WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Back On the Table 133
c0lo writes with a bit from BoingBoing: "The UN's World Intellectual Property Organization's Broadcasting Treaty is back. This is the treaty that EFF and its colleagues killed five years ago, but Big Content won't let it die. Under the treaty, broadcasters would have rights over the material they transmitted, separate from copyright, meaning that if you recorded something from TV, the Internet, cable or satellite, you'd need to get permission from the creator and the broadcaster to re-use it. And unlike copyright, the 'broadcast right' doesn't expire, so even video that is in the public domain can't be used without permission from the broadcaster."
Keep trying till they sneak it through? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate that governments can just rename a treaty or bill and resubmit it. I mean, with SOPA & PIPA, the people have spoken and stated they do not want this. Why can the government just reintroduce it again a few months later? We shouldn't have to be constantly fighting these battles with our own government.
Re:Keep trying till they sneak it through? (Score:5, Informative)
Because even when people get bills they do not like killed they still vote for the same politicians the next election cycle.
Re:Keep trying till they sneak it through? (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that this is the UN. Freaking NOBODY voted for these people. Just goes to show you; Nothing is more tyrannical than rule by Bureaucrat.
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Except this still gets voted on by the people you elected.
MPAA selects the candidates (Score:5, Interesting)
Except this still gets voted on by the people you elected.
Who have pledged to support what the movie studios push. Otherwise, they wouldn't have even won the primaries because the movie studios control the news media that help candidates get elected to the U.S. Senate [pineight.com].
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...the movie studios control the news media that help candidates get elected to the U.S. Senate.
But the real problem is that nobody goes beyond mass media for information. If the studios control the media, it's only because we give them the power. So, let's quit trying to blame the other guy for our own failures.
Convince them how? (Score:2)
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In the US, mass media may have a large effect on the outcome of elections, but only in the most ridiculous way.
The vast majority of people don't care who they vote for. They vote a straight party line [either R or D]. And they are pretty much split almost exactly 50-50 across the whole country.
So the election comes down to:
-preventing the other side from voting [cold-calling them and telling them the wrong date/place to vote, or making it more difficult to vote [state ID requirements]
-voter turnout [alive
That's why I mentioned the primaries (Score:2)
[Both the designated R and the designated D] have pledged to support what the movie studios push. Otherwise, they wouldn't have even won the primaries
The vast majority of people don't care who they vote for. They vote a straight party line [either R or D].
That's why I mentioned the primary elections. The movie studios have already had their say by the time those are over.
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Unfortunately, you and I are outvoted by the majority of the general public, which has already chosen to trust the mass media. So how do you recommend that people outside the mass media convince the majority of the general public to stop trusting the mass media?
As Jello Biafra says, You become the media. We have access to publishing tools on the internet that have toppled several regimes in as many years. We have devices that can circumvent digital blockades. We have the technology to 'get the word out' something's rotten. I'm not sure why things haven't moved in a more-positive direction in the United States in the past 13 years, but I'd wager it has to do something with a lack of general education. Perhaps people are just scared for themselves and their fam
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You have to understand the psychology behind all fascist movements [whale.to] (pdf). The process is universal. It crosses all political and cultural boundaries without prejudice and without any regard for religion creed.
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So you're suggesting we turn more to Twitter and Facebook, Buzz and Youtube, Redditt and Digg? :P If I could, I'd get all my news from gizmodo and my TV from youtube/hulu or the like, but I can't do that and still expect to be even relatively well-informed, and I can't spend all my time vetting a failed system.
If what you say is true, then the fault lies with the government for allowing entities that control both the public media and massive amounts of other industries to exist. We cannot ignore the fact th
Re:Keep trying till they sneak it through? (Score:4, Insightful)
To describe the UN as 'tyrannical' is arguably inaccurate. It's pretty hard to be a 'tyranny' when your available power extends just far enough to write nasty notes until the office supplies budget runs out, and where getting any real shit done requires unanimity from the somewhat-togetherness-challenged security council...
