Latest Version of ACTA Leaks 87
An anonymous reader writes "Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid points to a freshly leaked version of ACTA available on La Quadrature Du Net. While the text will need further analysis, the most recent look at the text suggests that there is no Three Strikes law, but anti-circumvention laws have a new twist to them with regard to exceptions in that 'they do not significantly impair the adequacy of legal protection [...] or the effectiveness of legal remedies for violations of those measures.' Overall, the text still hints at a global DMCA with notice-and-takedown."
"Leaks" (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm beginning this document isn't meant to be as secretive as Geist makes it sound. There's been a leak about every 2 weeks for like months...
"Democracy" (Score:2, Funny)
Of the people,
By the people,
And for the people*.
(*except when the issue involves people.)
Re:"Democracy" (Score:5, Funny)
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Money
(formerly "Whoosh")
you get it half assedly (Score:5, Informative)
you owe the leakouts to sources that do not agree with american hollywood and media.
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So we either have a secret global uprising against ACTA, or the people involved don't care enough to keep the document a secret.
I think I'll go with apathy.
Re:you get it half assedly (Score:5, Informative)
all it needs more encouragement, for it to become a full fledged uprising.
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I'm beginning this document isn't meant to be as secretive as Geist makes it sound. I'm beginning this document isn't meant to be as secretive as Geist makes it sound.
The fact that they've failed to keep it secret doesn't change their goals of keeping it secret, nor does it change the fact that there should be no pretense of secrecy. There's no valid reason for the attempt at secrecy. The meetings should be available streaming online.
No, seriously, they should if they were smart. The fact that this is being drafted in secret is what will make more people pay attention to this even if there weren't leaks this big. I think far fewer people would be paying attention if
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Now we know why wikileaks exists. (Score:2)
In general most of the leaks are probably not stuff which influences the common man, but ACTA influences the common man in ways which hurt the common man to help the elite man. This is purely economic, there is nothing political or moral about ACTA.
So if you aren't set to profit from the royalties associated with ACTA, it's not in your interest and you have no reason to support it.
I ask the secretive ACTA people, what does ACTA do for me? What does it do for the consumer, and for the independent artist?
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Well the content producers will put more movies and music on the market once they can be sure you won't be able to do evil dastardly things like play them back on different devices without buying them again (AKA STEALING WHICH IS JUST LIKE STEALING A CAR OR MUGGING AN OLD LADY BTW), and you, lucky consumer, can potentially buy those movies! ISN'T THAT GREAT!? Support ACTA and you'll be watching The Last Airbender on VOD* before you know it!**
*HDCP-capable TV and cable box required. Audience size limits appl
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Such regularity suggests that the ACTA negotiations might very well have a mole.
I hope (Score:4, Interesting)
All of this crap explodes soon so we can possibly return to an era of reason. I'm dreaming, I know, but if we can just bottom out we stand a chance of bouncing back. As it stands now we are on full descent with no bottom in sight.
Re:I hope (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you realize just how low the "bottom" is.
Further, the Internet may be the kind of thing for which once it becomes a completely corporatized, monotized entity, there may not be any going back.
Once cable television was going to represent the "democratization of media" with all sorts of public access and interactivity and localization. But once the cable business became monopolized it became nothing but "Pay TV", where you pay for basically the same product you used to get for free. Now that's the new normal, where people just expect to pay for television, even when it's got advertising.
If ACTA becomes international law, there's a very good chance that the Internet many of us love will be gone forever and it will become more "Pay TV". But even worse, Fair Use and public libraries will probably become a thing of the past. Even open source itself will be threatened by ACTA. Think about that all you people who love Linux.
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> I don't think you realize just how low the "bottom" is.
Just to add an example: China hasn't hit the bottom. Consider how unlikely it is that they're on the verge of "bouncing back" toward freedom.
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Your first sentence is absolutely correct. You lost it at "monopolized". They aren't, so it can't be the reason.
The reason is "large scale" and "centralized". Comcast, for example, has to deal with hundreds if not thousands of local jurisdictions. It is trying to save money by reducing the number of different cabl
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But there was a time when it was distinguishable from regular network television.
