Once-Secret ACTA Copyright Treaty Approved By EU 255
itwbennett writes "By a vote of 331 to 294, the EU Parliament has approved the controversial and once-secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). According to an ITworld article, 'the most controversial paragraph in the final text leaves the door open for countries to introduce the so-called three-strikes rule. This would cut Internet users off if they download copyright material as national authorities would be able to order ISPs to disclose personal information about customers.... The proposed agreement would also place sanctions against any device or software that is marketed as a means of circumventing access controls such as encryption or scrambling that are designed to prevent copying. It also requires legal measures against knowingly using such technology.'"
Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Works for me, and, I suspect, most others here too.
It's time... (Score:4, Insightful)
... to go kill some lobbyists.
So when are they coming for us? (Score:3, Insightful)
So when will the cops nab me for watching DVDs I pay for or rent then play using libdvdcss?
I'm torn on this (Score:2, Insightful)
On the one hand I'm angry that it seems like they are cracking down on filesharers and have left open this "expansion slot" to fill in with whatever they want later. On the other hand, I'm even more angry that they are going to start cracking down on CD bootleggers. These people perform a great service for many poor kids who don't have a computer to download files or $15 bucks to buy from the store. These kids would end up stealing and getting into much worse trouble if it weren't for the ability to buy from bootleggers for pennies on the dollar.
By restricting the free flow of information, these cartels have created an artificial scarcity. They exploit this scarcity and the ones who suffer are the poor kids. I can't believe we are agreeing to such heinous terms.
Re:So when are they coming for us? (Score:5, Insightful)
They won't. They'll nab you for child pornography that appears on your desk an hour before the dawn raid.
Once again (Score:3, Insightful)
A government demonstrates that it puts the interests of the rich above the interests of the many, even when the results mean plenty of injustice for the many.
Humans are not competent to govern themselves on a national level.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome! This just means higher adoption of encryption and more bodies on darknets!
The problem is you can't hide the data. The bit is either there, or it isn't. It's on or it's not. All you can do is apply statistical and mathematical formula and methods to the data in an attempt to obscure or distort the information to the point that it is no longer useful to anyone other than the intended recipient(s). And almost every method we have of creating plausible deniability is being hunted down by governments around the world. If they want it to stop, they just pass a law saying "If you can't give us the keys, methods, etc., used to mask, alter, obscure, etc., your data, we can simply throw you in jail."
In other words, the mere act of creating privacy between two entities will itself become a crime. That is the next step after ACTA. And it's already being planned.
Re:I'm torn on this (Score:2, Insightful)
Those kids could, you know, just not have a copy of the music. I don't know where this divine right to have stuff comes from.
Out of curiosity, when it comes to material goods, would you describe yourself as a capitalist? Because, absent artificial scarcity, how else can an author or programmer make money?
Re:I fear for Canada (Score:1, Insightful)
I think Canada failed at the digital age when they charged a tax on recordable CDs just because you MIGHT burn pirated content to the CD!
Re:I'm torn on this (Score:4, Insightful)
Whats "material" cost of music? Most of the cost comes from a distribution method that has been obsoleted in the digital age. This law only tries to impose limitations on a better and less costly way to get digital "wares", to save the ass of a distribution bussiness that is simply not needed anymore: music labels, cable companies, tv channels.
We should have ONE link, the internet, and content providers, both independent and from label and shit, competing together: THATS HOW CAPITALISM WORKS.
Protecting unnecesary monopolies with law is both plain stupid and a plain robbery from the people. We are supposed to do "as if", the internet wasnt there with regards to digitalizable content. But it is there. And digital content can travel through the net. That is "bad" for the distribution monopoly and they thus bought politicians to FUCK US ALL IN ALL OF THE WORLD.
THAT SUCKS.
Re:Cool! (Score:1, Insightful)
Awesome! This just means higher adoption of encryption and more bodies on darknets!
Works for me, and, I suspect, most others here too.
Terrorist!
Re:I'm torn on this (Score:4, Insightful)
Stopping someone from doing something that doesn't affect others is generally what needs a justification. The scarcity is what we are creating, so that is what needs something to back it up.
Several viable methods are available for authors to get money, and many would do things for the love of doing them, for fame, or because it enables other revenue streams. We had books and music before the Statute of Anne, after all.
Re:Old school? (Score:4, Insightful)
"I guess the key difference there is that you are going to start buying."
Good luck with that. Until my country's copyright law will be amended, I am still entitled to make copies of whatever non-DRM'd copyrighted work I want for my sole personal use. Not even ACTA changes anything about that - I would simply face harsher punishments for things I am already *not* allowed to do.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
And if you even do a search for such tools, it will attract the black van since you know only criminals....
Re:So when are they coming for us? (Score:4, Insightful)
They won't. They'll nab you for child pornography that appears on your desk an hour after the dawn raid.
There: fixed that for you.
Re:Been there already (Score:5, Insightful)
No it didn't.
The church built its learning institutions on the model of others, and there were secular learning institutions alongside them.
The church is in conflict with the forces of reality. It has a long history of oppressing the free spread of knowledge, and of couching its tyrannies in the language of benevolence. And of coopting institutions and traditions and pretending they were the province of their religion all along. It's only typical that they would pretend to have invented higher education, and would call it open and free exchange of ideas.