Leaked ACTA Treaty Will Outlaw P2P
ACTA—the misleadingly named "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement"—is the worldwide copyright treaty that's being negotiated behind closed doors, and that will create a sort of global DMCA if continues in its current state. Now Wikileaks has posted a draft of the treaty, and Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow gives his take:
Among other things, ACTA will outlaw P2P (even when used to share works that are legally available, like my books), and crack down on things like region-free DVD players. All of this is taking place out of the public eye, presumably with the intention of presenting it as a fait accompli just as the ink is drying on the treaty.
Wikileaks points out that the U.S. politician behind ACTA is Howard Berman from California, a Democrat whose top four campaign contributors for 2006 were Time Warner ($21,000), News Corp ($15,000), Sony Corp of America ($14,000), and Walt Disney Co ($13,550).
So what can you do, other than shake your head in disgust? Well, here's a list of members of the subcommittee overseeing the U.S. side of things, so you could start by seeing if your rep is listed and contacting him or her directly. One Boing Boing reader suggests contacting your representative regardless of committee membership—you can find the correct contact information here using your zip code or address.
"Proposed US ACTA multi-lateral intellectual property trade agreement (2007)" [Wikileaks via Boing Boing]
(Photo: Getty)
Post a comment
Comments:
The fact that our politicians on both sides of the aisle are routinely bought and paid for is absolutely disgusting to me.
Run the lobbyists out of Washington; quit allowing our elected sleaze to take paid "business trips" to golf courses and 4-star restaurants and get back to (honest)work.
How can you restrict sharing non-copywritten works? Will direct downloading be illegal too? How about trading baseball cards? Ok, Maybe I took it too far, but come on, seriously?
Nobody is good when it comes to tech/intellectual property issues.
And with respect to Republicans, are we talking about Corporals who shill or people who shill for Corporals? Does this include Lance Corporals?
The only question is not whether the policians are bought ( Duh, ), but whether they will enforce this garbage.
Wouldn't pass constitutional muster.
@stinerman: I'm not saying anything. I just hear every single day that my party is linked to these kinds of buy-offs. I just wanted to point it out, because consumerist decided the political party wasn't important.
I just went to wikileaks. I saw nothing that outright states or even implies that P2P would be outlawed. Maybe I am missing something? I don't doubt this act would be evil, but lets get some actual proof. Not to mention I can't help but think that outright bans on P2P would be an unconstitutional restriction on speech.
errr, i think i just throw up in my mouth a little bit...
It won't make it. Media conglomerate fantasies notwithstanding, people won't accept it and protocols can always be written through (or around) the blocks.
On the other hand, societies that would force this on their populace would find other justifications for whatever retribution.
And they'll do all of this work and make all sorts of bluster, then the public, via the internet, will hand their asses to them. After all of this time, I still can't believe that they haven't figured out that an angry internet can pretty much put an end to any bullshit of this sort.
This is mindboggling. How are the proposing to police this and don't we have bigger issues to be dealing with.
People starving in Africa or some guy in Chicago who has a region free DVD player.
@Bladefist: Yup. If they fail to mention the politician's party around here, you can be sure it's "(D)"
@wgrune: Which expired in February 2008. And was re-newed by a _______ majority congress. Which may/may not account for the, what, 20% congress approval rating?
@Wgrune:
New, new math:
Lobbyist + guillotine = goodness
@impudence:
I agree, there wasn't really anything that said P@P was going to be illegal, just the aggregator sites that make it so easy to find that copy of big booties 4...or windows, whatever.
I have this vision of a group of mustached men in tuxedos, top hats and monocles rolling around deliriously on a big pile of money, while big guard dogs with the faces of politicians hold hapless consumers firmly in their jaws. Instead of blood, the consumers bleed money.
@Bladefist: The news media don't have a liberal bias, but the blogosphere probably does. Republicans tend to be older and not quite as up on the whole Internet thing; talk radio is more their medium.
So much of intellectual property law is fubared due to technological advances. Too many non-technical people think that somehow there is an intrinsic difference between "streaming media" and a straight download when the only difference is where the data is stored in your computer. One goes to a buffer in RAM while the other goes to your hard drive. In many cases, one counts as copyright infringement while the other does not.
The increased asshattery of elected officials in areas such as this and other non-sexy issues will continue unabated so long as we're too distracted by lapel pins or other trivial issues. Not to call abortion or 2nd Amendment rights trivial, but people vote on these issues and subsequently, their elected officials generally vote accordingly.