The really pernicious thing about the UN is that it provides an excellent alternate venue for the more tyrannically minded members of state governments, and favored industry representatives, to put the stamp of 'law' on things that are either too crazy to ram through more local legislatures, or where support is overwhelmingly strong in certain countries but weak or nonexistent elsewhere.
The UN would be up shit creek without a paddle within about one budget cycle if it displeased its member states too seriously; which is why its assorted baroque treaty bodies can be so... customer service oriented... when it comes to agreeing to crazy stuff.
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Even in that event, though, the UN would largely be acting in the role of a rubber-stamp for various member states that want color of law for assorted bullshit involving censorship or ghastly telco monopolies...
Don't get me wrong: as a 'respectable', but rather pliable, venue for 'legislation shopping'(about as respectable as doctor shopping for oxycontin; but far more dangerous) the UN is a supremely dangerous instrument. If you can't get your terrible idea adopted at a national level, or your terrible ide
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That's no more true than arguing that nobody voted for the Attorney General or Secretary of the Treasury: It's technically true, but UN representatives most definitely answer to their respective governments. For instance, if the US representatives support WIPO this time around, it's because President Obama supports WIPO. And according to the rules of the UN, if the UN supports something, that means the US has acquiesced to it.
(The same argument is true for residents of the UK and France.)
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Thomas Jefferson described the Supreme Court as "dangerous" because the justices "are not subject to the elective control of the people". I would say the UN-level bureaucrats are the same.
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I would say the UN-level bureaucrats are the same.
And you would be wrong. If, for instance, Mitt Romney won in the upcoming presidential election, then the current US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, would be replaced in relatively short order. By contrast, Justice Scalia will be on the Supreme Court for as long as he is willing and able to serve.
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Because even when people get bills they do not like killed they still vote for the same politicians the next election cycle.
I think that whether they vote for the same politicians or different politicians, the out come will likely not change. The illusion of choice, no?
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There are choices, but most people have it stuck in their heads that they should only vote for candidates of the two major parties. The lack of choice is not because of the candidates, but because of the majority of the voters.
It's an MPAA frame-up (Score:3)
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Why can the government just reintroduce it again a few months later?
Because when the corporations own the governments, they can do whatever they damn well want. It's like the U.S. Constitution says: "We the Corporations of the United States..." And all the other countries are under U.S. law, so the Constitution applies to them too.
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I stopped bothering long before 2008. The fix is in. Voting is a sucker bet.
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There are no "leaders who might change things." Sucker. bet.
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vote for gridlock! its the only way forward.
(that's not doublespeak, either. its good sense.)
Vote for which MPAA-approved candidate? (Score:2)
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you have elections from school boards to president to participate in. Make your decision and vote.
Copyright is exclusively federal. Elections at the school board or state level do not change it.
Make your decision and vote.
For whom should I vote if, after having researched the candidates on the ballot, none of them represents my interests?
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If your vote is actually counted accurately (ha!) and enough people vote "No Confidence" it will send a clear signal to the politicians.
Sadly, the signal will probably be to legally change names to "No Confidence"...
Re:Keep trying till they sneak it through? (Score:5, Informative)
RE: I hate that governments can just rename a treaty or bill and resubmit it. I mean, with SOPA & PIPA.
BTW: It's called CETA now.
And it contains ACTA/SOPA/PIPA laws
and a bonus: Cities not allowed to have "buy local" tenders.
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...and there's a Western Front too: TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, containing it's own err... "IPR Chapter".
Don't let the limited "fair use" rules news stories blind you. TPP is a direct attack on the free Internet as well.
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I hate that industries can just rename a treaty or bill and resubmit it. I mean, with SOPA & PIPA, the people have spoken and stated they do not want this. Why can the industriy just reintroduce it again a few months later? We shouldn't have to be constantly fighting these battles with the industries that own our own government.
FTFY
It's probably best to disabuse ourselves of the notion that government is anything other than the legislative/judicial/wait staff division of MegaCorps Inc.
Good luck EFF (Score:4, Interesting)
Time to support EFF, be that with time or money.
