Concerns About ACTA In EU, Canada 75
Elektroschock writes "An EU document on the Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty was leaked. The main purpose of the trade agreement is to impose the European enforcement measures for IPR infringements on the US and emerging economies, widen the enforcement measures to include criminal sanctions for patent infringements, and introduce internet content filtering measures. Civil society groups such as the FFII criticize the ACTA process because negotiation documents are not made publicly available by the governments. The EU document ('fact sheet') from the EU Trade Commissioner explicitly mentions: 'Internet distribution and information technology — e.g. mechanisms available in EU E-commerce Directive of 2000, such as a definition of the responsibility of internet service providers regarding IP infringing content.'" And an anonymous reader adds Michael Geist's push for more transparency around ACTA negotiations in Canada.
USA Controls The World (Score:1, Insightful)
This is just another instance of the US trying to control everyone and everything in the world. Someone needs to put a stop to it, but that wont happen.
http://www.p2ptechtime.com
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
correction, US government, which is backed by big buisness interests. Citizens need not apply.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
The USA is the patsy (Score:5, Informative)
This agreement is being pushed through in secret: there's no general support for this kind of treaty in the USA, in fact it sounds like a good deal of it is against the US constitution. If Australia or Brazil was the most powerful country in the world, the people who want these kind of controls would be spending their efforts to coopt and corrupt their governments instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Make some noise, spread the news about ACTA and its gone.
Re: (Score:2)
It works in both directions. The EU and the US officials are very blunt about the objectives, namely to circumvent their national legislator and to impose legislative regimes on third nations.
What Europe has to offer is to internationalize IPRED1 standards (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive). Anton-Piller orders. Seizure of bank accounts and other torture instruments. They were pushed by Vivendi and rushed through before the Middle European member states joined.
Both nations want to get into
Why in the world (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know anybody who does. Maybe a CEO or two... certainly not the majority of the population. There is nothing here that benefits anybody but the already rich.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why in the world (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the population probably didn't want the DMCA. And yet it's still the law.
Interesting you brought that up. (Score:2)
Most of the population probably didn't want the DMCA. And yet it's still the law.
Apparently the DMCA was pushed through using a very similar secretive forum-shopping campaign acta's proponents are currently undertaking.
They were laughed out of congress in the US and world-wide, so they took it to the international level, where they also met massive resistance.
They kept shuffling it from organization to organization, until eventually they buried it deep enough to pass without the "negative input" of stakeholders like the developing world or the elected representatives of the governments
Re: (Score:2)
There's a lesson here: if someone suggests something stupid and outrageously evil enough to make even you, an US congressman, want to laugh them out, don't; shoot them instead. Since you insist on keeping the death sentence and arming everyone, you can at least put these two habits to good use.
Let the copyright czar go the way of the Russian one.
Re:Why in the world (Score:4, Funny)
I believe in American democracy. One dollar, one vote.
Re: (Score:1)
I believe in American democracy. One dollar, one vote.
Egg-chew-alley, dividing the combined warchests of McCain and Obama we find that each presidential vote currently costs $11.99. Though many pundits maintain that they will be heavily discounted before X-mas.
Re: (Score:1)
From the Dictionary:
Democracy: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
Republic: a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
Plutocra
Call Joe. (Score:2)
"An EU document on the Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty was leaked. The main purpose of the trade agreement is to impose the European enforcement measures for IPR infringements on the US and emerging economies, widen the enforcement measures to include criminal sanctions for patent infringements, and introduce internet content filtering measures."
I'm sorry you all have it backwards. Bad things are suppose to flow into other countries. Not the other way around.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a call to war. Want to mandate that my behavior should be stupid, that's justification enough for me.
Let's wage a hundred wars on america, then? (Score:2)
Welcome to the international economy. You trade with our cartel the way we want you to, or not at all. Can't live without importing our food/music/windmills? That must really suck for you then, huh?
I don't mean to troll. But, from Joe the slashdotter's POV, it looks like that sometimes. And the USA has been on the dealing end far often than the receiving end.
Don't wage war on the EU, nor any of its constituent bodies or member nations. Instead, wage it, forcefully, against the international media cart
Re: (Score:2)
I don't mean to troll. But, from Joe the slashdotter's POV, it looks like that sometimes. And the USA has been on the dealing end far often than the receiving end.
Don't wage war on the EU, nor any of its constituent bodies or member nations. Instead, wage it, forcefully, against the international media car
Re: (Score:1)
Help & Preferences -> Your preferences -> Index -> Authors -> uncheck kdawson.
Resist IP, resist the government. (Score:2, Insightful)
The only way to save yourselves is to the industry where it hurts and not spend a dime on any sort of music or movie. Let them eat air!
Re:Resist IP, resist the government. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hello Senator Bedfellow's office"
"Hi, this is Bob from the RIAA. We need another new law. People aren't buying as much stuff from us as we would like since the last law we paid you for.."
criminal patent: holy crap! (Score:4, Funny)
Writing software seems rather foolish now.
