EFF, Public Knowledge Sue Over Secret IP Pact 104
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! (Score:5, Informative)
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! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Government everywhere are always extremely corrupt, it's just the US government lately hasn't been covering their tracks. Don't worry, they'll learn soon and start covering their tracks again.
Re:Shine a light on these roaches! Protest! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Given that several millions of americans are breaking the law in this area, one would think they'd look at it.
OTOH, that never made anyone reconsider drug policy.
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Politicians make laws in the same way that PHB's manage people. They make the laws and if you break them it's because you're a criminal. After all, they made the laws to protect you, don't you want to be protected?
The trouble is that they make the laws with (mostly) good (but very ignorant) intentions. When they see people frequently breaking the law they think it's more a matter of law enforcement not having the right tools to stop the crime. Therefore they increase law enforcement's power. It would b
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Murder is one of those things that no matter how many public service advertisements come on television, people seem to just keep getting killed. Law enforcement is powerless to stop it. Tens of thousands of people are murdered each year on the average.
Should laws against murder be considered bad because the enforcement isn't having much of an effect?
How many murderers you got? (Score:1, Insightful)
'cos there's 40 million copyright breakers in the US at a time.
If you had that many murderers, you'd not have 40 million people!
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Murder does actually seem to be a cultural thing. The UK has roughly 1/6 the murder rate of the US.
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>I find it interesting that you merely have to search for something about his POW days to
>find his excuse for everything.
I couldn't find his excuse for not knowing that Spain was (1.) in Europe or (b.) an ally of the United States.
Re:Show us the money! (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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].
Obviously (Score:2, Insightful)
There are too many old people waving money around, not enough young people to do the work to keep society operating, and not enough cheap oil to cover the missing labour. The old people have a sense of entitlement, and they lack the sense of interconnection that would preclude them from sacrificing our future on the alter of their comfortable old age.
So, the agenda is going to be, deprive the young of more and more, paying particular to attention to young immigrants who haven't been indoctrinated into the
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Malachai: What has the Lord commanded?
Isaac: In the dream the Lord did come to me, and he was a shape, it was He Who Walks Behind the Rows, and I did fall on my knees in terror, and hide my eyes lest the fearfulness of his face strike me dead! He told me all that has since happened, he said, "Joseph has taken his things and fled
Speaking as an old person... (Score:5, Interesting)
...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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Speaking as an old person... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Speaking as an old person... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that this comment perfectly demonstrates the problem. Warmongering, corruption, ever more absurdly draconian copyright laws, the slow decay of democracy, violations of human rights - all those are minor things compared to how closely the leaders of the country follow some particular economic ideology in the middle of an economic crisis. It's just insane.
Nothing matters as long as the Invisible Hand can work unhindered, come Hell or high water. It's the current western equivalent of Sharia law: absurd, and most people don't want it, but there's always a vocal minority which wants to pass it anyway.
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Very well said.
Re:Speaking as an old person... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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You're saying it is everyones obligation to find a mate, fuck and reproduce...that if they don't, they are somehow letting society down?
What about those that don't want to have kids...that would not make good parents and turn out criminal kids? What about people that just don't find a good
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I frankly, don't see the need to. I don't have any kids (that I know of)...and if I had, I wouldn't have reached the level in life that I am at now. I don't need kids for support...I'm saving, puttin g back for retirement.
That's because you're an idiot. Do you understand supply and demand? Do you understand that when you are old, there will be a massive demand for young peo
Ooh, a Ponzibreeder... (Score:2)
And now you think your hard work and your pieces of paper are going to magically deal with these issues, because you are entitled to the retirement your parents had, even though you didn't bear the large families that support such a retirement.
Well, personally I'll be more than happy to die when I can't live for myself anymore.
Thing is, the best thing that can happen is that we manage to divest ourselves of responsibility for you old bastards and turn our limited resources to caring for and creating more young people. The worst thing that can happen is that we exhaust what little we have in a misguided attempt to care for you as our civilization spirals towards oblivion.
The absolute worst thing we can do right now is create any more young people. Have you noticed that land area, ocean area, available landfill volume, oil production, etc. isn't keeping pace with the size of your brood?
Why do you think the property values are going down? It's not specultation, it's surplus. There aren't enough people to fill the houses, therefore, they are practically worthless. You'll be trading your deeds for a hunk of bread before it's all done, if anyone is even interested.