That distinction is fast disappearing.
And my point was that we don't want to see the Internet become cable television, which it is in danger of doing, without net neutrality rules.
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Further, the Internet may be the kind of thing for which once it becomes a completely corporatized, monotized entity, there may not be any going back.
Right. Because we were so much better off when the internet was entirely a government supported, non-corporatized, non-monitized entity, where no Evil Commercial Interest darkened our doorstep. We all long for a return to the days of Usenet, telnet, ftp, archie and gopher.
NOT!!
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Of course we were better off when the Internet was entirely government supported, non-coporatized and non-monitized.
I'm surprised you would even raise such a question.
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I'm with you. We've long passed the point at which we can reverse the course corporate-government has taken us using traditional political means.
Fortunately, we've also long passed the point where something like ACTA can be enforced using traditional law enforcement methods. As China has found, tyrannies aren't quite as easy to maintain as they used to be. There are several genies who have fled their bottles.
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All of this crap explodes soon so we can possibly return to an era of reason.
You say that as though we'd been in an era of reason at some point.
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That "we" may not have included you... :p
Software patent problem: ISP liability=C&D let (Score:5, Informative)
Software patent problems are also worsened by ACTA, but this problem's getting lost among the discussion of problems of transporting pharmaceuticals via Europe. The pharmaceuticals issue is bigger, but the software patents issue still exists (and the DRM issues, which is even worse).
swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.
Further Reading (Score:5, Informative)
Leaked again? (Score:1, Funny)
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Who protects these documents? Goatse security?
Actually, Goatse Security was competent enough to expose AT&T's gaping iPad email address vulnerability [slashdot.org]. I'd say they have a pretty good grip on proper security practices, and would not be caught with their pants down like the people who actually lost control of these documents. On the whole, I'd say that Goatse Security is probably more anal about privacy and security policies than most larger security firms. Prolapsed Anus.
Constitutional challenge? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to hear how ACTA could survive some sort of Constitutional challenge. From what I hear, it's not a treaty, but an "executive agreement," and being able to skip ratification by the Senate was one reason mentioned when I heard that. (Don't know if there's a connection...) The Constitution talks about Treaties, ratified by the senate. The Constitution talks about Laws, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.
What the heck is an "Executive Agreement" and what sort of force does it have. Moreover, what would its resistance be to any sort of serious legal challenge, given its rather odd legal status in the first place. This sounds shakier than Bush's use of signing statements.
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An Executive agreement still requires majority support from both Houses to be implemented. But since the DMCA was passed with unanimous support in the Senate and with little to no opposition in the House there is no chance in hell that ACTA is going to face any real opposition from Congress.
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An Executive agreement still requires majority support from both Houses to be implemented. But since the DMCA was passed with unanimous support in the Senate and with little to no opposition in the House there is no chance in hell that ACTA is going to face any real opposition from Congress.
That should tell you that the Democrat party is really the Hollywood party.
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That should tell you that the Replica* party is really the Hollywood party.
*I heard that dropping the last couple letters from political parties was the cool thing to do today.
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I would expect an Executive Agreement has the force of an Executive Order to his underlings in the Justice Department to put forth certain arguments in court until a judge agrees and they become binding precedent thanks to that oh-so-brilliant principle of Common Law. In the countries where they have Prime Ministers they can just go straight to the "this is now the law" phase.
Congress is fully compliant (Score:2)
Noone will railroad this, as the true voters in this country vote with their dollar to the representatives' campaign warchests, and those voters want this passed.
I'm pretty sure if this is up for vote, aside from the stray voices on both the right and left, it will get passed (and probably via voice vote or closed chamber).
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Noone will railroad this...
Holy crap, Noone has a lot of power! The rest of your post doesn't make any sense though, why would Noone railroad it because the voters want it passed?
I'm confused.
P.S. I hope you can read the sarcasm. Noone is a guy's name, dipshit. No one is what you are looking for, they are two separate words.
Re:Constitutional challenge? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to know how the rest of the world can stop this.
From my perspective, this is basically an export of a law the US already has -- the DMCA.
