the matter is that most Americans do not care about these copyright issues. Most are only barely aware of their existence. It's therefore not too surprising that most people in office don't really care either. If this became a hot issue than you can damn well expect that the politicians would start caring, but right now things like health care and what-have-you are what count.

Re:Show us the money!

Exactly what I thought. This day and age, virtually anything our government keeps from it's people is due to some sort of corruption.

Even military secrets aren't a very big deal any more because nobody can do much to counter them anyway.

There still is certainly time-sensitive information like specific troop tactics and attack locations, but nobody's going to question that (Yet whenever you question secrecy of some government project, that's the straw-man that is thrown up)

ACTA

ACTA is TRIPs+. Who wants to understand what it is really about should read the Susta draft report of the European Parliament Trade Committee [europa.eu].

Means nothing in the UK - they could do it anyway

Its meaningless in the case of the UK anyway. Once you give the right to a foreign power to extradite anyone without having to produce evidence why, even if they have never left the UK or committed a crime in this country then this is permitted by default anyway.

When will we get a government that cares about our people more than appeasing the playground bully?

Re:Means nothing in the UK - they could do it anyw

Good luck with that. Who's gonna stand up to America - Labour? The Tories? Maybe the Lib Dems? The Green party would, but there's no hope of them getting anywhere.
The Labour party is shafted anyway. Gordon Brown's desperate clinging to power is exacerbating the mess left in the wake of Tony B.Liar. The Tories are at the highest popularity since Maggie's heyday and Labour are too busy fighting each other to do anything about it.
So we end up being at the mercy of EU bureaucrats who just rubber stamp anything to make their lives easier and wonder how we got in this mess.

Leave it to the RIAA for suggestions ...

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed comments offering suggestions for the trade agreement. Among its recommendations: Countries should allow investigators to treat piracy like organized crime, giving IP enforcement efforts additional resources used to fight organized crime. The RIAA also wants laws requiring ISPs to remove infringing materials posted by subscribers, the trade group said in its comments.

Organized crime?

Re:Leave it to the RIAA for suggestions ...

They mean themselves.

Re:Leave it to the RIAA for suggestions ...

Organized crime?

You have playlists, don't you? That's pretty organized right there.

Hmmm.

Ignorance of the law isn't a defense.
So all you need to do after you make the laws. Is put them on display in the Cellar, where the lights have gone out and so have the stares, in a locked filing cabinet, in a disused bathroom, with a sign on it saying beware of the leopard. And you are liable for breaking a law.

Ignorance of the law should be a defense if you can prove the government tried to make it so you wouldn't know it.

The Bush Administration

I am so pissed off at this administration. They just simply don't care, regardless of what they say, about the constitution or the laws of the country, or even the intensions of the founding fathers.

They make "law" by executive order, which are held as valid unless challenged by the courts or the legislature, then stall the legislature with fillibuster so that no corrective action can take place. Then fight every challenge up to the supreme court, which takes years.

So, in essence, the president is a king because although there is "balance of power" the time between executive order and any sort of push back is years, and the span of time, they have reaped the benefits of the unjust actions.

Disgraceful, but effective, this needs to be stopped some how. I think that, unfortunately, means passing laws that limit the effectiveness of the presidency.

Re:The Bush Administration

Executive orders are an affront to the constitutional principles of the US Constitution.

This is NOT a power of the President as enumerated by the constitution. It has been tolerated by congress and the judiciary because they see it as useful. If very fast response to some issue is needed an executive order can be made in hours, as opposed to days, weeks, months or years if it has to be passed by congress. From that point of view, it is reasonable to allow this power.

What is wrong with it is that the orders are permanent. IMHO, it should work like this:

Executive orders should automatically expire after one year or at the end of the presidency, whichever comes first. A president *may* renew an order, but only one he has issued. No president may renew an order issued by a predecessor, either in word or effect (no re-writing it in his own words) - if congress thought it a good idea, there has been time to convert it into (real) law.

How ACTA kills your job

How ACTA kills your job [qummunismus.at]

Intellectual Property" is called the The Oil of the 21st Century". Workers here are told that strong protection of that the protection of this so called property" is necessary for our economy and a means to protect jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth.