Unless you're already in jail, you'd be nuts
to risk criminal charges.
About the only software development that might
be able to continue is Reiserfs.
The cure (Score:2, Insightful)
The Future (Score:1)
If you live in one of these countries that puts the priority of Media giants ahead of citizens, so much so, as to bankrupt and criminally charge somebody for acquiring media by a means that the companies themselves simply have yet to put a working infrastructure to compete, I feel sincere sorrow. This is a global issue. In Canada we have yet to implement any such legaslation in stone but no doubt media companies will be pushing for a sort of global standard. Giving these companies the right to monitor filte
About time!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone knows that murder, assault, rape, theft of tangible goods, and even child pornography are just petty crimes that we waste a lot of money enforcing. The real crimes we should be targeting are those which involve Intellectual Property and may even possibly have an impact on company profit margins through such things as lost potential sales, or the inability to overcharge by virtue of an artificial monopoly, or restrict use to what is most convenient to a company. How can even a million human lives compare to a potential lost sale? IP crimes are so heinous we should be bringing back the death penalty and torture. I say anyone who backs up their DVDs should be put to death!!!
In case anyone has failed to detect the sarcasm above, I believe our society is becoming one twisted piece of SHIT and the IP legislators are leading the way to hell.
Re: (Score:2)
This would be funnier if they weren't actually trying to force such reprioritization through Congress. But I guess that's why you wrote it.
Guess I'll just move to...oh wait. shit.
Re: (Score:1)
"we should be bringing back the death penalty and torture."
Way ahead of ya'.
Love,
The U$A...
Exaggerating? (Score:1)
The leaked document contains no indication that patent infringement is slated to be criminalised or content filtering introduced. There is only a vague statement about renegotiating the liability regime for service providers, which could mean anything from obtaining cross-border subscriber information to implementing notice-and-takedown to full-on filtering.
Also, this document reads like a public press release. In what sense was it 'leaked'?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Time Warner, News Corp, Sony, Walt Disney Co. made the largest donations to the US senators pushing this.
Re: (Score:2)
It was leaked, it is not published officially yet and includes very controversial statements such as the remark that the French Presidency is trying to find a way to get "criminal sanctions" in ACTA despite lack of EU competence which leaves it stalled or the planned lifting of the mere conduit principle for ISPs in line with wishes of the French presidency who aims for internet control, three strikes. See http://www.laquadrature.net/ [laquadrature.net]
"internet content filtering" from Europe (Score:1)
What this means is freedom of speech, not porn.
Remember, the US constitution has that nasty
clause that allows foreign treaties to override
chunks of itself. This toasts the 1st ammendment.
(Europe is big into banning Nazi stuff, etc.)
Without free speech, the people in power are able
to prevent political opponents from arguing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Citation please. It has a clause that allows foreign treaties to override chunks of state constitutions.
Re: (Score:1)
> (Europe is big into banning Nazi stuff, etc.)
That is mostly limited to Germany.
Re: (Score:2)
No, not the Nazis, the internet users and online businesses. Imagine the proposals were available when Youtube was in its infancy.
Embellishment of the submitter... (Score:4, Informative)
Submitter: "The main purpose of the trade agreement is to impose the European enforcement measures for IPR infringements on the US"
TFA doesn't say anything about the EU trying to enforce measures on the US - in fact, what seems to be happening is that the RIAA, MPAA etc. and the US government are pushing for the removal of ISP liability protections, and the use of criminal law for enforcement within the EU. After all, didn't the Copyright Czar law [slashdot.org] already "add new classes of felony criminal copyright infringement" in the US, with one stated goal being to "lobby foreign governments to adopt stronger IP laws"?
Only about commercial piracy??? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really, really hate stuff like this. Why doesn't anyone call the industry on this? Whenever I hear "but it won't be used against small-scale infringers" I want to shout at them THEN FUCKING PUT IT IN THERE! Put it in writing, in the treaty / law / whatever, that it can't be used if fewer than 200 files are shared. Spell it out that you won't prosecute anyone who possesses less than a quarter of his whole movie collection as illegal downloads.
Two reasons why we should not accept wishy-washy talk like this:
Why can people like that get away with blatant lies like that time and time again?
Re:Only about commercial piracy??? (Score:4, Interesting)
I really, really hate stuff like this. Why doesn't anyone call the industry on this? Whenever I hear "but it won't be used against small-scale infringers" I want to shout at them THEN FUCKING PUT IT IN THERE! Put it in writing, in the treaty / law / whatever
Brilliant point. So brilliant that it bears repeating:
If they don't make the legislation read the way they claim it is intended to be used, then you know they are lying. As you point out, it would be trivial to add language to the legislation that limits the scope of the law to "large scale criminal activity". The fact that they have not done so is telling.
Re: (Score:1)
There's no way to rule innocent men.
