IP Alliance says that encouraging free/open source makes you an enemy of the USA

The US-based International Intellectual Property Alliance has asked the US Trade Rep to add Indonesia to its list of rogue nations that don't respect copyright. What did Indonesia do to warrant inclusion on this "301 list"? Its government had the temerity to advise its ministries to give preference to free/open source software because it will cost less and reduce the use of pirated proprietary software in government. According to the IPA, this movement to reduce copyright infringement is actually bad for copyright, because "it fails to build respect for intellectual property rights and also limits the ability of government or public-sector customers (e.g., State-owned enterprise) to choose the best solutions."

This is like crack dealers campaigning against having a laugh with friends because happiness reduces the need for intoxicants. This is like... well, it's like a bunch of fat-cat scumbags behaving so shamefully that you want to smack them.

Let's forget that the statement ignores the fact that there are plenty of businesses built on the OSS model (RedHat, WordPress, Canonical for starters). But beyond that, it seems astonishing to me that anyone should imply that simply recommending open source products - products that can be more easily tailored without infringing licensing rules - "undermines" anything.
In fact, IP enforcement is often even more strict in the open source community, and those who infringe licenses or fail to give appropriate credit are often pilloried.
If you're looking at this agog, you should be. It's ludicrous.
But the IIPA and USTR have form here: in recent years they have put Canada on the priority watchlist.

When using open source makes you an enemy of the state

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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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Anonymous

The problem with much of the banter against the Indonesian Gov’t not being allowed to promote FOSS is that Microsoft has parlayed with the US Gov’t & many others as well to the tune of millions, most of which is personally pocketed. This immediately undermines the balance in comparing Windows & Linux or Windows software versus FOSS.

Therefore I say to hell with playing fair. Screw the participants that don’t play fair themselves & let FOSS have at it. Promote FOSS at all costs. For those here on the Mucksoft side, screw you!
2k

Time and again I have to reassure myself that this is just more evidence of synthetic evil.
Sure, people’s priorities are out of place and everyone is really only acting in their own self interest.
But surely, somwhere, evil masterminds are plotting the downfall of the human race. For all the hundreds of compromised individuals that looked and saw and ignored their instinct to right behaviour; there must be one who knowingly initiated with evil intent.
EEEEEEVIIIIILLL I say!!!
Anonymous

CD, not only do you want to smack them, but you actually do! This is the kind of hang-it-out-there post from BB that now shanghai’s my start-up routine into first catching up with all I’ve missed since my last run through Boingdom. Stash a search engine field on your start page, and I bet your stats with BB as a Home Page would mutate positively by several orders. Carry on, Cory!
Rick York

Well. it’s about time all you criminals got what you deserve. What’s with this “Open” stuff. If it is not owned, it must be illegal. Right?

Seriously though, it’s way past time that this conversation expands beyond the tech and geek communities. We should be brainstorming ways to get the public at large upset about this ACTA, DRM, I-own-what-you-bought crap.

Is there some place we can brainstorm this? The clock is ticking. The Democrats are owned lock, stock and barrel by the Entertainment industry. (I am a life long progressive Democrat) If this gets to Congress without being fumigated, publicized and sunshined, we are all going to be thrown in the deep end.

One does not have to be geek savvy to understand that this kind of thinking is dangerous and damaging to your health.
- Anonymous
  
  Hear Here, Rick, but where?
- Laurel L. Russwurm
  
  I’m a non-geek (rapidly becoming a geek) who started a blog specifically to fight against Usage Based Billing (aka Metered Broadband) which has been provisionally improved in Canada. I’ve been learning the geek stuff to be able to translate it for non-tech people in my public service blog Stop Usage Based Billing
  
  In Canada the media is not covering UBB (vested interests) so my priority has been to try to spread the word outside the technical community. If enough people know it might be stopped. Along with advocating ways to fight UBB I’ve been translating computerese into English so ordinary people (like I was a few months ago) can understand it.
  
  Through learning about net neutrality I found out about ACTA and have written a lot in StopUBB to spread the word about it. Because the politics of ACTA are the same as for UBB: it will only fly if it is in the dark. If enough people find out about and yell loudly before it is done deal, ACTA can be stopped.
  
  They seem to be trying to fast track ACTA. Something many people still don’t know is that it is being done under an executive order so Congress doesn’t get a vote on it, President Obama’s signature will make it binding on the USA.
  
  That’s why they are fighting so hard to keep it secret: so each country can tell their citizens, “The other countries made us do it”.
  
  I’ve licensed the StopUBB blog directly into the Public Domain under a Creative Commons license because the word must spread. If there are any articles like “ACTA Is Bad” or my “how torrents work” diagrams that anyone else can use in their blogs or to explain to Grandma, or whatever, go for it. Spread the word!
  
  But everybody who knows about ACTA has to start telling every non-tech person they know because ACTA will have a huge impact on the world if it goes through.
Laurel L. Russwurm

Canada, along with Indonesia, has been included on the list of countries recommended for the USTR watch list.

According to Michael Geist ( http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4818/125/ )
Canada is ranked 13th, above the USA which is ranked 15th, in the International Property Rights Index. Since the United States’ copyright record is worse than Canada’s, why isn’t it on the list as well?

As a Canadian I was just one Canadian private citizen who made a submission on behalf of Canadian copyright sovereignty since our government didn’t see fit to bother.
http://laurelrusswurm.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/canadian-copyright-is-a-canadian-affair/

Seems the USTR watch list of “rogue nations” is determined solely by political agenda, which at the very least calls the veracity of the whole Special 301 process into question.
Anonymous

I look at it as a convenient list of companies to boycott.
Anonymous

yes. It’s seems a sin to be overly ad hoc.
DarthVain

“…have put Canada on the priority watchlist.”