Yes, yes it is surplus that home values are down. It takes a certain amount of capital to buy a house. Fewer people have that kind of capital, in many cases because ignorance -- of their sexual options and
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My guess is that you don't even know him; yet you're throwing all of these sweeping generalizations against "his generation," (tell me, which generation is he from? Which generation are you from)?
Seems to me I could make sweeping generalizations against you based on how you are attempting to blame the complacency and procrastination of the general public on some undefined "other generation" that you have assumed he is part of and has participated in, instead of getting outside of your comfort zone and doing
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The last eight years have been a boon to the corporations and a disaster for the rest of us....It is on their watch that the PATRIOT act, the TSA and the DMCA have been passed.
Bush has screwed up a lot of things, but you can't blame him for the DMCA:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA [wikipedia.org] ...signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998,.."
"
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Not to mention, it won't be too long till we lose the last generation of people that lived under and know what it was like to live before the current times of expected loss of privacy, sanctioned ovt. spying, and going to the airport before there were strip searches or metal detectors. (I remember the days of always going to the gate to greet incoming guests, and to see them off fr
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I'm a young person who would like to wave some (small amount) of money around.
Does anyone know who is taking action on this issue in Canada (aside from Michael Geist)?
I'd like to give them money.
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Waving money around isn't going to accomplish squat. The things that need to be done run contrary to the things that create scarcity, control and profit, so people motivated by money aren't going to be interested. Save your money to buy the raw mat
Means nothing in the UK - they could do it anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Means nothing in the UK - they could do it anyw (Score:2)
When will we get a government that cares about our people more than appeasing the playground bully?
When someone pries it from their cold, dead hands.
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That's assinine - have you seen the USA's laws? As a non-american, I have no desire to be subject to their insanity.
As an American I don't want to be subject to our insanity.
Re:piggy backing (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Umm, because as sovereign nations the people in each nation should be deciding their own laws, surely?
A nation state can have national sovereignty without being a democracy (sarcasm: just look at iraq). A sovereign state should be free to decide its laws without interference from other states, subject to the conditions that the sovereign state has put in place.
Whether the sovereign state has its laws made and enforced by a king who is king through the mercy of god (or through the magic power of cleanliness and the launching of blades by well-hydrated bitches) or by a trinity of mutually distrustful watchme
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Oh, absolutely true, a citizen of non-democratic country has no such expectation. A sovereign dictatorship could easily force a law exchange on its people.
However, in democratic countries, this sort of thing out to be a fundamental enough change to the very makeup of the country to force a popular vote, or be rejected outright. You're basically becoming a superstate with local seats of power and no central democratic government organisation or representation in other sectors.
Something that's not really a de
Re:piggy backing (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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WTF does that mean? He presented a clear abstract argument as to why it's a bad idea. I don't think you understood it. That puts you in the retard column.
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That is fine (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that country USA makes its law a law in country Everywhere.
I don't mind if they 'export democracy', the problem is when they start to export their corporate laws which don't even have a wide consensus in the USA.
Re:piggy backing (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I completely agree and would add:
I'd like to see how long the Entertainment Industry would support a "we must follow everyone else's laws also" bill once they realized that all of their pop stars and actresses would have to wear burkas. I guess my wife would have to be stoned to death since she has the audacity to go out to the store with her face uncovered and without being accompanied by a male relative. We're Jewish also so I'm sure that'll drive Sharia law into spastic fits.
Even if w
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Why not? Did you have any say in those other countries' laws?
You shouldn't have to live under Sharia just because a bunch of Muslims somewhere else have decided that you should. If anything, we need to further fragment jurisdictions and let people choose their own societies. I don't even want to live under the laws of my next-door state Texas, much less Iran.
And I'm pretty pissed off that even though my state's voters chose to
Impairment of sovereignty due to excess govt debt (Score:1)
A government is only as politically sovereign over its territory and persons (human and corporate) as it is fiscally sovereign. When governments owe money to other nations, the laws of the creditor nations begin to creep into the nation of such government. Political sovereignty begins with fiscal sovereignty.
It is a given that laws are to govern conduct. However, the laws of many nations regard identity as a form of conduct. What if one's identity based on immutable traits (ethnicity and/or phenotype) and/o
Leave it to the RIAA for suggestions ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Organized crime?
