Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

Apphouse50

I just Unsubscribed from the mailing list of the Obama administration. Their crap went into my Spam folder anyway, but I don’t even want it coming in there.

vert

If this passes, I want every American to start sending accusations of infringement against every government site and every official who helped it pass.

johnnyaction

The day after this passes..

In related news.. Thousands of co-location facilities and web hosting companies have fled the United States bringing much needed jobs to Latin America, India and Eastern Europe.

Are they *trying* to turn the US into more of a backwater than it already is? Almost all of our infrastructure is too old, as a country we don’t believe in science and our politicians are very bribe-able.

Anonymous

oh well there goes any source of entertainment out the window, bring back the hoops and stick boys and lets kick the other schools ass at it!

Anonymous

Here’s how this will work.

There will be a EULA saying that if you upload content to the Internet, you’re taking legal liability and responsibility for having checked its provenance and ownership.

You make a claim to ownership an permission and you have to back it up.

It will get tested in court, and fines will roll out (eventually). Most of those fines will be eaten in legal fees.

Anonymous

Entertainment and media corporations have been putting out little of redeeming quality for decades, and this explains why — because they’re utterly morally bankrupt. Unfortunately, the government in power in Washington appears to have sold us all out to them. I wonder how much we were worth?

If you want to put a stop to this, you can’t just fight the government, although that is absolutely required. You also have to get rid of the businessmen and the business model that has led to this. And you don’t do it by downloading music and movies of their artists, you do it by turning your backs on them — all of them, both the companies and the artists who are enabling them. There’s a whole world of people out there who would love for you to download their music and watch their films for free because they just want to be heard. Go to archive.org and see, and that’s just one example. And support your local musicians and artists — go see local artists at local gigs.

And then fight like hell to rip these cancerous miscreants out of our government once and for all.

lolbrandon

Look folks, if this copyright treaty means protecting Mickey Mouse from unauthorized reproductions, then it’s a small price to pay to forever risk losing access to civic participation, health information, education, registration and renewal of government documents, global communication, access to government, weather and traffic, emergency service information, freedom of speech and assembly….

Anonymous

Perhaps we should temporarily remove public officials from office if they are accused of violating the Constitution. If they have nothing to hide then they shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Perhaps we should temporarily remove public officials from office if they are accused of violating the Constitution.
  
  I like the idea, but it’s turning out to be more trouble than it’s worth.

Anonymous

They tried something like this in New Zealand, lasted until someone found out which ISP the prime minister was using and issued a notice of copyright infringement.

Man On Pink Corner

How’s that “change” going for you guys there in the US?

Anonymous

The question is, how do we fight this? As a UK citizen I assume my lobbying power in the US is negligible. Who do I write to?

Weirdmage

“* That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright.”

Does this mean that the Chinese guy suing J.K.Rowling for stealing the idea to Harry Potter could have everything related to Harry Potter removed from the internet? He was actually suing.
-That’s what it seems to say, but I’m no lawyer. Just trying to wrap my head around how this would work.

Anonymous

F*cked? Scr*wed? What is with this defeatist attitude?! This shit get’s leaked for a reason, to do something about it. Anyone of you can find your political members of your state (or province if it ever goes to Canada) and bombard them with e-mails, phone calls, or letters. This ‘law’ is just more sh*t to control every damn aspect of life. American Democracy seems to be fading.

And really, to the fools that argue FOR big business, you could not be more pathetic. Fighting on the side of business (THAT YOU’RE NOT EVEN INVOLVED IN!) over the rights of people (including, yourself). Grab a pair of balls.

Anonymous

“The negotiations are still ongoing. This means that there is no agreement yet, and that, at the time of writing this fact sheet, there is not even a draft text on which negotiating parties converge. A number of “texts”, wrongly presented as draft ACTA agreements have been circulated on the web. At a preliminary stage of the discussions about the idea of a future ACTA, some of the negotiating parties have submitted concept papers, to present their initial views of the project to other partners. Some of these concept papers have been circulated on the net or commented in the press and presented as “draft ACTA texts or negotiating guidelines”, which they are not.”[8]

deviantsource

Remember, Remember, the FIFTH of November….

Zieroh Tardy

Fascinating. Last night I posted a comment that was pointedly critical (but not at all offensive) of Cory’s breathless sensationalism, and now it’s gone. That’s incredibly lame, and speaks volumes about BoingBoing.

Antinous / Moderator

Last night I posted a comment

Well, apparently you posted it anonymously and from a different IP, because it’s not in the system.

Anonymous

RE: Scarifying – great word.

So you’re essentially saying that we should trust the government’s vision of copyright control by attacking the writer’s approach to the story? That’s your argument? History has shown us that we (being citizens) cannot trust the government. That’s not me speaking, but the deep baritone of history. If you need evidence, feel free to evaluate the Nixon administration, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, etc. Plenty of evidence there for you to review. And speaking of evidence:

RE: no evidence whatsoever…downloaded a song.

Evidence can’t really exist when precedence doesn’t exist. Likely because we’re relatively new to this information age thing, but missteps can occur and its best to be vigilant. I’m sorry but that argument is fallacious.

RE: harassing users

This is a blog. You choose to read, then choose to either believe or dismiss. No one is harassing anyone. You complain of Cory’s choice of tone when you may be better served considering your own words. To be clear, I’m not attacking you here, but you’re short-circuiting your own argument when you wield language like a pair of brass knuckles rather than a handshake.

RE: emotionally blackmail – great phrase. See above note concerning tone.

RE: a tiny handful of Flickr cases

And a not-so-tiny chunk of YouTube cases. The fact here is that copyright law, as it exists, is a wee-bit old and needs to be re-evaluated because it’s being wielded like a weapon for big businesses. It hampers innovation when creative people take existing content and create new things with it, but are threatened with a lawsuit and financial destruction. This is not a blank check for theft, mind you.

Times change. As people, we have to change with them. I don’t think it’s out of line to suggest that our laws should also be re-evaluated.

melvillain

I’m actually looking forward to this. We’ve put off going to battle long enough. Get ready for war. VPNs locked and loaded.

Anonymous

It is becoming increasingly clear that the whole edifice of copyright has seriously jumped the shark.

A humble suggestion:

Return to the days of 26-year copyrights, renewable only for a large fee.

All works now protected revert to the regime in place when they were created.

Software binaries are copyrighted for the longer of 5 years or the duration of significant manufacturer support. (MS DOS 1.0 has 65 years to go, still.)

The fair use exception is expansive and presumptive.

Punishment for proven willfull violation of the much more limited copyright is severe.

Anonymous

There’s nothing to worry abut.

We are the people. We are the internet.

CJB

hi. i just thought i’d leave my 2 cents here; i rarely offer comments to blogs (although i frequently read them) and i hope this adds a little to the discussion.

I am a research lawyer, an american, living for the past several years in China.

as to this article, i agree we should see some sources or quotes; these should provide a trail back to the parties who drafted such nonsense. if its all true, it is dangerous, indeed.

further, for a law to be considered ‘enacted into positive law’ [after congressional muster] it must be recorded in the Federal Register for at least 60 days. your local law librarian can easily show you this. this will allow time for exposure and public debate and outcry.

also, as to China… although we all know china is a ‘communist’ country, i find it much freer here than in the USA, which has, with astonishing rapidity become a police state.

yes, the Chinese have recently blocked youtube and facebook. while this is just an inconvenience for some people, it is a loss of lifeblood for others. just now, millions of chinese are buying into VPNs and still going strong. this puts millions of RMB [chinese yuan /dollars] back into the IT/Comm community, and things continue without a hitch…

while this internet Treaty is an important issue, a much larger issue looms on the horizon: world reserve currency. the US is set to lose its position as the world’s only reserve currency. i speak chinese, and i have edited documents to this effect. i will make them available upon request…

if this should happen, and it seems quite likely, america and other countries tied to her currency will experience a very significant change of lifestyle… it would be drastic…

so, while you all are fighting this necessary and difficult fight, please avail yourself of some other info about issues which could change western life for the worse, and for a long time.

thanks for reading this.
^j^

Anonymous

So… who thinks this is a US-only problem:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39843951,00.htm

Whether or not this is covert slimeballing of Obama, or RIAA put-ups … douchebag politicians the world over think it’s an amazing idea. The UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden, France… there’ll always be some hack back-bench politico willing to raise a motion because, you know, the internet and computer games and rap music makes rape happen.

Since you can’t win the war on drugs, you can’t win a war in Afghanistan or Iraq, it’s no longer cool to victimise blacks, Jews or women or Muslims or some other minority, why not pick on a nice, faceless, anonymous target. The Internet. Nobody knows what it is, nobody knows where it comes from…

“…Then they came for meâ€”and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Because my ISP had my blog and email shut down on a blind accusation.”

Anonymous

Gee… Since when the world turn into North Korea?

afs97209

EFF has a form for Americans to easily tell their Senators to open up the secret negotiations on ACTA.

Link to EFF Time to Act on ACTA http://bit.ly/bceU4

flwombat

Hey Obama administration: nice job outlawing the social media and civic participation tools that got you elected!

holtt

flwombat, do you seriously think anyone could or would “outlaw” social media?
lechiengrand

Haha! Opps, that’s awkward.

Anonymous

Yahoo! The EU is going to pass a law banning this type of disconnection-without-trial. Now only the Americans and citizens of countries that suck up to the US wil have their liberty and freedom taken away! Sorry for you guys ;-(

nomad13

Could someone please shoot these corporate f*cks already?

*Legal disclaimer*: This post is not to be taken (too) seriously.

Anonymous

HACK THE PLANET

Anonymous

The answer of course is to boycott the USA for all internet commerse. You’d have to host in a country that doesn’t have any legal treaties with the USA as this isn’t the first time the USA has believed that the world should be forced to follow US laws, there have been cases in the UK were the USA has demanded extradition of people who have not broken the law in their own countries but have broken USA laws over the internet from foriegn soils!

bmcraec

Hmm, this almost looks like the trigger for the beginning of the Bitchin’ Society, from Cory’s first novel, *Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom*.

Let’s storm the battlements! It’s either that, or the world as seen in Paul Voerhoven’s RoboCopâ€¦

holtt

Be sure and read the original source article at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php It is far more rational, and not dripping with FUD.

I have to ask you Cory, how can you with a clear and rational head suggest that this will make it “impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger”? Seriously? Do you seriously think Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is going to shut down those companies? Yea like that would ever happen.

bigyaz

Thnk y. ‘m sr lmst nbdy hr rd nythng mr thn Cry’s vrbl hstrncs nd prmptly sprd vn mr hystr.

Cry, t pprs t b bd ngh n ts wn wtht y tkng thngs wy vr th tp. t’s tms lk ths tht y pt yr crdblty n jprdy.
- mdh
  
  you seem very …concerned… with Cory’s credibilty. Mind your own.

Anonymous

The Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM could cause problems, I always remove DRM from any music I purchase as in the past I have been locked out of music I have legally purchased after the legitimate company has ceased trading.

Anonymous

WTF? HERES A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO THE WHOLE THING: Impliment an IPL internet Purpose License so that all information released under this IPL is free to distribute, copy, modify, ect.(too bad your not making money off other peoples comments giant conglomerates) Content that is blocked via access to paying members can be of their own license and distributed as defined by the publishers of the website.

Anonymous

I agree with the “time to create a whole new pirate internet”. Sign me up.

Crys T

I haven’t been able to read all the comments, so apologies if this has already been suggested, but surely the solution is for everyone to post as much copyrighted material in as many places as they can, to the point where the volume is so massively huge that enforcing the regulations would be impossible? A bit like those protests where people deliberately ensure that too many people are arrested for the cops to process?

Anonymous

Simple solution: disobey. The time has long since passed that we need to take these assclowns seriously. If disobeying means protecting ourselves against observation, so be it, it’s not that difficult – but respect this nonsense? Hell, no.