Bill of Digital Rights (Score:3)
We need a Bill of Digital Rights, one that underlies all of our national and international laws and keeps rights for citizens. Unless we have that the corporations will just write laws to keep the rights for themselves and citizens will be left with nothing.
And yes, 'corporations are people, my friend', 'Live free (as in beer) or die' and all that. ;-)
Re:Bill of Digital Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
What, so they've got three documents they can ignore when drafting laws instead of just two?
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Indeed. Governments are keen to sign contracts like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but they are also equally happy to ignore them as soon as they're even a little in the way of what they want to do.
It's very sad that said declaration has so little weight behind it. The US, for instance, blatantly ignores it, yet they're not punished in any way. They should be booted from the UN and trade-sanctioned to hell and back for their behaviour. Lots of other countries are in violation as well, but they generally don't adopt the holier-than-thou attitude of the US. Do your worst, mods, I have plenty of karma to burn, but please at least have a look at articles 5-11 [wikipedia.org] first.
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We already have that, and it's called the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works [wipo.int]. It says in a nutshell that Big Content has the right to extort huge amounts of money by artificially restricting distribution, and that Citizens have the right to get fleeced and the right to pay through the nose each time they want to read or hear and watch something, LONG
Re:Bill of Digital Rights (Score:4, Interesting)
If Big Content was taxed according to the official **AA value of their properties, they would soon start delivering to public domain.
Same of course could be applied to the broadcasters with "broadcaster eternal copyright". Tax them until they either release copyrights or go bust.
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I think not, for two reasons.
First, because you used the word "digital."
Second, because you're putting the cart before the horse, trying to have a "bill of rights" to dogmatically persuade people to support freedom, instead of first persuading people to support freedom and then passing this "bill of rights" as a manifesto explaining the tolerable limits of policies.
Current popular opinion (and it's nearly unanimous; I'm not talking about some kind of 60% vs 40% thing) is that
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Posting to undo a bad mod. Selected "redundant" rather than "insightful."
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for as long as religion dominates western/US thought (and it does) we will not TRULY respect or desire freedom.
think about that.
Re:Bill of Digital Rights (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Corporations are People"
I forget who said it but I'll restate it "I'll believe that when a corporation is executed in Texas" :P
Poop on the Ninth (Score:2)
Greed (Score:4, Insightful)
When will all this greed end, so that people can live reasonable lives, other than a chosen few who are already rich beyond the dreams of most of us?
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Never is the short answer. Everybody has staked their fortune and future on the idea of this kind of property rights, and people will just keep extending it to its extreme conclusion.
Of course, this is absurd, because this is creating a new kind of right for them. They don't own the work, but somehow the work + the specific set of commercials (and channel identification on screen) has now become a new protected class. Eventually America might try to reject it because it wasn't
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its not extreme; those in power are never happy with 'enough'.
how much do they need?
"more than I have now! don't try to stop me, either."
sociopathic behavior is rampant in 'property owners'. sharing is not even in their vocabulary. "mine mine mine!" is all they think.
sad, really. those are the ones 'running things', too, for all practical purposes. running ALL things.
nice world we have here, huh?
but, to be fair, mankind has always been like this. modern day life just accentuates it and shows the reall
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And while we may complain about wealthy corporations doing immoral things to make money, remember they're not required to be a fount of morality - they're legally required to maximise profits for shareholders within the law.
Actually, no they are not. They have a fiduciary responsibility to act in their shareholder's best interest, which is rather different. And, in practice, they almost never get called on this (i.e., sued by shareholders) if they are not actively looting the company, so even that requirement is frequently ignored.
If corporate executives act immorally, it is because they have no morals, not because they are being coerced.
Getting called on this more subtly (Score:2)
they're legally required to maximise profits for shareholders within the law.
They have a fiduciary responsibility to act in their shareholder's best interest, which is rather different. And, in practice, they almost never get called on this (i.e., sued by shareholders)
There exist forms of "get[ting] called on this" more subtle than a shareholder lawsuit. Institutional shareholders such as pension funds could just sell their shares in a company and buy shares in a competitor if failure to be greedy puts the return on investment of the company's stock noticeably below the average in the industry.