Almost no one votes with intellectual property issues in mind (does the average person even know their congressman's position?) so their reps just sell out to the highest bidder.
interesting. how do they propose to go about this?
we have enofe problems in this contry other than P2P sharing. Funding? Maby AT@T will do it.
oh wait, the costs would be enormous!
think about it. Things are not getting any chaeper. As prices go up for simple transportation, people will do stupid stuff like this with our tax dollars and further weaken our economy.
its stupid becasue there are other ways (and have already been developed and used in mass scale) of sharing information besides P2P
but let them pass it. Wont matter to me. Pass laws that you cant back up. Government only works with the consent of the govern.
@stinerman: I agree. Love your little lapel stab you snuck in there. But Americas biggest commodity is ignorance and un-uninformedness. You put McCain and Obama up on the stage, with microphones, and make them sing classic rock songs, call in, vote for who was best, and you'll create some attention.
CA legislators, especially SoCal ones, have one glaring ethical Achilles Heel: they're totally owned by the media conglomerates. Sort like how ADM owns midwest pols.
They're not the only pols under Big Media's sway, evidenced by The Industry's ability to get their way on telecom, etc. So they're not the only ones. It's hardly as though Conservative pols are manning the barricades on our side for these fights. In fact, they roll over so consistently in every other area that it's no surprise when they do. It's who they are, after all.
But yes, it's still evil, and yes, they need to be beaten with calls, emails and protests until they stop this crazy nonsense.
Follow the links, people: call your Congresscritter! :)
@Orv: AM Talk radio? NPR? But I mostly agree. Limbaugh pretty much has it nailed down. However, network nightly news is vastly liberal. Was it CBS or ABC that didn't even report on the Obama/Wright thing? What about Consumerist? Digg? Huffingtonpost? NYT? NBC? ABC? CBS? CNN? MSNBC? I can do this all day. You can disagree there is a bias, but when you are on the opposite side of their beliefs, it's much more clear then if you are middle-to left.
@battra92: Liberalism is associated with Amnesia. They keep trying the same failed programs over and over. Jimmy Carter anybody? Oh Oh, it'll work, we just need the right people.
I can (and have) written to my senators and congressmen before (always politely despite the fact that I don't vote for them) but they always just file it in the garbage.
@Bladefist: I left out party affiliation because I think both sides are equally corrupt, but I agree that it's important to make it clear this jackass is a Democrat since they tend to unfairly benefit from a reputation for sticking up for the average American. I've edited the post to reflect that.
@Chris Walters: I fully agree. I think Politicians are corrupt. That is the assumption you make before entering any debate about parties. However, in the past when a political person has made strides to harm consumers, the party was always pointed out.
Appreciate your honesty.
@Bladefist: It's hard to talk about this without confirmation bias coming into play. When you watch network news, you mostly notice examples of them endorsing left-wing policy. When I watch network news, I see lots of examples of them endorsing right-wing policy. The only academic study I've seen on the matter found them to be slightly center-right:
[www.fair.org]
A bigger problem with the corporate media, I think, is that all the shouting about media bias has created a sort of false balance. Basically for every issue they get one person from each "side" to say their piece, with no attempt to do any fact checking or find out what the real truth is.
There's also no shortage of unapologetically right-wing-biased media sources. Fox News, the Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal come to mind. (Although to be fair the WSJ is pretty middle of the road in their news coverage -- it's their editorial page that's fiercely right wing.)
This is nice....but how do they propose enforcing any such activity? Wouldn't take too much programming to totally disguise P2P traffic to appear like any other type of traffic.
@Bladefist: Republicans aren't immune from persuing the same failed policies over and over again. SDI (aka "Star Wars") comes to mind. So does abstinence-only education. And of course Bush has yet to see a problem that he didn't think could be solved by tax cuts for the rich and drilling in ANWR.
@Orv:
"There's also no shortage of unapologetically right-wing-biased media sources. Fox News, the Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal come to mind. (Although to be fair the WSJ is pretty middle of the road in their news coverage -- it's their editorial page that's fiercely right wing.)"
I think that is because those of who are right-wing, feel that mass media (drive-bys) are liberal biased. Okay, true or not, there is an empty void. 50% of the country, looking for a news show they can enjoy. But they may take it too far. I guess the benefit is, the bias is known. You know those places are biased. They say it. Some of the others, don't put it out there, and you can end up perceiving opinions as facts.
I enjoy fox news (when I get to see it) because of shows like Hannity and Colmbs (repub and dem), O'Reilly (Independent)(who brings on republican and democrats for on-screen debates nightly) so you can walk away with some objectivity.