Anonymous

Australians and New Zealanders and Canadians: don’t ignore this. Our governments are buying into the ACTA too. Here’s a quote from Ron Kirk’s article of June, 2009: “Negotiations on the ACTA began in June 2008. The objective of the ACTA negotiations is to create a new, state-of-the art agreement to combat counterfeiting and piracy. The United States has been working with several trading partners, including Australia, Canada, the European Union and its 27 member states, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland, to negotiate the agreement. When it is finalized, the ACTA is intended to assist in the efforts of governments around the world to combat more effectively the proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods, which undermines legitimate trade and the sustainable development of the world economy, and in some cases contributes to organized crime and exposes American consumers to dangerous fake products.”

Anonymous

1. “National Security” is used to cover up all sorts of heinous crimes. That’s how Hitler got into power. Take misuse of “National Security” very very seriously.

2. The only ONLY ONLY reason for any copyright law is to encourage the development of media. Once it’s no longer needed for that, copyright law hurts everyone.

3. These international agreements are used by countries to create a “cartel” Instead of governments competing with each other, they all agree to screw their citizens equally.

4. I see this as just one more reason why the “net” needs to be de-centralized. We have to start hosting locally, encrypt all communications, and have DNS serves independent of ISPs. That way, the ISP doesn’t know where you’re sending what to.

Anonymous

Well, if it does get passed, then with regard to these two things:

“That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability.”

and

“That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright.”

There should be groups accusing a multitude of government, White House, and Congressional web sites of containing copyrighted material; which would supposedly then force the ISP’s to deny access to the organizations. It can’t be hard to find something copyrighted just about anywhere — a phrase, a picture, a particular copyrighted shade of color, a graphic, etc.

Anonymous

Why do you think this law would actually apply to the gov’t? They’ll just play the “national security” card, like they’re doing to cloak this mess right now.

Fighting within the rules against those who make the rules is futile.

Anonymous

And if I post identical comments on BoingBoing and Huffington Post, and the comment contains copyrighted material, I will guess that only BoingBoing will face persecution.

shawnhcorey

From the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

Fundamental freedoms

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

Clearly this treaty denies your Rights, specifically parts (c) and (d) above, and if pass, constitutes treason.

Anonymous

Excuse me. Didn’t there used to be something about “innocent until proven guilty”?

Clay

You will know this has reached critical mass when the US president appears in a broadcast address affably explaining, in exquisitely engineered language, how this treaty is being drawn up with a deep respect for individual liberty and due process as its guiding principles.

In the weeks following this, conditions will no doubt be added to the treaty to require oversight of elements such as the notice-and-takedown apparatus. Oversight will be conducted by an independent entity whose board is appointed by a consortium of industry organizations, and itself be accountable to no one. Meanwhile, three-strikes policies will be granted an appeals process. The process will consist of an independent arbiter chosen by the rightsholder, whose decision will be binding and not subject to litigation or further appeal, and will be accountable to no one.

Let’s hear it for individual liberty and due process.

Anonymous

Wow what people won’t do for power and control of people….Not a suprise but very unfair…

lava

Nice. Secret Laws.

f1x3r

The fact that a new reserve currency is hardly news. No international debt should be solely measured in the currency of a single country but rather on a global commodity. This idea has beed around since the 40′s.

“To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.

Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies â€“ the US dollar, yen, euro and sterling â€“ and they are used largely as a unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.

Chinaâ€™s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in international trade and financial transactionsâ€¦

Mr Zhou said the proposal would require â€œextraordinary political vision and courageâ€ and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes, who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s.”

More interesting to the global context are the regulations to come which will be implemented on a global scale.

kennethetucker

well… whoda thunk it? CHINA’s ISP rulez sound reasonable now…

Costa Rica (No standing army and free healthcare) is looking better every day. perhaps a colo startup as a POP is in my immediate future.

stay tuned data-ex-pats-to-be

Anonymous

The official public draft of ACTA has been published by the EU on April 20, 2010. The URL to get the PDF format file of ACTA is: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/april/tradoc_146029.pdf

The thing to remember if you are in the USA is that treaties PREVAIL over domestic law. Thus, all those prior court decisions in favour of the consumers no longer apply. A treaty can thus be used as a way for the government and its business partners to circumvent precedents from court cases.

Sure, people talk about fair use, but liberal usage came about as due to a precedent from a court case. After ACTA is ratified, that liberal fair use precedent no longer is valid. The right of the consumer to have a backup copy will also be lost as that was also a precedent created from a court case. Limited forms of reverse engineering may also disappear as they were set by court precedent. Thus, things like the Ragnarok Online MMORPG eAthena emulator would be illegal (it currently is legal) if Gravity reported it.

ACTA uses the “imminent” concept which isn’t really a thought crime. It means that sites creating imminent situations of copyright infringement would also be illegal. Thus torrent search sites (which don’t even host a tracker) would also be illegal as they foster _imminent_ conditions leading to copyright infringment.

Anonymous

Using copyright is an excellent way to censor people. This peer to peer thing is getting out of hand and governments need to stop people from voicing their opinions.

Anonymous

If this goes through, I hope everyone will claim that anything added online by any politician is breaking their copyright. If just an accusation is enough, then so be it.

Anonymous

If this happens I’m boycotting any entity that had a hand in it. Even if that means I have to stop watching movies, which I love lots n’ lots, and watch legally.

Anonymous

@Anonymous #176

And the 4chan raids begin. We are Anonymous, and we are Legion.

Anonymous

Canadian, here. Oh man, I was just in awe as I read this. We need to create the biggest backlack these muthaf*ckrs have ever seen to get rid of this. It’s manipulative and completely unruly. It seems so illegal that it could never pass! I wish North America was like Finland and internet access was a human right.

thundercake

This sounds pretty horrible. Better spread the word…

Danny O’Brien

#38 — ACTA originated under the Bush administration; the Obama administration opted to continue with the same policy.

#16, #40 — ACTA’s digital chapter looks like they’ll be based on IP provisions in the US/South Korean (and other) free trade agreements (FTAs). (You can read the more detailed analysis by EFF’s Gwen Hinze here)

Stronger third-party liability and anti-anonymity laws in Korea after the FTA has already led to sites like Google forbidding uploads of music to blogs and videos to YouTube in that country for fear of liability and being obliged to breaching their users’ privacy. So a change in the liability rules does have a big knock on effect on whether companies offer services that allow user-generated content.

Also, once framed as an “anti-piracy” provision, it’s often very hard to eliminate language even when it blocks an entire class of common Internet services, especially in closed negotiations. An example of this is in one of the Korean FTA side letters, where Korea agrees “on the objective of shutting down Internet sites that permit the unauthorized downloading (and other forms of piracy) of copyright works, including so-called webhard services”. Webhard services are online virtual hard drive services, like Amazon S3, Ubuntu One, or dropbox.

#43 — I’m pretty certain the leaked documents described by Geist are real, or at least they match broadly what we were expecting, and the press reports seem to indicate valid sources; We (EFF) have sued under FOIA to make these and other papers public for some time: they were blocked under the US’s “national security” provisions.

#46 — New Zealand is already involved in the ACTA negotiations.

Anonymous

First secret government, now secret laws… where’s world coming to. If it doesn’t end up a global revolution to strip the dysfunctional elite of resources, I don’t know why would anyone want to live in a world w/ all these stupid rules.

Anonymous

One word: fascism.

Anonymous

if shit keeps going down this road we won’t have to worry about the crazy jihadest radicals, there will be a revolution right here at home. People can only take so much before they decide to kill their leaders, its happened over and over again in history….thats how america won its freedom in the first place!

Anonymous

Dear Obama,

I voted for you because you PROMISED (I know, politicians, right?) to protect Net Neutrality and fight for the “little guy.” If this goes through, you will have broken one of the big promises that made me vote for you. If this goes through, I promise you this: you will not get my vote in 2012 and I will do everything I can to do the opposite of what I did in 08: get you in office.

Violate my trust. Violate the trust of those who put you in office by using the net to get you in office. See what it does for you in 2012.

Cannot believe you are signing off on this. If this is the “change” you were really selling in 08, then congratulations: you just officially fooled me and screwed me over. However, you will not fool me twice.

I am majorly pissed at this moment. Majorly. I feel like I’ve just been screwed over by a mentor I trusted. Thanks, Obama. I cried tears of joy on November 4th. And now you do this. Why do you violate our trust like this? Why?

Anonymous

first problem is you cried tears of joy for a politician. Real world time! Do what you can to get yours and help others. This won’t necessarily ruin the internet. Think about it. What law is permanent? What law is unbreakable…? Civil disobedience is a mighty tool my friend
Anonymous

So it happens again. Each new generation has to learn on its own that no politicians can be trusted. Special interest groups can’t be eliminated for the simple reason that politicians are a special interest group all to themselves.

What do they want? The usual, power, money, status. The pattern is over and over to betray the base for some less popular agenda that they think will result in campaign contributions or broaden their support (i.e. please those who didn’t vote for them).

Why do they do this? How can they get away with it? Simple, where you gonna go? The other guy will almost always be just as scary sounding next time as you remember from the last time. Those who don’t bother to vote are the rational ones.

Only when they are out of power can a politician be relied upon to defend the interests of their base.
Kyle Armbruster

I voted for Obama, too, and I am still glad I did. But many of his supporters just projected their desires on him. He’s a run-of-the-mill Democrat in a sexy new package. That’s all.

I knew that going in. That doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed, but neither am I surprised.
Anonymous

“At least during the Bush years, large segments of the population were able to join together to resist. I fear Obama’s undeserved sheen of progressiveness will mean that he can more easily enact the corporate agenda. It’s time to wake up.”

There is no corporate agenda. This isn’t about corporate success at all….read through the bill and you’ll see that this doesn’t benefit ISP’s or any other business entity.

It IS about government control over your lives, and what you can and can’t do or say. I don’t understand why people are so surprised about Obama signing off on this, it is pretty much in line with his political philosophy.
Anonymous

The rest of us who voted for a “centrist” Obama welcome you to our club of disgruntled and disillusioned people. Pick your issue: deficits, taxes, Afghanistan, Gitmo, copyright, gay rights… you name it. Buyers remorse, anyone?
Bill Albertson

@anon- it took ACTA for you to realize that President Obama should be punished for abrogating your rights? He voted to re-authorize the Patriot Act, and when he did that he lost my vote forever. That he would vote for ACTA is no surprise to me after examining his Congressional voting record on tort reform and civil liberties (www.votesmart.org). Rewarding someone for voting against your best interests by voting for them sends the wrong message, even if people have good intentions. People need to realize that they need to punish those who harm them as well as reward them for doing what is in their interests. Otherwise, the message never gets across.
- tsm_sf
  
  @bill – I’m going to continue voting for the least “bat-shit crazy” candidate a major party puts forward. Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian (should the last two start pulling in winnable numbers) absolutely doesn’t matter. All I want to see is a rational adult at the helm.
  
  Obama is definitely bad news for our liberties, but he was the only sane person running last election.
  - Bill Albertson
    
    @tsm_sf- Sane because the media portrays their chosen winner that way, or sane in their voting record? If we had a president that satisfied what a majority of Americans wanted to see in terms of voting record, we would have Dennis Kucinich sitting in office right now. And in the case of Kucinich, he did run in the primaries, but wasn’t the media favored candidate (as evidenced by the amount of ungenerous muckraking focused on him- its not as if all the other candidates don’t have similar videos out there).
    
    I understand your reasons for making your choices, but try and understand mine before you discount them; I don’t vote for anybody who abuses my rights, like I wouldn’t put up with someone who would demand to kick me in the nuts before I could walk into my own house. I don’t vote for whoever might give my cojones the weakest kick- I vote for someone who isn’t going to kick me there. When more people do that, we will all see better presidents and senators. Until enough people do that, all we will see is more nut-kicking, and being handed an ice pack by the winner doesn’t make it any better.
    
    Really, would people put up with ACTA and the secrecy around it if McCain or Bush had been doing what President Obama is doing now? I doubt it.
Anonymous

Doesn’t anyone ever take the time to find out the WHOLE story anymore?! Or talk to the person (Obama’s admin, in this case)??! I’m so sick of the media & everyone else throwing people to the dogs. And I’m so sick of people believing everything they hear & start to spread it before confirming.