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They kind of remind me of my kids at times: "Dad, we just want this one more toy. Just this one and we'll be satisfied and will be good and will never ask for anything again and will clean our room and will love you forever and ever."
I don't fall for it because I know they'll be happy for about a week before the toy gets tossed aside as they cry for New Shiny Toy Number 573. We shouldn't fall for it when the media companies say they just need this one additional bill to "fight piracy and protect the artis
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I don't know about ending, but I think we have already passed peak copyright, and things may look very different in a decade or so.
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We tried a presidential line item veto act, but it was ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the presentment clause.
Insanity... (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that 'broadcasters' need some sort of newly created right seems unsupportable to the point of insanity(obviously, they want as much as they can get; but that's a different matter). "Broadcasting" has historically been something that people are quite enthusiastic about doing. So much so that the FCC and its equivalents have spent a lot of time busting unlicenced RF sources, and copyright holders have done considerable wailing and gnashing about all their precious content getting shoved out over the airwaves.
Take the robust history of broadcasting, clearly not an endangered activity, and add the fact that newer technology is making it ever cheaper and easier, and it just seems completely insane to award a bigger slice of power to people engaged in it.
History demonstrates that, even without broadcast rights, even in downright wild-west environments, broadcasting gets done. Technological advances are making broadcasting and broadcast-like activity even cheaper and easier, so what possible reason could we have to need to award it any further incentives?
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I am broadcasting my thoughts right now. I own them forever, read them and you shall be a criminal!
It doesn't just seem like it, it IS not only unsupportable to point of insanity, in further yet, it is well in the area of insanity.
A suggestion for the UN... (Score:3)
Re:A suggestion for the UN... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mommy, mommy... (Score:2)
Not till you grow up and join the MAFIAA dear.
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So, all those people who fought for civil rights over a very long span, or other such things should also be punished by death?
That would have the effect of making society stagnate -- there is only ever one opportunity to change a law, with all subsequent attempts punishable by death.
Unfort
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i am of similar stance with some edits
1 Rape : i would prefer that the child be adopted using WitSec Protocols but...
2 Risk to the Mother: this should be a last resort The Doctor made a mistake/just did not have the skills thing (is the mother going to die RIGHT NOW?)
4Incest: this speaks to risk to mother
5 Deformity: This is one of those The Doctor needs to Bet His license things
On the Flip side of this i am all in favor of
1 better creche tech (Medco creates a creche that can support a -6 months baby then
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Existing is not a Capitol Crime (Score:2)
Yes i am considered odd because im Pro-Life and Pro-Capitol Punishment.
Did you know that under Your Rules Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have been aborted as being "deformed"??
Yes i would normally Choose Life but i also believe that Some People Can Not Live.
I am not The Judge or on The Jury but when push comes to shove...
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> Rape/Incest should be a Capital Crime (with special circs)
You realize that would result in more victims being murdered afterwards? What makes you think this is a good idea?
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This would naturally be balanced by the "You Only get Caught Once" thing. So some Critter forces himself on a girl maybe beats her up some and then twigs to the small fact that he is going to get tracked down and put down. He Knows that he has a 98% chance of having a short prison visit and then a personal rendition of "Ride The Lighting". Do you really think that at this point he is going to kill his victim and smoke his 2% chance of flipping to a i was rabid/drunk/stoned defense???
Or do you think that may
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Are you suggesting 100% of murders get solved?
Meanwhile in reality, the odds of getting caught are ostensibly significantly lower when there are no witnesses. Since the rape-scenario will usually involve but a single witness, one that already happens to be overpowered and at the mercy of the perpetrator, the solution seems obvious...
Putting people in a situation where they have nothing to lose (and a 98% chance of execution (to use your numbers) would mean 'nothing to lose' to most people (98% of them, in f
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LOL, so on the one hand, you're pro-life and all life is sacred, but on the other hand you're advocating the death penalty?
You can't have it both ways, or you're just a hypocrite.