With the ACTA-negotiations, the protection of this IPR should be made stronger once again. What is really behind it?

Global corporations need to maximize their profit. One way to do this is to offshore production into countries with lower wages. There is one problem with this approach. By transferring know-how into these countries there is the risk that these countries will produce product on their own and this breeds competitors [1]. And competition is bad for profits. Thus the global corporations need to find a way where they can utilize the cheap labor while protecting them self from competition.

Where the enforcement of copyright only protects them from direct clones the protection of trademarks ensures that only those who have the financial power to run a marketing campaign on a global scale can sell products at inflated prices. The most important tool is the enforcement of patents. This allows to protect" abstract ideas which potentially cover a wide range of similar products and technology.

So while it is true that IPR protection is good for the european economy" the workers here will not benefit from it. It will increase the profits of the global corporations but it will increase the trend towards offshoring protection. Your boss will get rich but you will loose your job.

It will not help the developing countries neither as it ensures that the profits are extracted out of this countries while access to cheap medicine and other goods is prevented. Most developing countries now oppose the WTO-TRIPS treaty as they are now forced to implement it. This is why ACTA was started. Now that the developing countries are ware of the neo-colonial effects of IPR it is not possible to conduct the IPR protection within the WTO anymore. So the rich countries decided to take it in their own hands.

ACTA is a way of economic warfare that is pursued against developing countries and against the working people in Europe, the US and Japan at the same time.

This should help to explain why the negotiations are held in complete secrecy.

Franz Schaefer, September 2008

Re:How ACTA kills your job

"If you are educated and in the west, only a suicidal maniac tries to undermine IP, it's what your economies are built on these days."

Not all of it.

"IP" is multifaceted and in some forms (masses of trivial software patents) starts to strangle the very industry it's supposed to serve. There are companies that patent these useless "inventions" and sue others as there sole business model, there are many companies that feel they have no choice but to keep patenting every little thing so that when they inevitable step on someone else's patents they have something to trade or countersue with.

Patents are granted too easily and are getting in the way of progress, they need to be undermined.

Copyright now extends far too far, it is supposed ot be a limited term, it is a social contract between producers and consumers, such that both parties win. One side has recently pushed their powers far too far.

Trademarks, as applied to internet addresses, have resulted in rulings where people with legitimate uses for domain names have been walked all over by companies that decide they want it for their new product.

The economy of the west and individual IP holders would not be badly affected by reduced copyright terms, weakened trademark rights (or weakened trademark enforcement) and restrictions on what is and is not patentable.

Bleh

with your logic, you can easily justify feudal overlordship.

feudal overlordship provided a system that those serfs living under it had been assured of jobs. even though it was little short of slavery.

you think that you are happy you have a job. and maybe, you may be happy with what you get, and it may make you live a comfortable life - or so you think - . but, i assure you, you are very probably getting WAY lower than what GNP (or any assessable value) you produce.

its due to bad distribution of wealth, monopolization - corporatism, basically.

IP laws of this date protect this. not protect you at all. you dont have the power to market any copyrighted stuff you may hold efficiently, nor you have the cash to protect your interests, and it wont be any different when shit like ACTA, or copyright cops come. they will be so busy protecting prioritized, big corporations that, you, as citizen or small business, will have to shove your copyrights up in your ass, at best.

so dont even think that there is anything for your interest in such bought-out laws.

Speaking as an old person...

...but minus the fistful of dollars...

To put it succinctly: we're pissed off, too.
I'm not at all happy about what's been happening to our civil rights, our constitution or our country's image in the world. The last eight years have been a boon to the corporations and a disaster for the rest of us. Our elected officials are either too lazy, too stupid, too scared or too much beholden to the corporations. It is on their watch that the PATRIOT act, the TSA and the DMCA have been passed.

So, it's not just the young who lose, it's all of us. Some of us old geezers feel just like you do.

And by the way, you're damn right we have a sense of entitlement. Entitlement to do what we want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Entitlement to human rights and fair use of copyrighted material. Entitlement not to be treated as suspected terrorists every time we board an aircraft.

Bitter? No, just angry, and hoping more people get that way. Democracy only works if you make it work.

Re:Speaking as an old person...

"Democracy only works if you make it work."