John West

Just in case you aren’t sure, it’s time for a shootin’ revolution. Unless you can convince enough voters to toss out all of them and vote in some humans.

Anonymous

I think it’s time to move to Iran…… They’ll more rights on the internet than us.

Anonymous

Some exclusions that you should all be aware of before judging too harshly one way or another, from Chapter 18: intellectual property rights:

”
Each Party shall confine exceptions and limitations to measures implementing subparagraph (a) to the following activities, which shall be applied to relevant measures in accordance with subparagraph (e):14
(i) noninfringing reverse engineering activities with regard to a lawfully obtained copy of a computer program, carried out in good faith with respect to particular elements of that computer program that have not been readily available to the person engaged in those activities, for the sole purpose of achieving interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs;
(ii) noninfringing good faith activities, carried out by an appropriately qualified researcher who has lawfully obtained a copy, unfixed performance, or display of a work, performance, or phonogram and who has made a good faith effort to obtain authorization for such activities, to the extent necessary for the sole purpose of research consisting of identifying and analyzing flaws and vulnerabilities of technologies for scrambling and descrambling of information;
(iii) the inclusion of a component or part for the sole purpose of preventing the access of minors to inappropriate online content in a
14 Either Party may request consultations with the other Party to consider how to address, under subparagraph (d), activities of a similar nature that a Party identifies after the date this Agreement enters into force.
18-10
technology, product, service, or device that itself is not prohibited under the measures implementing subparagraph (a)(ii);
(iv) noninfringing good faith activities that are authorized by the owner of a computer, computer system, or computer network for the sole purpose of testing, investigating, or correcting the security of that computer, computer system, or computer network;
(v) noninfringing activities for the sole purpose of identifying and disabling a capability to carry out undisclosed collection or dissemination of personally identifying information reflecting the online activities of a natural person in a way that has no other effect on the ability of any person to gain access to any work;
(vi) lawfully authorized activities carried out by government employees, agents, or contractors for the purpose of law enforcement, intelligence, essential security, or similar governmental purposes;
(vii) access by a nonprofit library, archive, or educational institution to a work, performance, or phonogram not otherwise available to it, for the sole purpose of making acquisition decisions; and
(viii) noninfringing uses of a work, performance, or phonogram in a particular class of works, performances, or phonograms when an actual or likely adverse impact on those noninfringing uses is demonstrated in a legislative or administrative proceeding by substantial evidence, provided that any limitation or exception adopted in reliance on this clause shall have effect for a renewable period of not more than three years from the date the proceeding concludes.
(e) The exceptions and limitations to measures implementing subparagraph (a) for the activities set forth in subparagraph (d) may only be applied as follows, and only to the extent that they do not impair the adequacy of legal protection or the effectiveness of legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures:
(i) Measures implementing subparagraph (a)(i) may be subject to exceptions and limitations with respect to each activity set forth in subparagraph (d).
(ii) Measures implementing subparagraph (a)(ii), as they apply to effective technological measures that control access to a work, performance, or phonogram, may be subject to exceptions and limitations with respect to activities set forth in subparagraph (d)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), and (vi).
18-11
(iii) Measures implementing subparagraph (a)(ii), as they apply to effective technological measures that protect any copyright or any rights related to copyright, may be subject to exceptions and limitations with respect to activities set forth in subparagraph (d)(i) and (vi)”

sleepylemur

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2009/june/ambassador-ron-kirk-announces-plan-move-forward-negot

“Members of the public with questions about the status of the negotiations should contact Kira Alvarez, Chief Negotiator and Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property Enforcement at [redacted] ”

Yeah, I’ve got a few questions. Warm up those phone lines!

Anonymous

If this goes through. I think its then time to think about impeaching Obama. We know the Tea party would love to as would most republicans. Im sure with the majority of the internet community that would be more than enough for a Impeachment. Then same thing for all other Government officials who had anything to do with this. We cant let Corporations, Government, or the World Trade Organization, steal the internet. I don’t care who they think they are. The internet belongs to us not them. They are here so they can make some money off those who frequent the internet. If they don’t want to be here then the Corporations can GTFO. The Corporations are not just asking for a war. They are begging for it.

Anonymous

to war! AVAST!

Anonymous

Little to do with actual copyright and everything to do with governments having watched what happened in Iran during the twitterevolt.

You will all be reported for this talk of sedition and get your arm number tattoos soon.

And STOP STEALING MY COPYRIGHT! IT IS MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!!!!!

Anonymous

#37

Actually, whether treaty law becomes the “supreme law of the land” depends upon whether the treaty is “self-executing” law or “non-self-executing” law. SEL is a treaty that goes into effect in the United States upon ratification. NSEL is a treaty where the US basically agrees to implement it through statutes (meaning, its not yet the law, but they intend to eventually make it the law — this is useful when compliance with the treaty could be achieved in several ways that congress would like to — usually along partisan lines — bitch to one another about).

That doesn’t make the law “superior” to statutory law. It makes it federal law that may or may not trump existing federal statutory law.

However, it does not make it superior to the constitution.

The constitution is a document that LIMITS what congress can do. “Congress SHALL PASS NO LAW . . . [abridging Due Process of Law].”

In other words, in theory, Congress doesn’t have the power to give the unconstitutional provisions of the treaty any legal effect.

The question is whether these provisions truly abridge Due Process of Law.

Churl

Obama is smart, hip, articulate, tech savvy and has an unprecedented commitment to openness and transparency in government.

Well, maybe not so open or transparent. But he is smart, hip, articulate, and tech savvy.

He’s so tech savvy, in fact, that he understands how the likes of facebook and youtube can be used to rally people against the excesses of government and the businesses and institution it favors.

And he’s smart enough to know that this treaty will go a long way to shut up and disorganize the clamoring masses.

Anonymous

Jesus. A very, very bad idea.
Yes, the internet is corrupt.
Yes, there are major legal issues to fix.
No, grinding it to a halt is NOT THE SOLUTION.

Anonymous

Anyone up for rick rolling the Mafiaa?

Ted8305

@anonymous #25

Well now that the treaty has been leaked, you know the rules and so do I.

Cowicide

Obama… one termer. What a shame.

Anonymous

trully the jimmy carter of our time, wish he could actually deliver on ALL his promises, he just cant seem to do that & contines terrible bush policies and gets away with it because hes obama & the world loves him. if anything i would of thought he would of tried repealing the DMCA after the embarassing DRMed DVD incident when he gave away dvds to Gordon Brown, lol at region encoding. maybe he doesnt care?

Anonymous

Just remember once most if not all (haha, yeah right) is stopped, that everything will not stay the same price. You’ll be saying, “Remember the good old days of cd’s being $15.00?”. They’ll now be about $25.00 to $30.00. They’ll say that they need to recoup money for their terrible losses with rampant piracy, but the real reason is that with no more, or very little, piracy they can charge whatever they want for an artist’s album (since everyone knows they pretty much hold the artist’s hostage.) I believe it’s piracy that is slowly making the record companies give us more for our money, but once this law rolls out, it’s back to basics and for more money.

http://www.stop-acta.com Anonymous

I’ve just made bought the domain stop-acta.com it will be up to date on all information regarding acta in about 72 hrs (sry 24 hrs needed for domain to be active and in 24 hours i’ll be drinking all day)
for all those wanting the latest news and updates regarding it

Anonymous

If you are against ACTA and live in the US and want change, join the Pirate Party of the United States.

http://www.pirate-party.us/

Anonymous

Absolutely sickening. Please, if this gets passed, join me in smashing our computers on the capital steps.

karma_musings

So, I’m reading this and thinking, this must be a joke, right? This IS BoingBoing after all… But… Maybe… No? I guess not? In which case, YIKE!

Comment while you can, folks. Comment while you can…

Anonymous

That’s an appalling pre-emptive strike on our right to free speech.

sbarnes2

Anti-counterfitting? I fail to see how this is going to stop any kind of counterfitting. Come on people! If the people who are being copied want to stop piracy, instead of making ineffectual blanket laws they should do some sort of grassroots efforts. But no, they make it a witchhunt.

These remind me vaguely of the Metalocalypse episode where a kid illegally downloads Dethklok music and was imprisoned in a dungeon.

AndreiMincov

Adoption of ACTA would actually be the most important step in the development of the Internet.

The danger of collapse of the copyright and IPR system as we know it is much greater than any potential “benefit” to the society that global piracy provides.
There is no other efficient way to curtail piracy on the Internet but with cooperation of ISPs.

I hope the signatory countries go further and provide that after the expiration of a grace period, countries that will NOT become party to ACTA, would be disconnected from the global Internet. Technically, it is much easier task than it may seem.

Canada may be very proud of not having “draconian” laws of the U.S. but if Canadians are only left with the Internet that does not allow access to American or European sites, who’s going to need it and what is this ostracized Internet going to live on? Seriously.

As for the piratenet, great idea. No one is saying that piracy can be eliminated completely. The issue is to make the use of pirated works as inconvenient and legally dangerous as possible. The most important thing is not to ensure that no one ever gets pirated stuff. What is important is that your everyday john does have to use extraordinary efforts to access it, and to make sure that it is EASIER to get authentic stuff than it is to get pirated stuff.

Anonymous

What are you talking about?

The more people attack pirates, the more they make things like Youtube and so forth dangerous mine fields where the mostly ignorant populace could find themselves tripping over DMCA landmines, the more people turn to pirating.

Just ignore the gd pirates. Make things more accessible, and stop punishing consumers for what pirates are doing.

They probably lose more fighting pirates than they would just ignoring them.
Antinous / Moderator

I hope the signatory countries go further and provide that after the expiration of a grace period, countries that will NOT become party to ACTA, would be disconnected from the global Internet.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Angstrom

Do you think this might be one of those legislative tricks, where they leak a draft that includes incredible and preposterous nonsense – so that they can then “bow to public pressure” and release a watered down version. The version they intended all along.
The psychology of contrasts would then mean we accept the lesser evil.
“well Muriel, I know we have to only browse Warner sites now, but at least we stopped them from taking our firstborn child”

Anonymous

Corporations have rights and you don’t! Too bad you!

Anonymous

So if I upload a video on Youtube encouraging people to boycott a company such as Viacom, that company can accuse me of copyright infringement, even though it’s just me talking to a camera? That would result in me losing my internet. Well guess what, according to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, if I want to go on Youtube, and encourage people to boycott a company such as Viacom, I can do so legally.

Anonymous

here’s a thought. what if an independent musician started a company, when the law kicks in, said company starts accusing the perpetrators of copyright infringement. After all, there’s no consequence to an accusation. In fact, everyone who’s ever sung a song or shot a home video should start a company. pretty soon, no one has internet.

Anonymous

This is the sort of reason I’ve been hording all the porn I can for the last five or six years, I fear one day it will become too difficult or impossible to get free smut. I already thank my lucky stars that I got in on Napster before it died. and supernova, and pirate bay and … get the picture?

Anonymous

Better keep some old dial-up modems… BBSs FTW.

Constitution First

Not to second guess anyones motivations, history has taught me to always think twice before putting my mouth in gear. However, this administration has lived up to 90% of every vile rumor that has been spread about it, in far too many of the cases, the reality was worse than the actual rumor.

I think a proactive response is in order. Speak loudly and clearly what you think about the infringement of free speech. The administration is a tad thin-skinned about, well, everything. So: “Pick your target, freeze it, criticize it.” -Saul Alinski

The internet is the last source of free speech and unfiltered information, if this, or any administration, group or agency has a problem with that, then the free people of this country had better sit up, and speak up. For once this vehicle is taken away, there will exists no means by which we could retrieve it. This appears like the real deal, this is serious Shiite folks. Speak up now, or we will be shut up forever

Anonymous

This shouldn’t be able to pass muster in the US- this seems to be against multiple parts of the constitution- From due process to free speech. If it does, I hope people finally take these damned policies to the Supreme court. They are too broad and sweeping in the first place, and give too many industries the ability to censor the US (And anywhere else this actually works) to a amazing degree.
Don’t like what someone is saying- just claim their work is copyrighted and have it taken down. New competition that doesn’t have a ton of money, or even open source, can be taken down as well. (Like Linux, for instance.) If the law is as broad as it seems- I really hope the people who review this realize just how bad it is, and what the impact will be.