At any rate - It's a highly debatable subject, which probably means that if we ever get a nightly news channel, that is actually non-biased, ratings will go through the roof.
@Orv:
The news media don't have a liberal bias, but the blogosphere probably does. Republicans tend to be older and not quite as up on the whole Internet thing; talk radio is more their medium.
Fox has an obvious conservative bias, and CNN/MSNBC/major national networks have severe liberal biases. If you don't see it, I'm not sure which network you're watching.
@Orv: His tax cuts were all over the board. % wide it seems better for the rich, cuz you're dealing with numbers with more 0's. The fact is, he did cut taxes for low/middle income tax payers. All you hear is bitching that it wasn't fair, but, the democrats will let his tax cuts expire. So lets pretend your right (you arent), you will end up paying more taxes anyway. About 600$ more a year, if you are middle class.
Excellent read. I suggest you take a looksie
And I was about 6th in line for that response....
@arstal: On a SCOTUS filled with Republican appointees? Sure it would. Unconstitutional is only what the SCOTUS says is unconstitutional, not what common sense would say.
I fail to see how you can keep someone from distributing their own work how they see fit.
This is probably doomed to failure or will end up in legal hell for many years.
@Bladefist: You know those places are biased. They say it. Some of the others, don't put it out there, and you can end up perceiving opinions as facts.
Well, actually, pretty much everyone admits Fox News has a right-wing bias except Fox News itself. They still have "fair and balanced" as their tagline.
I enjoy fox news (when I get to see it) because of shows like Hannity and Colmbs (repub and dem)...
Hannity and Colmes is a good example of false balance. They got a firebrand conservative, and then paired him with the most milquetoast liberal they could find. I understand the original working title was "Hannity and Liberal To Be Named Later."
Don't have much of an opinion about O'Reilly. I can't stand the way he interrupts people and cuts their mics whenever they start to make a point he doesn't like. It annoys me to hear people interrupted. (I didn't like Crossfire for basically the same reason.)
...if we ever get a nightly news channel, that is actually non-biased, ratings will go through the roof.
I kind of doubt it. The trend seems to be more towards opinion journalism, much like newspapers practiced in the early 20th century. That seems to be where the money is.
@BaysideWrestling: The Constitution does apply here, but here's how it would apply.
Article VI: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
"and all Treaties made...shall be the supreme Law of the Land..." In other words, if this treaty is ratified, it circumvents the Constitution.
Think this hasn't been tried? The United States once negotiated a treaty with the British that included an environmental protection for a migratory bird because the Supreme Court had struck down the environmental legislation. Second time the case came before the Court, they upheld the treaty because of this part of the Constitution.
In other words, the Washington crowd can write any law they want, and as long as it's in a treaty with another nation, it *is* the supreme law of the land.
@Orv: Well the fair and balanced is kinda of a crock of shit. But show by show, they seem to be clear on their opinions. I'm satisfied with your opinions though, because at least you have watched fox news. A lot of opinions I hear are from people who have never even seen it.
Prepare for an uprising.
This political back and forth is stupid.
Democrats representing the LA (Hollywood) area are uniquely bad when it comes to copyright issues. It sucks, but it's inevitable because they are representing the interests of their constituents and major employers in their districts. Consumers come in a distant third.
If there were any Republicans representing Hollywood (no, Orange County doesn't count, their economy is driven by subprime loans and defense pork) I guarantee they'd be even worse, because they wouldn't even think for a second about consumers' rights.
@Bladefist: You can disagree there is a bias, but when you are on the opposite side of their beliefs, it's much more clear then if you are middle-to left.
The truth has a well-known liberal bias. By definition, everything is to the left of conservatism.
If we ever get a nightly news channel, that is actually non-biased, ratings will go through the roof.
I disagree. Bias is a subjective thing, but I think we can agree that there are online sources that are quite fair. And oooh boy are they boring. Boring, boring, boring. I try to be unbiased, which is why my comments are usually so boring.
Very few people fail to take an opinion on an issue. Why would anyone expect their news to do the same? In reality, they don't. People choose: "Do I want confirmation of disconfirmation of my views tonight? Which channel will give that to me?"
@Bladefist: Oh, sure. I've listened to AM talk radio, too. Don't listen to Rush Limbaugh much anymore because he's gotten a bit too big for his britches -- he used to be funnier before he took himself so seriously. Sean Hannity and Michael Medved give an interesting glimpse at how Republicans are thinking, though, and Michael Savage is just outright hilarious.
Nope. Nope. I refuse to believe it. Only Republicans are corporal shills that sell out.