The SS would disagree.
Re: (Score:1)
Another nail in the coffin (Score:4, Insightful)
Note the special pleading going on - we will not search your iPod, it's just an augmentation of existing regulations etc. No mention of the fact they are still presuming guilt on the part of the consumer and are asking for unprecedented intrusion into individuals personal data.
The fact is this is a treaty designed by copyright holders to give them more powers to protect their IP at the expense of everyone else. No doubt the provisions will be used against major traffickers of stolen IP but they will also be used against individuals by overzealous companies too.
In the US?? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Someone please remind me how they plan to force this on the US? It's bad enough that we have to kowtow to the UN's pipe dreams; now the EU wants to get its oar in? Enough is enough. The already UN wants to censor our internet and take away our guns, and now the EU wants to prosecute programmers as criminals for infringing on IP?
I'm becoming increasingly concerned that many 'election issues' are smokescreens to hide the real issues. This trend of relative morality and world government must be stopped. If we
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The submitter got it wrong. The article is basically complaining about new regulations that would come into force IN THE EU as a result of ACTA. The main push for the IP parts of ACTA is coming from the RIAA/MPAA via the US government.
Again, the submitter got it wrong. The treaty will require the IP and copyright laws in the EU and Canada to be amended to be more in line with the already existing ones in the US.
Your concern about "socialism" and the UN is a strawman (and Islo-fascist socialism, besides b
Re: (Score:2)
He has a point though, Socialist-democrat-Zionist-penis-melting-robot-combs are a serious threat to American freedom to be controlled and censored. What ever happened to the God-given rights of this Christian nation like life, liberty, and free waterboarding?
Liberals need to get a clue, or we're all dead.
Re: (Score:2)
I hate to tell you, but your founding fathers very specifically and purposely founded the US as a secular nation, with separation of church and state, freedom of religion and lots of other fairly revolutionary goodies of the kind.
Your country as you know it is very much under attack, but from a third party vantage point it looks like you've got a lot less to worry about from Islam or Judaism, neither of which have seriously attempted to pass any overtly religiously motivated legislation in the US, than you
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, someone needs to learn to recognize sarcasm...any comment including the phrases "Zionist" and "penis-melting-robot-comb" is extremely unlikely to be serious:-)
Re: (Score:2)
Five years ago I probably would have agreed with you. Not today.
If you want to be sarcastic you're going to have to say things that people don't say in all seriousness (and are taken seriously for saying) every day.
Re: (Score:2)
I...mentioned...free...waterboarding...as...one...of...the...fundamental...American...rights.
Still, your comment is terribly depressing to me, that I can't sound more irrational than many Americans even when I try:-)
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't your president make essentially the same claim?
Re: (Score:2)
Please don't refer to him as my president. I know it's technically true but...yeah.
nous sommoes desoles que notre president soit un idiot. Nous n'avons pas vote pour lui.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Follow the link to Michael Geist's site, there's discussion of this on his blog. It's the US and Japan who are submitting drafts of the treaty to the other countries. The EU isn't forcing this on anyone, they just got there first.
ACTA is in Australia and New Zealand too (Score:3, Interesting)
ACTA is DMCA style legislation wrapped up into a Treaty. This treaty wishlist includes making ISPs liable for any copyright infringement that passes through their network.
Think about that... If you ISP lets copyrighted material through to your computer, without knowing for sure you're allowed to get that content, then your ISP is the one who will face prosecution as secondary-infringers.
How are ISPs to respond to that? By only letting you talk to sony.com etc? By blocking all encrypted communication where they can't see what you're sending? It's either shows a huge misunderstanding of how the internet works, or intentional malice to line the pockets of copyright collecting companies.
So while the treaty remains secret, several media companies (Time Warner, News Corp, Sony, Walt Disney Co) has been consulted.
The result of the treaty is to hand the worlds ISPs to Time Warner, News Corp, Sony, Walt Disney, etc. If you're indebted to another company just to be in business then you are owned by them.
Internet New Zealand has responded with this: Internet NZ submission [internetnz.net.nz] and there are many other responses here Coffee.geek [coffee.geek.nz]
This is what bugs me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Coincidentally no
So.......I'm kind of lost here....... (Score:4, Insightful)
It appears, to me, that somebody wants people to stop using the internet for various purposes that might be in contradiction to their financial goals. They claim they are losing money.
So, once they get what they want, and the internet is no longer a means of the free exchange of ideas, information, etc, what the FUCK do they think is going to happen?
Hmmm...maybe people will stop using it? And what happens to all the corporations that make THEIR money from the internet? Are they going to stand there and let it happen?
From my point of view, this "war" against copyright infringers is going to blow the whole damn boat out of the water. Right now, it is a war against "us", when it should really be a war between those corporations. A lot of people(read, companies) other then "us" supposed copyright violators stand to lose a lot of money, and I am not talking about the copyright holders.
Where are THEIR voices, on this matter?