Anonymous

I don’t like government control over freedoms just like the next person .

However; when something is copyrighted ; it is the property of the creator .. not for everyone’s use as usually people who copyright get PAID for the item that was copyrighted ….

To use their item without payment is denying them INCOME .

I would not mind seeing a compromise be made … just not for sure how it would be done …

Anonymous

Arrrr’ matiessssss, this bullshit won’t do shiiiit to me…. I AM PIRATE BAY!!!!

Anonymous

Hmm, this might actually tear us away from our computers long enough to launch protests too big to ignore. As we should have done repeatedly under Shrub and His Thugs, and then when Obama continued bailing out grillionaires with our money.

Anonymous

This sounds like obama giving thanks to his hollywood and media supporters for getting him elected.

Anonymous

The thing to remember is that this is an alignment of many different interests. Copyright was never intended to give ownership of artistic works to non-existent entities. It was designed to give artists an opportunity to make money from their work before it went into the public domain. Hence the 50 and in some cases 70 year rule. The desire to hold copyright over works in perpetuity is an attack on culture. It’s getting about time to really fight back.

Anonymous

We need to get our act together. The entertainment industry – who are the people that created what you read above – have far less money than the electronics industry and online industries. I’m talking 10:1 in terms of annual revenue.

We have to start buying congressmen. If you read over at sunlight foundation, you’ll see that it’s possible to turn a congressman into the rough equivalent of a living puppet for around $100K-$200K. In the grand scheme of things, it’s very little money.

It’s time we start using our money to turn this stuff around.

dctoph

Here’s an awful post.

I work with a group of “content creators” who sell their personal or redistributable licensed content online. Often their content is purchased by piracy groups and redistributed against license. I’m not talking about high-dollar stuff here – most of the goods are maybe USD$1-3 per bundle.

For this group the DMCA has ACTUALLY BEEN A GOOD THING. Without contacting a single lawyer, all a content owner or representative has to do is notify a hosting company that their goods are being shared, and provide as proof a link to the source content provider (online store). Without the DMCA, it would be MUCH easier to steal content from these small-fry providers.

People who read these boards are often too busy thinking about Big Content to remember that there are a lot of independent producers out there who make a modest living and are in need of protection. I’m not sitting back and blindly offering my stamp of approval on the entire treaty, but I will say that at a minimum the ability for a piracy complaint to reach through the firewall of file sharing sites to the ISP itself will give small content providers some badly-needed teeth.

If your internet connection could be shut down due to a DMCA complaint, you’d be less likely to pirate.

Anonymous

I donÂ´t think there are many people who have a problem with that scenario. What ACTA wants is a totally different thing though: without the need for proof (basically) anyone can point the finger and ISPs are *obligated* to take stuff down. Now, the worst case scenario for your group in this situation would be that Big Content finds (or thinks, or simply claims) that you breach their copyright and your work is off the Net. No talking through, no settlement, no determining that there might not be any copyright breach, just a simple kick and the compet…, err, I meant criti… sorry, “bootlegging pirate”, is no more. Too much fantasy? Most likely, but considering what all has been copyrighted and patented one canÂ´t ever be sure that something that could somehow “belong” to somebody else is not present in a creation.

Anonymous

Hey John West, I’ll vote for you. Why don’t you give up your life and face defeat after defeat after defeat until you finally get on a school board?

Anonymous

This will just serve to offshore more US companies to China, India and Dubai…

Say good night, Dick.

Good night!

Anonymous

ISPs should be held accountable because they facilitate file sharing by carrying information.
Microsoft facilitates they provide the operational sytem.
Intel for the processor.
Sony for camcorders.

You are allowed to think this does not make sense.
It is not the one that cares information that should be held accountable.

What about all that information that ISPs carry? Interesting.
I would love to control that. But first, I would try to invent a good excuse.

I want names.

None of what I read gave me names, except here:

White House shares the ACTA Internet text with 42 Washington insiders, under non disclosure agreements
http://keionline.org/node/660

No names, a lure, and lots of people speaking about what they can’t see and don’t know.

Anonymous

It’s not just a threat to freedom because of the issues pointed out in the post, but also because it follows the trend described by books like “Three Felonies a Day” (supposedly the number committed by the average person who thinks they are law-abiding). When normal, previously legal, activities become illegal, the government gains the ability to prosecute anyone anytime they want, because everyone has done something that violates the law. Essentially like living in an Ayn Rand novel.

Anonymous

By the way, I’ve copyrighted the word “the”. So expect to be sued!

Anonymous

Happy November 5th everyone…

Remember remember, the fifth of November…

Anonymous

I WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. I will leave this country, Canada is looking better and better every day.

Anonymous

Did anyone else automatically think of this upon hearing the news: http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/mpaa-urges-fcc-protect-creative-content-online-in-national-broadband-plan/

Just what we need–make it impossible for ISPs to provide internet, then make a national broadband plan that puts full control of access to the internet in the hands of the government. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist nutbag, but as the person on DHD said, what happened in Iran is a great example of why non-government-regulated internet is essential. Government run internet? No thanks.

Add me to the list of people who won’t be voting for Obama again if any of this goes through. Even W didn’t go this far.

Anonymous

How can anyone claim this has anything to do with national security?

Anonymous

The internet will route around these laws as per JP Barlow’s dictum. â€œThe Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.â€

I propose that Governments have seen their fate.

The network makes Governments irrelevant.

Irrelevant like the 20th C Record Companies, humanity becomes ever better networked and more like the self regulating meta-organism we truly are – it’s in our genes and memes – it is the eschaton of humanity. We can be, en masse, Homeostatic.

The current tax of corruption and graft on our social regulation will become as unnecessary the price fixed CD album.

The network is not merely a technical construct it is the inevitable expression of the truly human impulse, to connect and to share – to communicate.

Democracy requires an informed debate which requires communication unhindered by censorship, copyright or cost.

Internet access is simply the right to communicate and it is a natural and fundemental right.

This is a time of change, change is inevitable.

But these vile secret laws and treaties that sell out freedom to preserve power can make the dark ages drag on, cause misery on an immense scale and hold back the pace of progress, science and democracy.

That we need governmets to protect us from other governments and ourselves is not true on the whole and certainly not at the current cost.

State and Fiat currencies will then go a similar way as transactions costs between people will drop to nearly zero.

And Replicators…

Anonymous

dummm,dum de dummm,dum de dumm, dum de dumm,
DUUMM, dum DE DUUM, dum DE DUMm, DUM De dum,
DUMM DUM DE DUM DUM dUM DE DiDDly YUM dUM,
DUM DE DIDDLY YUM DUM< DUM DE DUM< DUM DE DUMB
obama is darth vader.

Anonymous

If this treaty is ever enacted, then we can all accuse US Senators or copyright infringement and have them disconnected. Game over.

Alternatively, we could accuse every single subscriber to a given ISP, effectively asking the ISP to disconnect all its customers. Game over.

Finally, we could accuse the MPAA of piracy and have them disconnected. Game, set and match.

Anonymous

get ready for internet 2 people. just remember to give your state and federal representative a nice stab in the back for me. they’ve already done it to us with the passing of the patriot act.

jeffreyftang

Somehow I don’t think the government is really in support of net neutrality. They just want a legal foot in the door.

And there’s something to be said for China’s blatant censorship practices. At least they’re blatant about it. We apparently want to do the same, but with a lot more lying.

Anonymous

oh god…

it’s do or die netizens, if this law passes (or some form of it) say goodbye to your beloved internets. say goodbye to collegehumour, goodbye to newgrounds, to youtube, facebook, myspace, the chans, irc, deviantart and message boards everywhere.
say goodbye to thursday nights spent browsing the tubes,
say goodbye to waking up and watching a new youtube video parody
say goodbye to happy days
say goodbye to autonomous collectives
say goodbye to piracy
say goodbye to the lawless freedoms

say hello to Big Brother

Anonymous

Due process was trashed by the Patriot Act. This is an extension of that. Basically the corporates are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. I download music of bands that allow that. I also make purchases online for concert tickets, flights, hotels,etc. So now somebody wants to cutoff everybodies ascess because they cannot figure out how to cash-in. LEAK?? Trial balloon to see if anybody that counts notices.

SkeeterVT

To hell with the Patriot Act. Parts of it have already been declared unconstitutional. and i don’t have the slightest doubt in my mind that if this copyright plan goes through, there will be First Amendment legal challenges to it.

The Constitution is the SUPREME LAW of this country (It says so in Article VI, Section 2), and the First amendment of said SUPREME LAW explicitly PROHIBITS Congress from passing any law tha tabridges the freedom of speech and of the press. These Draconian copyright restrictions so clearly violate the First Amendment that I cannot see how they can stand up in court.

ThereforeIAm

The only way to prevent such insanity is for more people to become politically aware and politically active. Email, phone or write your representatives. Inform you friends and, most importantly, get out and vote when you can.

Anonymous

not acceptable. this is worse then net neutrality.

Anonymous

It’s delayed. And on Guy Fawkes’s Day, too. Epic wins.

MyopicTailor111

The totalitarian tendencies of our time are getting more and scarier. When watching â€œV for Vendettaâ€ a few years ago I thought it was a scary Sci-Fi warning. Now it seems to play out. Join the Pirate Party, the only political movement with a credible program for privacy, integrity, the rule of law and defending the core values of democracy. If you donâ€™t have a PP in you country, start it. Resistance is NOT futile.

the_headless_rabbit

If only there were a way for the citizens to have an influence on the decisions of politicians.

Anonymous

Lol i heard its called democracy… we should adopt it as a system of governemt, sounds like a good idea…. oh wait -.-;

Anonymous

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

Well, this makes me wonder… what if you accuse someone in the White House, or the Capital Building, of infringing on your Copyright? By this particular clause that would mean that the top levels of Government would end up deprived of internet access. Also, what in the world would there be to stop a group of terrorist organizations from throwing random Copyright claims ad nauseam at whatever targets they want? Suddenly our entire financial system is getting riddled with claims of Copyright abuse and then the economy grinds to a sudden, conclusive halt.

I’ve been through a Copyright battle online before and I can say for certain… it’s dang difficult enough as it is when you’re trying to defend yourself from someone stealing your work, but if it happens (like it did to me) that the moron fraudulently counter-claims infringement (which cost me my AOL account for a few hours) then you lose YOUR internet access and can’t even dispute the charge! That’s tantamount to, “Okay, he accused you of murder, so now we’re just going to shoot you because it’s easier to do.” I mean… c’mon… this is amazingly ridiculous.

Anonymous

Even if this get through, it’s going to be really hard to try 6 billion cases simultaneously, considering this would make every human with internet access a criminal.

Anonymous

The definite intent is to stop transfer of movies and music across the net. Other content will likely not be policed. I think also that local ISP’s will be more rebellious. Alternate Internet is a good idea.

Anonymous

Hopefully the penalties would apply to corporations if enacted. For example, nbc.com or nytimes.com would loose their internet access after 3 copyright infringments.

Anonymous

Wow
I’m a dual citizen, this is going to take about 5seconds to become law. However Canadian law would prohibit something like this, even though recently passed legislature makes downloading music more “illegal”. The supreme court will have to decide, hopefully in the favor of 99.9% of the population connected to the internet. Oh the other hand you have to really hand it to Europe for being servile pesants as always. **You guys had the most stringent online privacy rights and threw them away with the Lisbon Treaty!!!

Power to the people
Its up to us to be heard.
only we can be the change

Anonymous

Maybe this will be the Pearl Harbor moment that awakes the sleeping giant of the Internet, and kick-starts the Bitchun Revolution. I’m only half-kidding.