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Treason is a very specific charge, defined in the US Constitution - it requires aiding and abetting a declared enemy of the United States. For instance, when John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan, that was capital murder, not treason. If he had done the same thing because he had received an order from Moscow, then it would have been treason.
The other problem with your proposal is that slightly modifying the wording might legitimately make an objectionable proposal acceptable: e.g. Someone who opposed throwing ki
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much better than chopping their heads off.
afterall, a hot steak is better than a cold chop!
(soitenly!)
The solution is simple... (Score:1)
"Broadcast" everything we can get our hands on, ourselves.
Then WE own a 'perpetual copyright' and YOU can't use it....nenner neener
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"Broadcast" everything we can get our hands on, ourselves.
Then WE own a 'perpetual copyright' and YOU can't use it....nenner neener
It would be entertaining for the pirate bay to acquire unprecedented intellectual property rights over the vast majority of the western world's commercial cultural output...
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True enough.(though, given that the treaty is probably not intended to grant all broadcast rights to Akamai and their ilk, or to petty regional affiliates of broadcasters, I wouldn't be too surprised to see some hilarious/alarming overbroad definition of what 'broadcasting' actually is, specifically intended to ensure that the exciting new rights accrue directly to the top, without any accidentally being lodged in the middlemen who just do boring things like 'making the broadcast work'. Since it is also lik
Comment removed (Score:3)
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that's wise. really, its wisdom.
knowing this about mankind and its nature and then dealing with it as a given is pretty smart.
problem is, not enough people are on the same page. they don't get that it really is a war of control and that We The People are not winning or gaining anything by granting big media more and more priviledges.
one phrase is 'voting against your own best interests' and that's exactly what people are being trained to do. its horrifying to watch people willingly vote for some candidat
Constitutionality (Score:2)
Who chooses the middleman (Score:2)
but the only one having something to do with anything resembling property rights, as far as I can recall, has something to do with authors and absolutely nothing to do with printers, newsboys, broadcasters or other similar middlemen of any kind.
Copyright works on the basis that authors have the exclusive right to designate what middleman is allowed to publish a work.
Enough Is Enough (Score:2)
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"Limited" includes perpetual minus 1 day, i.e. up to the End of the Universe^W United States, minus 1 day.
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btw, how much extra for that last day? I need to know that so I can get with my people and make a decision. have your guy call my guy. we'll do lunch.
Dear WIPO - we don't want this (Score:2)
Dear WIPO,
We, the users of the internet, don't want this treaty. It is only broadcasters who want this agreement, and we believe that the evidence is scant that there is a problem with broadcasting that would be solved with this treaty.
Please don't pursue a course of action which is going to end in many people questioning your legitimacy; it's not good for you, it's not good for the UN, and it's not good for the concept of copyright when there is overreaching by any party.
Yours,
The Internet.
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dear internet,
your days are numbered. we own most of your ass right now. what we don't own, we have plans on owning.
and we control the purse-strings. we're like the old phone company. we don't care. we don't have to.
have a nice day.
The Job Creators
So, if there's a song leak... (Score:2)
So, if a song gets leaked out on the Internet before it's broadcast on the radio, then whomever distributed it has the broadcast rights?
Or is there some clause like the persion has to be the copyright owner?
P.S. This broadcast treaty would be unconstitutional in the US if there's no time limit on it... from Section 8:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
(emphasis mine)
Lifetime of the Sun (Score:3)
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To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Last will and testament (Score:2)
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Commerce among the several states (Score:2)
The last straw (Score:2)
Write Obama (Score:2)
It is a good idea to make your voice heard. Obama would be the person that controls foreign policy and would be the person to give your opinion too.
Don't be so hasty (Score:2)
Before you condemn this measure, please think it through.
This is, fairly obviously, an attempt to create a situation whereby any alien intelligence that finds our noisy little planet will arrive here already indebted to intellectual property holders, and be forced to trade their own intellectual property in order to satisfy the debt.
Sure, its a short-term loss for freedom of expression. But imagine our collective satisfaction when we discover the massive amount of licensing fees racked up by alien scientist