That statement is so true and its not something I fully realized, even just a few years ago. I had thought that as my ancestors and people like them had fought so long and hard to finally win Democracy. Then surely as we now have Democracy, we therefore much now just keep Democracy. I didn't realize there are people constantly trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain and so over time, Democracy has to be constantly defended against these people.

The people trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain are almost by definition people without empathy towards others. They actually choose to violate Democracy for their own gain.

Its good to see that there are still groups around that will stand against the people who undermine Democracy. I have never been that interested in politics until this year, but the almost constant news in 2008 has shown me that 2008 should go down in history as the start of a massive move towards a global Big Brother. This year has finally shown me the danger of letting this minority of powerful people undermine Democracy. Its sad that in every generation, we have to suffer this minority of power seekers constantly trying to dominate others and undermine Democracy for their own gain.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956) ... it was true in his time, and sadly its still true now.

Re:Speaking as an old person...

Actually, 2008 is the year that the USA became a Socialist state and nationalized a big chunk of its economy. Most other things are minor compared to this.

Re:Speaking as an old person...

As an imigrant to this country, the US, some 20+ years ago, one of the things that has always amused me was the unshakable faith the majority of Americans put into the Constitution. It seems to be held right below God, Jesus, and maybe the Virgin Mary. What they have failed to realize is that the constitution is nothing more than a principled piece of paper.

That might be the most dangerous thing of all. The belief that 'it can't happen here'. It's quite safe to pass all these laws allowing all manner of abuses, because no villain will ever arise who will use them to implement a true police state and become a dictator. That can't happen, because hey, the constitution!

The Weimar Republic had a constitution too. Constitutions aren't worth the paper they're printed on once powerful people stop caring about them. As I recall my history, when it happened in Germany, the problem was that their politics had become totally polarised, fairly equally between the Communists and the National Socialist German Workers' Party, with shifting alliances of smaller parties providing the balance of power. With no stable overall government, the executive under Hindenburg got into the habit of ruling by decree (that's 'executive order' to you, chum), pretty much bypassing the constitution. Once the aforesaid National Socialists finally got their man into a position of power, he was perfectly happy to continue ruling in just the same manner. Goodnight, democracy.

Re:piggy backing

Umm, because as sovereign nations the people in each nation should be deciding their own laws, surely?

If I have to abide by US law, or French law, I want a say in their elections too.

Re:piggy backing

My argument against that:

Country A and Country B enter into this agreement.
Country B makes it illegal to teach a black person to read.

Now, you are prosecuted in Country A, because of Country B's law.

I would NEVER agree to be bound by a law of a country in which I have no representation.

Re:piggy backing

I agree that we shouldn't be able to go around and violate the laws of other countries.

Ridiculous. I shouldn't be able to go around and violate the laws of the country a live in, since I have full democratic rights within that legislature. Any other country is not my business. I can't vote there, so they have no right to put me under their law (except when I'm on their soil).

The exact same reasoning is applied to countries with oppressive regimes, because we find that their population has the right to oppose the government.

If the population is stupid enough to support a government that enforces bilateral treaties that enacts the law of foreign states on its population, so be it. But it sure as hell shouldn't be so because it sounds logical to someone.

Re:piggy backing

I agree that we shouldn't be able to go around and violate the laws of other countries.

I assume you'll be giving up alcohol, then, as is the law in certain Middle Eastern states? And also giving up the practice of your religion, as is the law in North Korea? You'll certainly be surrendering your gun, as is the law in the UK. And according to the rules of various legislatures, you'll not say anything disparaging about Ataturk, the king of Thailand, Mohammed the Prophet, or beef.

Seriously, did you even think this through at all? Of course you should be able to violate the laws of other countries, as long as you're not in that country. A nineteen-year-old in England can drink all the beer he likes, and the Yanks have no fucking say in the matter. Neither do the English have any say in the matter when a man in America carries a gun around the place. The Sharia laws against apostasy from Islam hold no force in Japan. And American laws forbidding linking to copyrighted material do not apply in Sweden.

When you're visiting another country, of course you obey that country's law. But in your own land, you shouldn't have to give a damn what the idiot politicians of some foreign place decide to ban or not to ban.