Government/corporations: just keep pushing it. I dare you. Just see what happens.

Anonymous

We already have a law where a site such as YouTube, or any message board, is not responsible for the copyright infringing actions of posters. This flies right in the face of that.

Anonymous

Well given the obvious implications of this bill, and the backlash against it, it makes far more sense to place the burden of policing copyright on the people whose content stands to be infringed. My site is definitely harmed by copyright infringement. I sell downloadable literature for a fee… It pays OK, sales are good, but if people weren’t sharing my content on sites like Zshare, I’d be making enough money to live. Still, the obvious implications of this law make it completely untenable in a free society.

shanealeslie

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PEOPLE!!!
Just open your wireless port, call it parasite.net, and then set yourself up as an ‘ISP’ with an FTP, web server, torrent tracker, etc. If you can convince enough people in your area to create access points and mirrors of the content we’ll eventually cut out the telecoms and have a truly distributed data and communications network. Isn’t that right Cory?

sergiodeathstar

This is a great idea, sorry I haven’t heard of it before. Are you able to point me in the direction of any further reading? I’m in.
Michael

With all due respect, only people from large cities could possibly consider this a viable solution.
- shanealeslie
  
  That is a very good point, yet again logic gets in the way of my rhetoric.

Anonymous

back in the early 90′s there was a series called CyberPunk where the corporations and governments ruled the net with an iron fist. Life imitating art?

Very very sad though. Wasn’t O supposed to be “transparent”? Seems to me he has hid all the same old stuff GW hid and now even more stuff. It is nonsensical to say that this treaty being publicly published would be a national security threat! What a bunch of boobs we are for buying into that “change” carpola.

Anonymous

Doesn’t the Constitution protect this with the “right to a fair and speedy trial” part?

Anonymous

Good luck trying to convict anyone for violating a secret law. “Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law” won’t really be valid. I sincerely hope a judge has some balls and rules this completely unlawful.

Anonymous

Looks like we need to start using the darknet.

http://freenetproject.org/

Anonymous

Just wondering that if the plan stipulates any accusations of infringement automatically would lead to takedown, couldn’t that be abused against the members of trhe Anti-Counter. Trade Agreement.
I’m assuming that the large Hollywood studios are behind this and any person could just call up to the relevant ISP and say that the newest blockbuster was actually their idea and that the studio sight needs to be shut down until it’s resolved. A taste of their own medicine.

Anonymous

Okay, this is obviously EXTREMELY flawed legislation for reasons outlined a ton in the comments already.

But I’m just going to throw this out there.

This is happening because there is a serious problem with people downloading and sharing copyrighted materials. I know there’s a tendency to brush this off, but it’s hitting a number of industries really hard (particularly television). People need money to produce content, and the general public getting stuff illegally off of the internet means they AREN’T making enough money to finance their projects.

In other words, when you download/stream your TV shows, you’re increasing the likelihood that what you’re watching will be canceled and replaced with reality TV. And you’re ensuring that a number of hardworking people who don’t get big paychecks see even less financial return for the work they put in.

I guess my point is — if you don’t like ridiculous legislation like above, and if you DO like music/film/television, you should support the industries by actually paying for products.

Anonymous

#199,

*OR*, you can actually have industries which change over time, capable of, you know, this thing we call “Free Market Competition?”

Fan-made productions like Star Trek New Voyages have produced MOVIE-QUALITY fare for years now (and have received rather prestigious awards to prove it), and all on the backs of volunteers. These groups can make movies far more cheaply, and with comparable quality, than the existing, archaic, and uncompetitive incumbent organizations.

When I was in business, I had to close my doors because I was out-priced by a cheaper competitor. Why should the rules governing MY world be any different for the media producers? Did I throw a temper tantrum? No. Did I petition Big Government to enact laws explicitly intended to protect me (*AHEM*AT&T*AHEM*)? No. I took it like a man, gave it my best shot, and closed my doors after 4 years of business.

You know what? As of right now, I openly advocate piracy of commercial content, all the while supporting the fan-made production houses that are savvy enough to exploit the Internet as a distribution medium. If you want to support media producers, give it to the people who deserve it most. Civil disobedience, as a previous poster indicated, can be quite powerful.

People will pay for material that’s actually worth paying for. If folks aren’t buying the Big Media’s content, maybe there’s a problem with the content or the distribution channel, and not with consumers. Did they ever think of that?!

No.

I suggest you should get real. People have been paying for their content since forever, and getting utter DRECK in return. Serves the producer’s right.

Anonymous

THE TRANSITION TIME
===================
If Democracy is respected, Democracy will decide wisely about this topic sooner or later, putting in front the users and authors’ interests above the middlemen.

We are witnessing a long strategic inflection point originated by the web, the way to do certain things has changed for ever. We are in a transition era where people with power don’t understand how to excerpt it under the new rules for the good of the most. Being the web only 16 years old, older generations haven’t grasp its real value and relevance it has for the majority of people or even worse still hasn’t accepted it. It still take some time for most of the congressmen have used a PSP, a DS or a Digital Music Player.

There is big mistake in misjudging the digital representation of a work as the real work. All the rights and values of the later are used for the former. Arguments are always presented for the representation of the work but not for the work itself.

In the specific field of music, very forward looking artists (NIN, Radiohead) recognized those changes and adapted quickly to them.

We are entering the no-middlemen era, and won’t be easy.

Someday people like Justin Frankel or Shawn Fanning will be seen and respected as real pioneers

Anonymous

I’ve seen the future, and it is TOR and Freenet.

f1x3r

Net neutrality is not a joke so this has an easy decision tree :

First we can try to fight the mentioned treaty in a peaceful manner by resorting to such means as:

1) Massive public manifestations (Pirate Party, standing in front of the senate, etc…)
2) Boycot buying multimedia products such as cd’s, dvd’s, etc…
(or anything with copyright in it, copyleft is OK)
3) Increase privacy by resorting to VPN’s outside the scope of state law.
4) Resort to alternative file sharing methods such as DC++ over encrypted connections.

If that does not work, then I am afraid it is time to go outside and start breaking stuff. I hear Hollywood has some really nice houses filled with stuff just waiting to be broken. Washigton DC has even better stuff I was told.

I am sorry dear fat cats but I did not come to this world to keep your greed satisfied at the expense of my freedom. If you try to rub slavery in our faces then I am afraid we have no option but to break yours…

A rather serious “The End”

Anonymous

What I see happening it this passes will be failure on the side of the music industry and movie industry. Personally I see a good thing from p2p, it gets media out to people who otherwise would not have access, this is not to say that thee bottom line doesnt drop on these companies that keep spending millions upon millions of dollars to combat a problem that only cost them a fraction of what they spend. Media is so overpriced nowadays that it becomes more difficult to obtain, Movie theaters are charging insane ammounts and cds hitting over $15 and dvds at $20 and Bluray $30. It helps to weed out the good from the bad, if the MPAA has a problem with this quit making bad movies that make you want to rip your head off

Hamo D

So, how exactly are they intending to enforce this on “the rest of the world”? Military action? Trade sanctions? Nukes?

Sleeper

Us Kiwis still won’t let the US bring nuclear warships into the country, good luck getting us to accept some corporate slimeball ‘trade agreement’.

zyodei

Corporations own government. They always have. They always will. It’s more or less impossible to keep the influence of money out of the financial system.

I don’t get why so many people don’t understand this simple axiom:

The more powerful you make government, the more powerful you make corporations.

Anonymous

imaginary property is not property!

and sadly, even a weak government strengthens the corporations, as then corporations do not have something that can match them on scale.

the only true option is to remove the idea that corporations are “people” (or more correctly, “legal entities”).

Anonymous

I too agree with the “time to create a whole new pirate internet”. Sign me up.

Anonymous

say hello to $30 youtube subscriptions
and goodbye anything worth watching

this better not happen…

PaulMMM

ACTA is very dangerous if it is proposed as an actual Treaty requiring a super-majority of Senators (2/3) to approve. In this scenario, it would become the Law of the Land and would trump statutory law, and could not be declared unconstitutional (as far as I understand it.)

It might instead be promoted not as a strict Treaty, but as an accord which would only require a majority of both houses and become statutory law. (This is more likely although it would not surprise me MPAA/RIAA could get 67 Senators in their pocket — they have pretty much bought the Democratic Party.)

In either case, it is bad news.

Anonymous

Maybe google(c)(r)TM and yahoo(c)(r)TM are behind this too, they could have a deal with the goverment and they are the only ones able to redistribute copyrighted material,(much money= above law) say bye bye to places like break.com(c)(r)TM, fotolog(c)(r)TM, hi5(c)(r)TM, blame it on the voices(c)(r)TM, wikipedia(c)(r)TM(citation needed), the little fishes are gonna be eated By the monster that is google(c)(r)TM….i got to go check my gmail(c)(r)TM laterz

Anonymous

I suspect we’re being taken for a bunch of gullible dupes. Not even Bush would have agreed to these terms and he didn’t have a clue when it came to the internet where as Obama does. I think I’ll wait for something more than a “leak” on this one before I’ll believe this pile of hooey. More than likely this is another Republican troll starting a rumor to slime Obama, it’s not like we haven’t seen a ton of those over the last few months.

Anonymous

Come on folks, “adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules”..
Ye..swedish law does not work like that. This is for the lulz

PaulMMM

In answer to #31, the Internet community and digital content users certainly can organize into a political advocacy group, and it could become quite potent. It’s a matter of getting a few million passionate members and and a will to out-donate the RIAA/MPAA. This is how the NRA does it. Do you think we could get 10,000,000 members, plus a few corporate supporters (who would naturally oppose ACTA)?

But I am pessimistic since, unlike the gun toters who back the NRA, Internet users believe that somehow magically they can stop anything unwanted by simply blogging about it. This naivety will eventually lead to complete victory by the RIAA/MPAA since the copyright interests have both Congress and the Executive branch (Clinton, Bush and Obama) in their back pocket. The ONLY way to fight this is to out politic and out-spend RIAA/MPAA.

So, will the Internet community waken up and play hardball in the political arena?

Anonymous

The Fiat patent fraud. About the Fiat hybrids: the technology double clutch with electric motor between has been stolen by a patent that Fiat Company has never wanted to purchase, but only shamelessly to copy. This hybrid solution will be the basic technology with Chrysler’s electric and hybrid car program. Please give a look in my blog where the “vitality” and boldness of the Fiat planners it appears in all of evidence: http://dualsymbioticelectromechanicalengine.blogspot.com/
If the industries can afford unpunished to copy the ideas and defending it need very expensive trial, to which target need the patents? How to defend the rights of private inventors? How our young people can find intellectual courage if the economic potentates crush the rights of the single ones? Whoever is about to ask for a patent or wants to propose a proper patent to a great firm I suggest to give a look to my experience with the Fiat, to get able to operate with better adroitness. Thanks and good time to everybody. Ulisse Di Bartolomei

holtt

zyodei sez…

Corporations own government. They always have. They always will. It’s more or less impossible to keep the influence of money out of the financial system.

Very true, but…

Google and Yahoo are corporations. Two very BIG corporations. Google owns Blogger and YouTube. Yahoo owns Flickr.

If this will make it “…impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger” you’d think they would be able to fight it, right?

zyodei

Don’t worry, I am sure the various corporate factions will find a way to come to an amiable resolution.

Things like this, the wars, and the massively larcenous wall street bailouts are having the effect of waking people up: Washington DC does NOT have your best interests at heart, and the first thing to do is stop providing support in any way whatsoever.

Of course, they probably won’t gut YouTube, because that would actually piss people off. People in this country seem to value entertainment over peace or freedom (although, of course, YouTube has many uses); if the powers that be threatened the people’s right to flashing images 24/7, then there would be REAL trouble in the streets.

I think a general strike is in order….

Anonymous

so….can people just make their own internet again? I understand that it would probably be starting back up from dial-up, but that would still make knowledge and information free.

