ah, never mind, Frist psot (in blogging and commenting) trumps all.

Very nice work.

–querent

What’s more concerning is the footnote reference to taking people down based on mere allegations of infringement – that is genuinely extending the power of copyright owners way beyond any existing level, and is bound to be abused.

When have people ever been punished based on mere allegations of a crime before?

3(b)(II) does look bad:

an online service provider expeditiously … disabling access to … activity, upon receipt of legally sufficient notice of alleged infringement …

but it’s qualified by:

except that the provisions of (II) shall not be applied to the extent that the online service provider is acting solely as a conduit for transmissions through its system or network.

So it doesn’t apply to termination because of file sharing, unless the ISP is doing more than providing the internet connection – a limitation which was interpreted pretty fairly in Australia’s iiNet case.

The rest of the clause is basically the same as the existing DMCA and the USFTA ‘notice and takedown’ provisions.

Sure, but a DVD drive can be used to play things legally. The same logic would have us banning kettles, because the hot water can be used to harm someone by splashing it on them. All this is, is big business and the society elite trying to gain more control and oppress the people more than before. It won’t be long before there is serious rioting on the streets if they keep it up. Because, people will want to be able to take photos, and if ACTA keeps going, cameras will become illegal.

Our domestic IP law is already currently tougher than the USA’s in many ways according to one of our leading IP lawyers:
http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2010/02/annual-301-parade-ustr-calls-for.html

The furthest Canada seems inclined to go down the copyright insanity road is notice and notice.

The point is that Canada and all the other countries of the world are sovereign nations. We make our own laws. We decide get to decide which treaties to sign and whether or not to ratify.

Just because the American government caved to the demands of a corporate lobby group and legislated in favor of said lobby (DMCA takedowns) to the detriment of their citizens, culture and American society as a whole (by throwing out little legal “luxuries” like the rule of law and presumption of innocence) does not mean that the rest of the world needs to follow suit.

We don’t want no stinkin’ “DMCA and the USFTA ‘notice and takedown’ provisions. ”

Down with ACTA. Tell your elected representatives NO.

But you’re wrong. If they don’t do this, then stop being protected as a “safe harbor” and THEY are shut down.

You also wrote: “Our jails are not going to overrun with millions of infringers, New York City is not going to ban tourists’ cameras in Time Square.”

In the UK tourists are being harassed and arrested for taking photos.

In the US last year a young woman spent a couple of nights in jail for making a home movie of her sister’s birthday party in a movie theatre.

http://stopusagebasedbilling.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/errata-a-c-t-a-is-bad/

The theatre offered a “have your birthday here” promotion, so thats where the family went. The girl photographer was detained by the theatre staff. She had taken a total 3-4 minutes of video, including trailers, and did voice over narration for it. Clearly this was a home movie and still she went to jail. This happened in the USA before ACTA.

I think it was Italy that was looking at jailing 4 Google executives for allowing an offensive video to be posted. As soon as they received a complaint they took it down immediately. But the Italian court thought they should be censoring what was put online and taking it off before complaints are made.

This is NOT doom mongering. These things are happening in anticipation of ACTA.

It’s the little erosions we allow to pass that build and build and build send the world to hell.

We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA.

Feel free to join!

also, most people outside the US – we need easier and cheaper ways to buy stuff and faster ways to reach us – like in Japan, they add the cost of your digital products to your phone bill – easy. not like in other countries where you need to get a credit card (i don’t have one)- to even get paypal. if they let me topup my digital credit at my atm. at this moment, i have to run from store to store and ask if they carry certain products – CDs and books – then wait for 6 to 8 weeks to get here (s.e asia).

and to #38
>Still, this does not mean that we can relax. This text should scare us. The text as it is now, effectively means the end of free speech on the internet.

yes. but like a commenter said previously, people are one day gonna wake up with this law already in place and there will be nothing you can do about it :(

Photographing copyright material? On your phone… which is always connected?

Yes, they would call that infringing use. Under ACTA Nokia would have to shut you down.

And how do they know it’s there? They have to monitor everything on our digital equioment. Currently in Canada our regulatory body the CRTC has given the backbone ISP Bell Canada to monitor all internet traffic so they can decide what traffic to deliberately impede. They use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to do this. DPI gives them the technical ability to look at anything unencrypted so they can read our email if they want. Or look at our kid’s picture.

One of the biggest fighters against the UK’s digital Economy Bill is an ISP called talktalk. They aren’t fighting this law just because of the potential for abuse or for the privacy issues… this will be very expensive for them. Adding people to monitor/assess/censor all the content online all the time will make internet costs quadruple at least.

In April there will be more talks about this chapter. I don’t believe “they” discussed this already in depth. I think the US merely showed this text to the other parties in order for them to respond to it in April.

There is no way in hell the EU is gonna implement the policies as portrait here. The response from the EU reminds the US that on several points, the US will have to make special deals with each and every European country.

The EU delegation is not authorized to make these deals. Separate negotiations with Membership Countries will take a very long time and I don’t think will have any chance of succeeding. That’s why this ACTA stuff is going on in secret in the first place.

Still, this does not mean that we can relax. This text should scare us. The text as it is now, effectively means the end of free speech on the internet.

So basically, they’re trying to turn the internet into a regulated medium, the same as traditional television media.

“According to my source, the US proposal is the current version of the treaty as of the conclusion of the Mexico round”

Lies all over ACTA. A few days ago the UE published a report on the negotiations in Mexico that reads:

“Chapter of the Internet, all the discussions revolved around the comments attached to the American proposals. Ces propositions militent pour une responsabilité accrue des intermédiaires techniques, l’inclusion d’une procédure de Notice & Take Down (notification avec menace) contre les acteurs en ligne, etc. These proposals argue for increased accountability of intermediate technology, including a procedure Notice & Take Down (reporting with a threat) against players online, etc.. La question des mesures techniques (sanction juridique des contournements techniques) est restée sur la touche, par manque de temps. The question of technical measures (legal sanction circumvention techniques) remained on the sidelines for lack of time. « Les discussions se focalisent toujours sur la clarification des différents concepts techniques par conséquent il n’ya pas eu beaucoup de progrès en termes de texte commun » note la Commission européenne. “The discussions are always focused on the clarification of various technical concepts therefore there has not been much progress in terms of common text” notes the European Commission. Lors de la prochaine réunion, il est d’ores et déjà entendu qu’Europe et États-Unis feront une présentation de leur système respectif, « pour clarifier les questions ». At the next meeting, it is already understood that Europe and the United States will present their respective systems, “to clarify the issues.”

http://bit.ly/dpLJaA

Either they did have time and governments all over are LYING or this is already negotiate the Internet.

========================================

The very idea of forcibly “deputising” ISPs or any other kind technology company to behave as an arm of law enforcement entity for other corporations is absurd. Even if it was a good thing, they are not trained to do it.

http://stopusagebasedbilling.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/nutshell-net-neutrality/

Legal systems have evolved in democratic nations with checks and balances designed to protect society from abuse by those in power. This is why Law Enforcement agencies must get warrants, and have “probable cause” before depriving citizens of their rights.

Ostensibly to “protect copyright” we are supposed to throw out pesky ideas like “innocent until proven guilty” and the rule of law.

This is so wrong.

ACTA, on the other hand, is about fencing off intellectual property–and spreading its bizarre enforcement regime to every corner of traditionally legitimate usage, to the benefit of private companies only.