I feel that far too many things that are already legal for many of us (fair use for example) is being stripped to cater to the interests of the MPAA and RIAA -- who are largely formed of multinationals who have a vested interest in getting every country to settle on the most draconian of laws.
As to the legalities, who knows. We're talking about a treaty being done in secret with no room for public input. For reasons I've never understood, all of the information about the content and process of this needs to be kept secret -- likely because people would realize how badly they're getting railroaded all in the name of protecting US movies from being copied.
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I wouldn't call it an export of the DMCA. It's more accurately a combination of all worst parts of various copyright laws around the world.
Thus, you don't just have the bad parts of the DCMA. You have other things like 3 strike laws, border searches, etc etc.
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The rest of the world can stop it very easily. All it requires is for each of the governments of the rest of the world to do one of the following:
1. Don't sign it,
2. If you fail #1, and your system of laws requires a separate legislative ratification of treaties, don't ratify it.
Because it is so simple, if the "rest of the world" really was opposed to it, there wouldn't be an issue in the first place.
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An Executive Agreement has the same force as an executive order, namely none.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(United_States) [wikipedia.org]
Executive orders have the full force of law unless an act of Congress specifically denies the power (Exec Orders are assumed to be based on acts of Congress), or the POTUS is not given such power in the Constitution.
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Clause [wikipedia.org]
Executive Agreements (there are three types, we're talking about sole-executive agreements here) have exactly the same force as standard treaties, and as far as international law is conce
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Re:Constitutional challenge? (Score:5, Informative)
What the heck is an "Executive Agreement" and what sort of force does it have.
PoliSci grad student here. An Executive Agreement is exactly the same as an Executive Order (as in it has the full force of law) with one major difference: it is only in effect so long as the President that signs it is still in office. However, it can be extended by the next president through an executive order or another agreement. It seems to me that the whole point of this is to push it through by the easiest means possible, then when the government tried to push the terms of the agreement to a more permanent status, they are hoping we either won't complain, or won't pay attention.
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They don't represent us. (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason those ACTA people have to act in secret is because they don't represent any of us. This is like the oil cartel, and we see what kind of problem big oil has caused once we let them take complete control over energy.
When you let people make law in secret without debate, but they want to tax you and force you to follow laws which aren't debated, isn't that a dictatorship?
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textual transcription (Score:5, Informative)
Many volunteers from La Quadrature du Net did an amazing job at transcripting the ugly PDF scan, the result is available here:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/ACTA_20100713_version_consolidated_text [laquadrature.net]
thanks ACTA (Score:5, Insightful)
for breeding the most industrial strength bomb proof P2P possible
oh, you had some other goal in mind? you really thought draconian legislation would somehow stop filesharing? you're that fucking stupid?
here's some intellectual charity for you assholes: making a fancy law is meaningless without enforceability. i will gladly make a bet on who wins this contest-
1. your legion of lawyer diplomats
versus
2. tens of millions of media hungry, technically skilled, and most importantly, POOR teenagers
ding, ding, ding!
round 1, place your bets
ok genius (Score:2)
enlighten us
(crickets)
Re:thanks ACTA (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the tens of thousands of media hungry, 1337 skilled and most importantly, CYNICAL, 30-somethings who have been through all of this before.
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Re:thanks ACTA (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes I think the whole draconian copyright thing is a trick by the EFF to get people to develop darknets which will then also be used for human rights purposes by third world dissidents. It has to be - there's just no way anyone can actually be this stupid.
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Is that dark.net or darknets.com? I can't figure out how to get there...
Notice and takedown (Score:5, Insightful)
Overall, the text still hints at a global DMCA with notice-and-takedown
The safe harbour and takedown notice system in the DMCA is one of the few sensible aspects. There has to be some practical mechanism for copyright holders to enforce their legal rights, but it shouldn't be powerful enough for vested interests to abuse the system and suppress legitimate distribution. The takedown notice and counter-notice system is as fair a balance as anything I've seen suggested.
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Apparently, you need to read it as well.