Anonymous

Nothing like denying people due process. They tried it with PATRIOT and hopefully this one will go down in flames just as big.

Constitution First

As for the few who think this is an urban legend. The top people in this administration have publicly hinted, suggested and floated every conceivable trial balloon to gauge public reaction to internet “control” you know: to “protect us and the children”. If you haven’t seen any of the dozen or so “leaks”, you’re not paying enough attention. Your bad.

For majority of you who understand danger when they see it: This is for all the marbles, I know I’m not telling any of you something new when I say the Internet is our last true freedom, the place where we freely exchange ideas, good and bad, without a chaperon. We Are Adults. The web is where trusted governments, show trust in their citizens. When that trust is broken, we have big problems.

When I start hearing about any government, agency or organization that wants to filter, control or approve web content, angry klaxons and piercing strobe lights go off in my mind, they should be in everyone else’s too.

The web is it. The last place of freedom. We can’t trust the media anymore, we haven’t been able to trust the government in my life-time (hint: I’m close to retirement), and our relatively small circle of friends can only cover so much ground; we, as a free people, must have unfettered access to the world’s opinions, we are adult enough to do our own filtering. G*d knows what crap we would be fed if the government picked and chose what was “true” and “appropriate”. Distrust ANYONE who tries to control your information! You have to ask: why? Don’t you trust us to know right from wrong? truth from lies? fact from fiction?

Think about this: when I was a young man, our only source of information was broadcast and paper media, and whatever you heard over the fence from your neighbor, that’s it! The web changed all that! Big Time! We CAN’T go back, I’d rather die than stick my head back in “controlled spaces”. That would be analogous to going back to stone tools.

There’ll be no stuffing this Genie back in the bottle while I still draw a breath.

Astin

About time. I was getting sick of this whole Internet thing anyway. Now… what was it I did at work before the Internet?

Anonymous

No quarter for the wicked! Accept no compromises when it comes to preserving your liberty.

Anonymous

I would hope that responsible citizens would stand up against this by:

1. Informing their governments (I’m talking about all ACTA participants) that they do not support this and that they will not vote for them in the next election if their voice is not heard.

2. By voluntarially cutting themselves off from the content now. This is the voting with your wallet approach. Now don’t cut yourself off from the internet but cut yourself off from the content that is spuring this. Don’t visit the movie theatres, don’t buy music or go to concerts of artists who don’t stand up against this sort of control. Don’t buy promotional items. The only way to kill this sort of thing is to show you won’t stand for it.

3. (being pessimistic here) when this goes into effect make copyright claims against all members of government and corporate heads. Turn it against them.

I don’t think content should be free. I’m one of the people who would be first in line to be able to buy in to a service that would allow me to buy the content I want (and only the content I want) at a reasonable price if it also allowed me to consume that content on any device I had. But these sorts of things that fly in the face of the rule of law by not requiring proof just make me angry.

Anonymous

Please forgive my stupidity–but will this act get us in trouble for all the things we have downloaded BEFORE it went into place or only after?

PaulMMM

#36, imagine if Google, Yahoo, various hardware manufacturers (who don’t want anyone to tell them how to build their hardware), and a number of major advocacy groups got together. And then they mobilized and added 10,000,000 Internet and digital media users as individual members. And then begin lobbying Congress, including campaign donations, etc. This would turn things around, and we could even consider going beyond this towards rolling back the already draconian copyright and maybe even trademark/patent laws. We have the power, but until we have the will to play hardball in the corridors of Congress, the RIAA/MPAA will win the war and an era of copyright fascism will ensue, all because we believed blogging is sufficient.

Anonymous

Unenforceable BS

Anonymous

Well, it’s over to the Dark Nets we go, I suppose.

Can’t be too shocked. Always figured the late twentieth century / early twenty-first would be the freest times I would ever know.

Yours,
Cheeseburger Brown

novelator

If this “treaty” passes, the government will use the provision that allows a mere accusation to shut down any and all dissent. Didn’t the White House’s fight with Fox News just prove that? Oh, I think so.

Anonymous

it’s just a bill, yes it’s only a bill. and it’s sitting there on capitol hill. you aren’t helpless here – time to call/write your congressman folks. it’s not a law yet, and the people who vote on this stuff are supposed to be representing ‘we the people,’ so just make sure they know what we, the voting people, want.

Anonymous

90% opposed the TARP program, Americans were extremely vocal about opposing it, didn’t make a damn bit of difference. The rep.s do not represent Americans they represent their corporate sponsors. The end.

Anyways, this is cute.

Newspaper Chainâ€™s New Business Plan: Copyright Suits

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/

Anonymous

If this srsly goes through… well that leaves only 1 option: new net.

Bryan C

I’m sure it’ll all work out fine. Anyway, we need to focus on the real problems facing the Internet today, like Comcast throttling our bandwidth! Clearly the only solution is to demand that the government be given expanded power to monitor and control all Internet traffic. To enforce fairness, I mean. You know, make the ‘net all nice and neutral. That’ll show those evil corporate fat cats they can’t mess with us! Fight the power!

Anonymous

This seems like redundant legislation to please Big Business. I am concerned, not for the freedoms it prohibits, but the things Obama is wasting his time with while in office.

forfreedom

This would be the death of the internet as we know it. I feel like these are things that you would see in one of those futuristic movies where the government has way too much power. These ideas, although not concrete, are perfect examples of the ridiculous evolution of copyright laws that we have seen in the last decade and continue to see. We are obviously in a digital age. Instead of spending so much time attacking the digital pirates, industries need to find a way to creatively adapt instead of bullying individuals with legal scare tactics. They are wasting their time and money instead of finding a way to take advantage of the technology at our disposal.

However, regarding this leaked material, I cannot imagine that something like this will actually come into effect anytime soon. If we truly live in a democracy, we have the ability to prevent something like this.

Anonymous

Is Vice President Biden’s history of plagiarism sufficient to deny internet access to the Obama Administration?

Anonymous

I can just see the constitutional scholars jumping up and down right now.

Anonymous

Methinks it’s time to rickroll someone’s teleprompter.

NFSJ

I don’t believe this, no sources are given and this is the first I heard about it. I know they said where they got it but there is no link to the original document and how was it leaked, and from whom? While this is truly terrifying and must be stopped if it is indeed true I wouldn’t worry for two reasons. A. It probably isn’t true, I think someone got confused or lied to at some point. B.Any legislation like this must be accessible by the public and would need to go through the same process as every other bill, which would take weeks. I wouldn’t worry to much about this just yet.
If this is true then all of society is about to end.

Anonymous

Like The Patriot Act and all the other bills that get passed without even being read? You better wake up if you think this is how the system works.

Anonymous

Its just a scare tactic to lower illegal download rates, it was “Leaked”. The only way to get rid of Illegal downloads is to eliminate songs as tangible goods, via satellites streaming to every person 24/7. I see it happening in the long-run, but even then People will still have ways to capture the sound and share it, though at a lower quality.. Its impossible to fix entirely.

Anonymous

(Very Rich) FRENCH PIRATES protected by BANK SECRECY

GROUPAMA was caught in a software PIRACY case of $200m and has made an unofficial affidavit (claiming that it was not guilty) to divert BEFTI investigators from the evidences officially collected one month ago at a different office.

In its affidavit, GROUPAMA argued that bank secrecy entitled it to limit the scope of Police investigations to a building that was not the place where evidences about the infraction were officially collected.

After the fraud was discovered and denounced by the victim, as GROUPAMA managed to have the General Prosecutor of Paris to state that Police was ‘right’ to ignore the criminal file and focus only on the irrelevant information provided by GROUPAMA itself, there is room for serious doubts in the way that affair was conducted.

As a matter of facts, FINAMA and GROUPAMA have reported false information to the markets regarding their own accounts (where the fraud describbed below has never been reported).

This unfortunate event is more than likely to compromize the confidence ratings of French (bank and insurance) regulated markets on the proven basis that the numbers cannot be trusted.

All the details, including the General Prosecutor reply, the BEFTI investigation file and the unofficial affidavit cooked by GROUPAMA have been made publicly available:

http://remoteanything.com/archives/groupama.pdf

Anonymous

Aww, man bring back the pirate radio!

Anonymous

the obama administration just lost my trust and respect :)

Anonymous

Before everyone goes and hordes all the interwebs they have, Click on the sources and follow the back links to find out what is actually being said.

And that what is being said is: We aren’t telling you. Really go and look… The only people that have read the rough outline of atleast the proposed treaty had to sign a no disclosure agreement. And here are those people. http://keionline.org/node/660

SkeeterVT

If this plan goes through and has the effect that is feared, I GUARAN-DAMN-TEE you that there will be MULTIPLE LAWSUITS to have it struck down as a violation of the FIRST AMENDEMENT!

Anonymous

Oh fuck off, this utter bull. I live in Australian the united states has NO, I repeat NO jurisdiction on my country what so ever. We do not recognize US law in this country

Anonymous

lol pull your head out of the sand. NSW is the second most litigious state in the world – behind california. We bow to everything the US says and follow their lead in every draconian law passed. We don’t even protect our own people on our own soil. Look at cronulla. an angry mob of non-naturalized people can walk down a public street destroying YOUR property while the police ‘stage’ themselves a few streets away and do nothing. Don’t ever think you can rely on them or our government to protect you or to keep you safe. Look at iinet – facing court for NOT sending infringements to its customers from the same US based corporations behind this bill… mostly because they have an ‘unlimited’ broadband plan so death by lawsuit. Don’t ever think you ever had freedom of speech… no constitution to hide behind here.
Anonymous

You do when you have an international trade agreement that requires it. You want US movies, music, television, products? Trade treaties determine that. It’s a reciprocal thing.
Anonymous

#44 | 17:45 on Tue, Nov. 3 |

“Oh fuck off, this utter bull. I live in Australian the united states has NO, I repeat NO jurisdiction on my country what so ever. We do not recognize US law in this country”

hmm there is this little thing called the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that Howard (ex-PM) fought and got with the USA that does sorta give US some jurisdiction over Australia…I believe they can ask and get some extradited to face court in the US for cyber crime committed in Australia … FTA was a starting block for all this crap…

manicbassman

they want the internet to be one way… you subscribing to their content…

ausPPC

Ahh. Government of sneaky weasle viper legal entities, by traitorous cowards, for (soon to be) criminals.

Copyright violation would appear to be a greater offence than drug use – if only copyrighted material would suffer the same fate as drugs.

And apparently there is no contradiction in paying hefty bribes to government bozos while simultaneously claiming that one’s profits are threatened. “Oh yeah, the entertainment industry is really up against the wall – here, have some more money. Now go and turn the people you’re supposed to be representing into criminals.”

Anonymous

How is national security protected?

Anonymous

pfff. as if this would actually go through. Corporate america would weigh up where the most money can be made, and wouldn’t allow it. Especially since so many politicians (as well as many many companies) are using twitter and youtube for advertising.

ProkofyNeva

What a lot of fake scare-mongering!

Copyright is a good thing, and it’s what most creators and businesses rely on to protect intellectual property — which is legitimate, as a form of private property.

As usually, Cory, you’re using this copyright chimera and the phony bogeyman of evil corporations harassing users as a wedge for your real agenda, which is to impose technocommunism. And it’s unseemly to watch.

There’s no evidence whatsoever that any ISP would harass or get arrested an entire family that “needed the Internet to access health information” (*cough* — Mom needs to read her Facebook messages and Dad needs to watch Twitstock lol?) — just because Junior downloaded a song. The rare cases you read of seemingly innocent members of the public being nailed by evil record companies usually involve persistence and volume of theft that you’d even blush to defend.

DRM is also a good thing and enables people to make livlihoods, including disabled people who use Second Life to make digital products for sale or to conduct nonprofit work or to help injured veterans or all kinds of things. Your notion that you can invoke the disabled to emotionally blackmail people into accepting the technocommunist regime is despicable.

Few claiming this “legitimate” breaking of DRM really have that excuse.

