Copyright Kremlinology: understanding the secret copyright treaty

My latest Internet Evolution column, "Copyright Undercover: ACTA & the Web," talks about the absurd tea-leaf-reading exercise that we have to engage in to figure out what's actually happening with negotiations for a far-reaching, secret copyright treaty that could change the face of the web, privacy, creativity, competition, and commerce.

As the seventh round of secret negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) concluded last month in Guadalajara, Mexico, the radio silence on the negotiations was near-total. Like the Kremlinologists of the Soviet Union, we're left trying to interpret the clues that leaked out from beneath the closed door.
Here's what we know: The idea that major copyright treaties should be negotiated in secret is losing traction around the world. Legislators from all the ACTA negotiating countries are demanding that this process be opened up to the press, activist groups, and the public.
In response, trade reps are making the bizarre claim that none of the treaty language will result in major changes to their countries' laws, only the other countries will have to change. (Since all these countries have irreconcilably different copyright systems, someone is lying. My money is on all of them.)
Finally, we have some idea of how ACTA's masters view public participation: During the bland "public meeting" held before the negotiations got underway, an activist was thrown out for tweeting an account of the assurances being mouthed by those on the podium. As she was led away, she was booed by the lobbyists who are able to participate in the treaty from which mere citizens are excluded.
This issue is an embarrassment for all concerned, a naked bit of crony-capitalism that has so much more at stake than mere copyright. It needs to stop. Read on for how it came to this, and what you can do to stop it.

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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The more I hear, the more I am convinced that we have to stop these people, long enough for new technologies (and new ways of sharing information and doing business) to send them right to past (and dead) history.

“Intellectual property”, by which you don’t mean getting the credit, nor having your authorship recognized, etc… Granting a monopoly over an idea is just that: an state grant of judicial action against other people who only use their property as they see fit and do the best that humans can do: imitate and adapt others’ ideas. Even the most genial, original ideas are just that, reshuffling something that already exists in a different way.

When will we recognize it for what it is? It’s not property. It negates other people’s freedom. It’s a monopoly granted for purely utilitarian reasons, which are then negated when the original period is extended over and over. It’s a form of government coercion on behalf of a private party for the “greater good” of innovation, that in the end kills innovation, freedom and all pretense that government acts for the public good.