The counter notice is sent to the company who took down the post, and under the safe harbor provisions as long as the poster sends them a counter notice the service provider can re-post the material.
It is then up to the two individuals to solve the issue in court.
This means illegal distribution of copyrighted material is easily removed with force of law, with only a slight and temporary inconvenience to fair use materials or otherwise legal distributions of copyrighte
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would change the DMCA take down provisions in 5 ways:
1.Penalties for anyone who sends bogus take down notices
2.100% protection for any service provider for content that passes over their network (but is not hosted by them) including protection that gives ISPs 100% immunity for copyright violations carried out by their users (and without any legal requirement for the ISP to cooperate with copyright holders in order to maintain the immunity)
3.Protection for providers like YouTube where copyright holders can
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5.A ban on automated take down notice sending, i.e. it has to be sent by a human instead of computers (like the way some media companies are now doing to YouTube with automatic notices for content they own)
I don't think #5 is necessary if #1 and #4 are in place: a notice sent by computer is no less annoying than a notice sent by a human, and anyone who uses an automated service is running the risk of false positives, which will trigger penalties via #1. In fact, #5 may skew more towards benefitting the lar
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You are mistaken. The DMCA provides for both notification by the copyright holder to a hosting service and counter-notification by the person who put the content on the hosting service. Essentially, one of these negates the default safe harbour protections, and the other restores them (but at a price: the person responsible must provide their real identity, and therefore expose themselves to legal action if the takedown notification was justified).
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A full lawsuit is far too slow in the age of the Internet, unless there is also some mechanism to get a judge to make a temporary injunction within a matter of hours, preventing further potentially damaging distribution while any case with merit is heard.
It also requires knowing whom to sue, which is not a trivial problem if the host service does not require confirmed ID before people can upload files. Personally, I am of the view that on balance it should be possible to compel an ISP to reveal the identity
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There IS. Its called a Courtroom.
If www.freemovies.org is hosting illegal copies of a film, the copyright holder can go to court and sue the owners of www.freemovies.org for copyright violation. (usually after asking them to take the content down first)
If you cant find the person who is violating copyright (e.g. all you have is an IP address) you go to court and file a "john doe" lawsuit, present the evidence and subpoena the ISP to provide customer details so you then have someone to sue.
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Because that's worked so well in the US (Score:2)
Let's see, Viacom vs Youtube was all about major media holders not being willing to file the takedown notices. They don't want to file, they don't want to allow anything under fair use, and they want everyone else to pay for the privilege of doing their work for them.
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Apparently you never got the results of that case.
Youtube (Google, actually) won, with the federal judge confirming the current interpretation of the safeharbor provisions in the DMCA.
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So yes, Google won, for now. At a cost that is sufficient to bankrupt most small internet companies. Yeah, let's really push the victory party there.
I won't be happy until a judge hands down sanctions against the lawyers for bringing a frivolous case. The lawyers are first and for most officers of the court. Before the
Some one should get in the background of a live tv (Score:2)
Some one should get in the background of a live tv show, newscast, sports event or other stuff and use the DMCA to get them shut down.
yes any thing can be infringement even stuff in the background of a video / photo.
DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions, but isn't "notice-and-takedown" an improvement over what we had before the DMCA when we called the notices "cease and desist letters" and there were no safe harbor provisions for ISPs and sites like YouTube?
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Notice-and-notice is better than a notice-and-takedown system. In notice-and-notice, the ISP simply passes any letters on to the subscriber, instead of taking down the content by default in response to the letter. The subscriber and the letter sender can then settle the issue. Notice-and-notice is harder, as far as I understand it, to abuse in the name of censorship [eff.org] than notice-and-takedown is.
I didn't post about what is ideal. I just said that I think what we have now, with respect to certain concerns, is better than what we had before.
I'm just saying that before DMCA the majority of ISPs were scared shitless of lawsuits and would freak out if they got a cease-and-desist relating to one of their subscribers and would take down content without any review process. The current procedure is less onerous than it used to be.
That people are currently using DMCA takedowns for silly things is irrelevant.
ACTA? (Score:2)
Does that mean "American Copyright Terrorist Agreement"??