Your scarifying over takedown is also exaggerated nonsense. Why doesn’t anybody stand up to this bullying?! A tiny handful of Flickr cases or whatever where they removed content before establishing the bona fides of the case hardly characterize these services generally, which enable massive amounts of user-generated content to be distributed for free in just the way you rhapsodize over. What, I lose my copyright just because I take part in your Creative Communism? Of course not.

And once again, you’re using your high-view bully-pulpit here to screech about UN talks or treaty talks that are just that — talks. Companies and countries get to float positions in democratic institutions, you know? That’s ok.

The only point where you might have a case is about the secrecy of this process — except, oops, how secret can it be if you are blogging hysterically about it!

Anonymous

One simple question: if Big Media has the possibility to do something legally then why shoulnÂ´t they? “Because itÂ´s not nice”? Come on, itÂ´s *legal*, why should they care about being “nice”, especially to the consumers who havenÂ´t been “nice” and pirated?
The whole volume of lawyers/experts/piratehunters who are currently working for MPAA&friends wonÂ´t dissapear when ACTA goes into work, theyÂ´ll still exist and want their paychecks, the difference will be that theyÂ´ll finally have the tools to do their job throughoutly.

The problem with ACTA ainÂ´t copyright per se, but that it gives basically unlimited powers to those who claim to protect the copyright. And, as it currently stands, there doesnÂ´t seem to be much control on how those powers are used. There have already been numerous mistakes (claimed copyright on someone elseÂ´s product, censoring others through claiming copyright, false accusations where no copyright breaching took place), ACTA just makes it easier.
failix

If you are using irony you’re extremely good at it! Otherwise you’re either an astroturfer, or totally brainwashed.
- Anonymous
  
  failix, Prokofy Neva is a well known troll from Second Life. S/he writes miles of tripe all over the net, the topic is not important as long s/he can use words like technocommunism and feted inner core, an expression s/he claims to have invented.

Anonymous

That would be untenable…maybe it’s a cunning ploy to bust open IP once and for all by taking it to its logical conclusion, and watching it fall apart?

Anonymous

It seems like anyone with a lawyer could bring any site down if you don’t need any proof, right? So people could simply bring down the sites of any company that used these rules a few times, and I bet they’d stop using it.

Anonymous

I guess it means that we are going to digital war.

Anonymous

I wouldn’t worry about this.. it is not going to be acknowledged or recognized as legitimate by anyone. It will require a global riot police to be enforced. It is too big of a block on private freedom and technical innovation

Anonymous

I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a minute – the first point says “That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material.” You use that to explain why Flickr won’t be able to make any money, because they’ll have to hire lawyers. But Flickr isn’t an ISP. Comcast is an ISP, therefore they’d have to hire the lawyers.

Somehow, I don’t think this is correct. I can’t see Comcast, AT&T, etc., being expected to police copyrights on all the billions of webpages out there. I can’t see the ISP’s allowing this to happen, and as we all know, corporations are who really run this country.

Anonymous

This is literally the worst idea ever.

Anonymous

Makes you long for the day when the US was a free country and not the tyranny it is now.

mathinker

The first “proactively police” provision is *logically inconsistent* with the last “Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM”. There would be no way to police anything locked up with even the most ridiculously weak DRM scheme (or, visa versa, one could justify attempting to break any DRM scheme by having someone upload an example of data protected by it to your website).

afs97209

Someone needs to step forward and lead the fight against this treaty.

Until someone does step forward and take the lead role, everyone is going to stand around and look at each other.

Anonymous

we should just take the internet hostage, every person who can block/take down a site should just flat out refuse to do so.

Anonymous

Welcome to China.

Anonymous

@weirdmage That’s exactly what it means, although as I’m sure you know, in practice it will be open to interpretation depending on how many US$ are involved.

Uhm, I’d also just like to remind everyone that the USA does not own the Web.

Pipedreamergrey

You can’t just break something this chilling out on us without suggesting a way to fight it. Where are the petitions? Which politicians do we need to harass? Where’s the website with more information?!

Anonymous

After reading this, I “took action” through the eff.org website because unlike ProkofyNeva, I have a real problem with what is being proposed and how. My canned reply from Senator Feinstein basically said, “I hear ya, but I’m in favor of it.” This sucks.

Anonymous

The Internet as we know it will always exist….it just might be underground, or as Microsoft called it in a paper a few years back, the darknet.

The real insanity and arrogance of the this legislation is that governments are powerless over the laws of nature, legislators are just as likely to stop the sun and moon from rising as they are to being able to break basic public key encryption (never mind do it with any scale) or catalog the sheer uncomputable amount of data that crosses the Internet everyday (never mind actually analyzing this data). Governments can not succeed at controlling the Internet, though history shows they will probably try, no matter the cost.

What is sad is that technologically suave people (the ones that governments are trying to stop) will still be able to do whatever they want, when they want. However, the average person, who is not as technically proficient will suffer greatly. China and Iran are likely the future of the Internet in the rest of world.

mci

*** There is no corporate agenda. This isn’t about corporate success at all….read through the bill and you’ll see that this doesn’t benefit ISP’s or any other business entity. It IS about government control over your lives, and what you can and can’t do or say. I don’t understand why people are so surprised about Obama signing off on this, it is pretty much in line with his political philosophy. ***

Right. Since ISP’s profits don’t depend on IP enforcement, obviously nobody does. Hilarious. I guess that explains the armies of lawyers that media and software companies employ to go after infringers.

Sorry to burst your fantasyland bubble, but here’s a dose of reality: governments don’t use copyright to suppress information. They just declare the information a state secret, or in the case of totalitarian regimes, subversive.

It’s ALL about corporate profits.

Anonymous

If they limit my access to the internet, is this my home PC? because I have many other PC’s Available for use. (Work, Library, family, friends)I don’t see how this would be effective.

Anonymous

Is this the leak? http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/factsheets/2009/asset_upload_file917_15546.pdf

Anonymous

This will have a number of effects… firstly it’ll limit enterprise on the internet to big business, secondly it’ll end coffee shop culture (no more free internet anywhere, period, unless you provide proof of ID when you get your WEP key).

In the UK this is made vastly worse by the internet surveillance they are pushing through – disconnection without trial + mass surveillance is a very efficient state censorship mechanism.

Anonymous

let’s just hope this gets half the attention as the ralph lauren thing.

Anonymous

Looks like were back to 1.0. Backward strides i tell you.

Sciamachy

I despair tbh. In the UK we have the Digital Economy Bill which is threatening to do pretty much the same kind of thing as this. It may well be illegal according to EU law, and as such would have to be abolished, but now with this treaty looming it could change the whole ball game so that the EU has to implement these kind of measures.

It’s like a tide coming in. You defeat one assault on our freedoms & democracy, and another one comes in behind it, and another, and another. These people are taking the mickey.

What can we do?

Warden

Say no to censorship download Freenet!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet

http://freenetproject.org/

Anonymous

I don’t know if this is the end of American democracy and freedom, but I fear that this might be well the beginning of its end.

Anonymous

What are we going to do?

Anonymous

The problem with the internet is that it is not TV. This will be fixed by ACTA.

The problem with people is that they buy technology to empower themselves and this too must be stopped with ACTA.

It is important for the rich to control the information everyone else receives. New technologies have removed this control and so ACTA will fix it.

These are also the reasons why it must remain secret.

Anonymous

Relax folks, this is clearly unconstitutional in more ways than one. It will never stick.

Kevin Schmidt

Anonymous

If the media companies had their way, several hundred years from now, kids going to colleges would not be able to get a decent education. All information would be locked behind pay walls. How would you research anything without funding from a billionaire? You’d be like a feudal society artist or architect. Seriously, this isn’t just an attack on culture, it’s an attack on us, it’s an attempt to go back to the old class system where you had elites and everybody else.

Anonymous

The war begins…

Anonymous

What were treaties when the US Consitution was ratified in 1789? Is it about adopting foreign law (King’s arbitrary law) that never went through our Congress? Absolutely not. Can’t you folks challenge these bogus international treaties on constitutional grounds? Foreign law, regardless of whether it is part of a treaty, cannot contradict the US Constitution. This is King’s arbitrary law. You folks need to step up!

Anonymous

this made me cry. Seriously.

Anonymous

This better not happen. What a stupid idea.

Anonymous

I HATE it. The essence of the Internet itsself is under attack.

Laurel L. Russwurm

The internet could be the mechanism to make for real democracy, possibly even the first step toward the unified world dreamed of in early science fiction.

Instead the powerful old guard tries to legislate a giant step backward so they can confine technology in a box they control.

If these powers of darkness win, the world we wake up in one day won’t be George Orwell’s bleak but elegant 1984, but rather the sad buffoonery of “Idiocracy” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)

Sadly it looks like governments are bending over backwards to do the bidding of powerful corporations, essentially turning themselves into a collection agencies.

Even worse is their eagerness to trample the few civil rights and freedoms that are left.

What terrorists started, the copyright lobby finishes.

Is there anything we can do? Complain loud and long to elected officials whatever country we’re in. Might work.

Maybe it would be more effective to boycott big media. Think they’d notice if nobody in the world went to the movies this weekend?

KurtMac

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the entirety of the Internet “user-contributed material”?

Anonymous

Yes, even the Government supplied material is “user” contributied … if they don’t let the Copyright Owner to break any kind of DRM for the Owner’s use.

Anonymous

If this actually goes through i can almost say that there will be riots on a massive proportion i for one will be part of that riot.

Anonymous

No, count them 0 zero stories on CNN about ACTA!

Not one, nada nill nothing!!!!!

That says something! WOW, call write shout email tweet blog about CNN ignoring(censoring?) information about ACTA

You can google CNN marshmallow and get more information!

Robbo

This is insane. Hopefully, as Geist points out, it won’t get slimed past parliamentary procedure in Canada since these negotiations exceed Canadian law.

I get so furious with the slimeball tactics of these corporate fascist weasels who think they own the world. The only reason this nonsense is kept secret is because it is so patently wrong, abusive and controlling. The more light that can be shed on this and similar tactics of using business negotiations to override democratic rules the more likely we are of being able to shut down and shut up these relentless power hunger dicks.

Have a nice day.

Anonymous

WE know who you are, where you live, and if necessary, where and when you will die. Do not toy with US.
Anonymous

NOT True,

Federal trade agreements become LAW if any goverment representive signs it! This is how Harper could slime us without even a vote!
Anonymous

The Executive Branch of whichever Government will sign it on “National Security” grounds. At which point it would take a multi-Billionare to fund a legal fight against it all the way to the respective Supreme Courts.

Just look at the “notice and takedown” without eveidence or a trial but ONLY an acusation. Violates the Constitution right there but…. :(
demidan

A-f*ck*ng-men!

Anonymous

Signing treaties does not make them binding, it simply means that the signers agree that what’s stated within appears sound to them. Making the statements legal on a national level is the responsibility of individual governments; before these things could become law, they would have to pass through the same process as any other law.

Paine

I guess nothing is hard to believe anymore, although I keep hoping there are. But it sure feels like this copyright agreement actual document.

Do we know all of the countries that are signatories? Are there any that declined to sign? And what is the agreement’s true objective? Surely it isn’t copyright protection. Didn’t Google already demonstrate the world’s estimate of a copyright’s intrinsic value?

Clearly this agreement is but the latest attempt to limit our freedoms by pretending to protect them. About the best that can be said of it is that there is nothing left to say anyway. In fact it won’t be long before words and phrases like “idealist” and “free speech” will be viewed as intellectual artifacts. And Social Studies teachers will be telling their students of a newly discovered document called the Constitution of the United Statest of America that appears to have taken this aberrant lexicon seriously.

However, the nation built upon it was so short-lived that the only physical proof of its existence is in a place they called Arlington, which was perhaps the largest cemetary the world has ever known.

Anonymous

Well, that gave me a chill. Hopefully the reaction from the net will be more than enough to destroy this abomination to freedom.

Anonymous

This is scary- very, very scary. So has this passed yet? Is it an official law? Or is there still hope that someone with sense and the courage to stand up for our Constitutional rights will block it?