Re:Leave it to the RIAA for suggestions ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Leave it to the RIAA for suggestions ... (Score:5, Funny)
Organized crime?
You have playlists, don't you? That's pretty organized right there.
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Hmmm. (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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be sure you put it in the bottom drawer of the cabinet, just to be sure.
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It is if I'm on jury duty.
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I'm with you. If on jury duty I chose right vs wrong more than law. Or does the punishment fit the crime.
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I've heard it said that when you are in the jury box, you are one of the most powerful people in the US.
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Ignorance of the law should be a defense if you can prove the government tried to make it so you wouldn't know it.
We don't need to go that far. When the law is a profession with specialties, ignorance must be a defense to any reasonable person.
Executive Agreement (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the most worrisome part of it all. No oversight, no public control.
The only advantage is that it isn't technically constitutional and can be corrected with a more "pro-rights" legislature.
The Bush Administration (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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sounds like you think there should be some legal document written to force the president to accept that his decisions should be bound by common law and to explicitly protect the rights of citizens.
I think the right of habeas corpus should also be reinstated for all....
hang on, this reminds me of something:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_carta
Re:The Bush Administration (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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I would go further:
executive orders last 6 months, then they must be approved as if they were laws by simple majorities of both houses.
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That was effectively what I was saying.
We could argue over whether its 6 or 12 months, but the principle is the same -- the order will expire, but may be renewed (how many times?) by the same president - no games by changing a few words, if any part of the effect is the same as a previous order - its invalid.
They will ALL expire permanently when the presidential term expires (4 years max)and the effect of the order may not be incorporated in any new order, ever again.
To become permanent, it must be passed i
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That's not particularly helpful - at times it may be necessary to reinstate an executive order when an identical situation arises. For instance, in 1862 Abraham Lincoln issued an order establishing military courts in Louisiana. Let's assume that, under your system, such an order has since expired (as it was no longer necessary). Now imagine some hypothetical situation in the future where military courts are again needed in Louisiana - they could not be instituted by an executive order. (I'm not commenting o
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One of my other thoughts was that these orders should probably be provisional for (say) 30 days. During that time the Supreme Court *must* review them and declare them constitutional.
If they are not reviewed, or if found unconstitutional after 30 days, they are void, and any convictions or penalties on individuals are rescinded - with appropriate compensation.
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he "executive order" complaint sounds like total bullshit, but if I'm wrong I'd like to hear about
Well, this article is about an "executive agreement"," ACTA.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/18769prs20041220.html [aclu.org]
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/25/military_cites_risk_of_abuse_by_cia/ [boston.com]
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051217-5791.html [arstechnica.com]
Just google for:
"bush abuse of executive order"
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Write to your representative! (Score:2)
It is vitally important that people write letters [rocknerd.co.uk] - actual paper letters, with a stamp - to their MPs, Congressmen or equivalent. MAKE NOISE.
I say again... (Score:1)
National policy should not be determined by foreign policy.
I'm a Canadian and I do NOT approve this underhanded political maneuver.
How ACTA kills your job (Score:5, Informative)
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
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yawn.
since when does copyright only defend huge evil global corporations? I'm a one man company and without copyright, I'd be out of a job. Don't spin such bullshit to pretend that all IP is TEH TOOL OF TEH SATAN, in some lame attempt to excuse mass copyright infringement.
If you are Chinese and own factories, it makes sense not to care about IP. 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.
Re:How ACTA kills your job (Score:5, Insightful)
"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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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since when does copyright only defend huge evil global corporations? I'm a one man company and without copyright, I'd be out of a job
And are you, the little guy, involved in the secret negotiations of this treaty? I doubt it. Is there even a representative of the little guys involved in the secret negotiations of this treaty? Again, I doubt it. So, in effect, your straw-man argument is lacking, as the only way to ensure that the treaty is for the benefit of little guys, is for some of them to be there and have their voices heard. Which is, sadly not the case.
To answer your question; Copyright law only defends the the huge evil global c
A Dangerous Treaty (Score:2)
If this treaty goes through, citizens of each signatory country will be subject to the longest terms and the strictest restrictions among those of all the countries that sign the treaty. It means Canadians will have to follow the DMCA, and websites such as Project Gutenberg will not be able to publish public domain books if they're otherwise still under copyright in a signatory country.
This is bad.