Anonymous

At least during the Bush years, large segments of the population were able to join together to resist. I fear Obama’s undeserved sheen of progressiveness will mean that he can more easily enact the corporate agenda. It’s time to wake up.

Anonymous

Big business shipped all the US manufacturing jobs overseas, and now the only way to off-set the trade deficit is draconian intellectual property laws to protect crappy movies and boring songs since that’s about the only thing the US exports any more.

Hayfok

The media is so uncontrollably biased these days that it’s close to impossible to get an accurate story without political influence being spewed into your face. The internet has been the only source of entertainment/ education that I’ve grown up on using, that has multiple sides to a story in the form of a discussion. However unlike the game of telephone, where the message becomes distorted near the end, this form of communication can be backed up and cross examined with statistical or personal evidence found anywhere in the billions of web pages that exist to this day.

The government controlling the content on the internet, and the actions of the users is disgusting personally. Trying to remain unbiased, I personally believe that this is wrong — that the problem lies in the ability to steal content, not the medium to of which the task was accomplished. You don’t ban driving because a thief escapes in a car, why control and monitor the internet in the same way: metaphorically speaking of course.

Piracy is bad, and I’m sure the lot of you have done it in some form. Like any other illegal activity, forcing millions of people to stop doesn’t solve the problem, but makes the people craftier.

History repeats itself.

Gary61

We’re seriously f*cked if this comes to pass.
Say ‘goodbye’ to the InterTubes.

floraldeoderant

Prometheus stole fire from the gods and was punished for it. After all, who said lowly people should have fire at such a low cost?

Nicola Tesla dreamed of free wireless energy for everyone in the city. Thomas Edison, the interminable scumbag, and his rich friends leveraged behind the scenes to shut the project down, for the idiocy of selfishness.

Now, we have the fire– the electricity is here, and free, and flowing– and we watch as shortsighted, self-serving, fools stamp it out.

We deserve better. We have better. We just need to stand up and keep it.

Do whatever you can, whatever you need to do. But don’t let them dismantle the greatest wonder humanity has every created, so they can sell it for parts.

Anonymous

* That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules

Hahahaha, yeah, right

And they are going to force this exactly how?

Anonymous

it’s actually VERY good. The further along this is when mainstream media and regular people become aware of just how insane and draconian this is, the better.

it’s very easy for Joe 6-pack to buy into the “if you don’t break the law you don’t have anything to fear” rhetoric that media companies have been spinning forever.

but Joe is already pissed that he can’t send the old 80s rock video that he saw the other day to a friend, and when you tell him that youtube will die, it’s game over.

Anonymous

I have to agree with you.
This would mean no more porn streaming/sharing which would affect just about every man (and some women).
I can’t see this coming to pass without getting very watered down.

Anonymous

Copyright only weakens the potential for ideas and technology to grow and evolve.

MadRat

The only chance the ACTA treaty has to be passed into law worldwide, is in secret. Therefore, the biggest weakness the treaty has, is secrecy. We should not be thinking about what we’re going to do once it passes but focus on preventing it from ever passing in the first place.

If you’ve read the comments you can see there are three problems:

1. Almost no one has heard of ACTA
2. When people do hear about ACTA they think it’s yet another Internet panic hoax
3. People think they’re immune because it’s an American problem

The answer to that is the word has to be gotten out, the sources need to be reliable and the full scope of the problems needs to be made known.

Big business is not going to help, they’re going to be siding with ACTA. ISPs often have parent companies in the entertainment business. Internet corporations are already involved in the treaty (Google, eBay, Verizon, Intel and so on). At this point the news has its copyright to protect which means it will likely side with ACTA. There aren’t enough people know what the treaty is all to hold protests and even if there were protests the news wouldn’t cover them, would downplay them as unimportant and/or obfuscate the meaning of the protests.

I imagine too many email hoaxes have been perpetrated for an email compaign to have legitimacy. But if the blogosphere really is in as much danger as it seems to be, they would be the ones who could get the word out more than anyone else. They are trusted by their readers which adds legitimacy and even if there is still doubt people will start trying to find out if anything they’ve heard about ACTA is true. So far the only major blog talking about the treaty is Boing Boing. How can we make this change?

The people of Iran gained world wide attention to their problem using the Internet. If they can, we can too.

Anonymous

Mr. President, are you serious?

I could read only as far as comment #22 before almost losing my dinner. To echo #22, I cried tears of joy in the presence of some 30 friends when you were elected. The hope, the freedom, the removal of tyranny. What is this about, Sir? To what end? Please do not initiate an online backlash from those who supported, debated for, stumped for, canvassed for, and voted for you using, primarily, the medium you seem to be choosing to denigrate. Please rethink this tactic.

Anonymous

Those poor media executives, in danger of losing their 7-figure bonuses.

Since they can’t make enough money selling the focus-group-formula rubbish that their precious entertainment industry keeps cranking out, for goodness sake, let’s just pay ‘em off. Take 0.5% of every internet subscription and throw it at them, on the condition that they stfu and retire (or at least sit in the corner and quietly get plastered).

And then let’s go find ourselves some really creative art and music. Hint: it’s not being distributed by Sony and Warner, and much of it doesn’t have copyright symbols on it.

Anonymous

Anon 58,

You’re right, Harper and his government will do whatever the Americans tell them to do.

Anonymous

Well, looks like its time to create a whole new pirate internet… we could do it with wireless.

Anonymous

an wireless pyrate internet?

i’m in.
Anonymous

lol. The FCC would not allow it on a macro scale.
Anonymous

Amen to that, man. Time for the global mesh net. Wouldn’t even have to be a pirate net, just a net composed of everyone’s wireless devices, connected together, sending and receiving packets.
- Cowicide
  
  ” … Amen to that, man. Time for the global mesh net. Wouldn’t even have to be a pirate net, just a net composed of everyone’s wireless devices, connected together, sending and receiving packets. … ”
  
  Yes, I’ve been hoping for something like that for many years. By the way does anyone think this will ever take off? Is it for real? If so, this could be very useful.
  
  Etherlinx (your own relatively cheap wifi router that goes for 50 miles)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6A-G0wT3ys
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATYtQmsCur4
Anonymous

Re: new pirate internet with wireless – interesting idea, though I think we have enough surface radiation already before having an internet’s worth of IP protocol going through our bodies. More likely, we’ll end up with local wireless links connecting to a darkened corner of the greater internet (which by definition envelops anything connected to it.)

What we need is to have a much, much wider adoption of things like TOR < torproject.org > (tell your friends! run a local node!), which is a protocol layering privacy on top of network access and then allowing you to connect to the world from some random other node. Things like this already form the backbone of what will eventually become your private (or pirate if you prefer) internet.

Above all, don’t ever trust a project like TOR that is not COMPLETELY open source. If you ever see a commercial version, it’s probably going to be required to have the some sort of intentional weakness to bypass the anonymity for someone who has the power to seriously mess with the company (the actual copyright police, for example.)

It’s a foregone conclusion that if TOR takes off, some commercial or government group will try to come up with their own ‘better version’ of true internet privacy, probably a compatible client, with the same set of backdoors kicked in intentionally by exactly this sort of theft of rights in the name of copyright. You will be able to tell with 95% accuracy by whether or not you can compile it yourself.

WeightedCompanionCube

*sigh*

Treaties do not equal laws, and laws to enforce a treaty still have to remain constitutional, for whatever value of “constitutional” applies in your country.

I also like how Cory’s summary makes a lot of conclusions that don’t quite jive with anything on Geist’s blog. Great start to a plot for a work of fiction, but come on, Geist is careful enough to mention “draft” and the “If Accurate…” disclaimer. Would be nice if BB could keep that vital bit of information.

Blogs of blogs of unverifiable information are a game of telephone.

zikzak

In theory, you’re right. A nation-state is sovereign, and no foreign entity can override its laws or mandate its internal government. In theory.

In practice, international trade agreements are constantly overriding “sovereign” national governments. Want to be a member of the WTO? Then your government, corporations and sometimes citizens can be subject to lawsuits from foreign companies for violations of WTO rules (regardless if they’ve broken any laws in their own country). Want to get loans from the World Bank? That will mean letting the IMF and other international financial orgs tamper with your national economic policy, including things like what type of social services you fund, labor laws, environmental protections, etc. They could give a fuck what your constitution might say about any of it.

International trade agreements are very often nothing more than a clever end-run around national sovereignty. And in countries with democratic governments, they are by extension an end-run around the democratic process itself. They’re a way for the international elite (read: the leaders of wealthy countries and corporations) to advance their agendas without having to deal with all that pesky public participation.

Anonymous

wow zors

You feed a dog a steak for 30 days straight, each day he has a juicy steak..then you decide to give him dog food after hes gotten so used to that steak. Hes not going to want dog food, screw that.

If youtube gets taken away or flickr or whatever, people will go apeshi*. These corporate scumbags need to be held accountable.

SethB

If the RIAA and MPAA got kicked off the Internet any time anybody accused them of copyright violations, the result could prove quite interesting.

The last thing they can afford would be penalties for false accusations.

RyanMcFitz

Are ISPs so embattled on issues of carriage, terms of trade, traffic management and the like?

Why are they so conspicuously silent when governments around the world declare that they are opting to enact legislation unwanted by the public that will only serve to permanently cut off whole families of customers from their bottom line?

I’m not baiting conspiracy theorists. I’m sincerely stymied. We’re increasingly leaning over a line beyond which lawyers have the power to make more money than God and they’re the ones making this happen.

I contribute to the EFF but we need liberty to be championed with deep pockets.

Anonymous

This makes anarchy look pretty good right about now.

Anonymous

Imagine every day….Being ripped apart by swords,spears and arrows.
Imagine throwing yourself upon scores of enemyÂ´s
Imagine standing above everyone else in all things
Imagine Death…..and all other mortal fears will vanish.

Myamoto Musashi::::Book of five rings.

These power hungry satanic cultists will make their final move soon….but caging a hungry beast has never proven good for any such who dare do it….See you on the battlefield

Anonymous

We can’t let another DMCA pass. Blogger, YouTube, the entire Internet (by some wicked lawyer’s perception) would all be nothing more than copyrighted material that could get people removed from the Internet without even being convicted or arraigned. Let’s raise hell about this. Chanology has found its next target.

Anonymous

The DMCA is the origin of ISP immunity in the first place, chief. The DMCA allowed the Internet to focus on user-generated content.

Anonymous

I live in New Zealand, and this sounds a hell of a lot like the ‘Section 92a’ that the government recently tried to put on us. We (the people) managed to stop it though – at least for the meantime.

I’m getting sick of America trying to use our country as a testing platform for their ludicrous ‘I-wanna-be-God’ acts and treaty’s etc.

The American government can go right ahead and take away its OWN people’s rights and civil liberties, as well as continue in it’s current corrupt ways, but KEEP IT TO YOURSELVES. The REASON the internet is so huge now, is because things like this have not come about.

And take your ‘National Security’ excuse and ram it where the sun dont shine.

Kennric

I like an indignant panic-fest as much as the next guy, but yeah, I’d really like to know the sources here.

Oh, and zyodie: “The more powerful you make government, the more powerful you make corporations.”

True, but unfortunately the same thing happens when you weaken government.

Anonymous

Boycott everything thats copyrighted

BOYCOTT HOLLYWOOD

Anonymous

i also am crying. it is like inventing the telephone and then saying yeah cool, but you can’t lay wires for it… what the?

Anonymous

In response to #37, I read once this is an executive agreement, not requiring approval by the Senate. But you are right that it would trump other laws. It would even trump the constitution.

And for colocation centers going to Latin America, I think that is out, becuase Mexico is for sure on board wiuth this agreement, though I don’t know about the other Latin countries.

Anonymous

LOL, would be amusing if some pariah state like North Korea wound up hosting the worlds free internet as a source of income while not letting there own citizens connect to it.

Anonymous

The best way to overthrow a bad law is to enforce it.

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

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