Ya? Go ahead and watch. Watch and learn.
Anonymous

Pirated product = open source product = no sale for commercial product. It makes no difference to the corporations who own most of our government representatives. It may make a difference to We The People, maybe, but we just get the lip service these days.
Heartfruit

Way to make the 301 list more of a laughing stock then it already was International Intellectual Property Alliance!
jonobarel

To put it in perspective, though, it’s important to read the IIPA’s response to the Indonesian government’s statement; they’re not saying that FOSS opposes intellectual property. What they are saying, and this is key, is that when a government recommends one type of software over another, it is disrupting fair competition in the market.
Imagine, for instance, that the government had recommended proprietary software, as that would “improve security”. Obviously, this would cause an outcry from the FOSS community.
But of course, this argument breaks down; the government is perfectly entitled to advocate FOSS much as it is entitled to advocate that people drink fewer sugary drinks and try jogging, without C*c* C*la or manufacturers of expensive exercise gear going ballistic.
- Anonymous
  
  Imagine, for instance, that the government had recommended proprietary software, as that would “improve security”. Obviously, this would cause an outcry from the FOSS community
  
  No problem, an example – the copyright owner can grant license to another party, which will then repackage and sold said software with proprietary license.
  
  Which the proprietary vendors can do as well here in Indonesia’s case – sell their software with Open Source license; voila — you’re back in business.
  
  Open Source is just another technical requirements in this case. Like when you buy a car; you’d like a car with this and this specification. Say, you want a red-colored spoiler on it.
  
  Then said vendor can modify the car as per your requirement, and then paid in full.
  
  Instead of fulfilling this requirement – IIPA cried and asked the big daddy (aka US gov’t) to declare red spoiler as a crime.
  
  WTF indeed :)
howaboutthisdangit

Wow, so this poster is real then…

http://archive.nodalpoint.org/2007/08/26/open_source_communism
Rick York

Anon @25. I was kind of hoping that maybe Cory would take up that cudgel. Nobody knows me but, his name could pull some real weight. I give to EFF and believe strongly in what they do. But, what we need is a real single purpose, monomaniacal Political Action Committee that will raise significant amounts of money to get the word out any way we can. I’d be happy to help with organizing it. Unfortunately, I’m a retired old geezer with limited income. I do have time.

Cory, you there?
Anonymous

So, if I drink for a water fountain instead of buying a drink form starbucks I’m a filthy pirate and need to be watched perhaps even cut off from the rest of the world correct?
sabik

Interesting how they frame FOSS as a “development model” â€” that is, something irrelevant to the purchaser â€” rather than as a licensing model.

If you don’t have the source and the right to use it, you’re in a single-supplier situation as far as any updates or changes are concerned. For a government to be in a single-supplier situation with a foreign supplier is even worse.

Either the IIPA doesn’t get it, or it’s deliberately trying to mislead people. Maybe both.
Anonymous

This is the same logic by which gay marriage is a threat to straight marriage. Some people are very threatened by the idea that there might not be just One Right Way to do things.
RussNelson

Section 301 is now a badge of courage, to be worn on one’s sleeve.
Anonymous

LMAO, fine let them have it their way, I’m an enemy of the USA. Does anybody care? Let them push all the nonsense they like at the US government, if they succeed they will end up losing *any* public sympathy for their position. Even the most ignorant can surely see past this tripe.
Shay Guy

Lemme know when America bottoms out.
japolo

note that the RIAA website seems to run on Apache and PHP (both FOSS products)
japolo

HTTP/1.x 200 OK
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:54:45 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.10

something i grabbed from liveheaders before their site became unresponsive.
sd37

Even more ironic is how so much of open source software was built by either direct or indirect US government funding. I guess the US should put itself on the watch list for making so much of the stuff.
grantm

The IIPA web site itself seems to be running on an Open Source web server. It says it’s running ‘ConcentricHost-Ashurbanipal/2.0 (XO(R) Web Site Hosting)’ but it appears to be Apache with a customised server header. E.g.: http://www.iipa.com/pdf/
angusm

The idea that anything can or should be free is a pernicious falsehood that threatens to undermine our whole way of life. If we let people have software for free, soon they’ll start believing that other things – air, water, sunlight etc. – should also be free. In the 1960s, we knew what to call that kind of thinking and we called it Communism. Then, as now, the only thing standing in the way of a Communist victory was our willingness to fight them on the battlefields of South-East Asia.

We at the IIPA recognize that not all those involved in the open-source movement are necessarily malicious, but they are nonetheless tampering with forces beyond their control and setting a terrible precedent.

Our motto: “Keeping you free by making sure that nothing else is.”
- Anonymous
  
  @ angusm: It’s been a few days since I’m trying to believe that a normal person, living in a country like America, having a job, a family, etc. actually wrote something like that with an intent other than making people laugh (no offense intended, just my way of saying I’m stunned)
  
  I feel like mentioning this is like telling people they need to breathe to live, but still; Whoever sees freedom as communism or an oppressive system is heavily misguided. Free software / Open Source consists of people who do things out of passion, and offer something to others while expecting nothing back. Someone who works in open source (like me) basically works to offer everyone something useful / fun for nothing.
  
  If anything it’s something to be grateful for, because such people offer to you without expecting something back. Alongside copyrights reaching a level where you’re afraid to click the wrong button on your computer in your own home (THAT is true communism and a roadway to terror), we say such things to people who put effort in making us something for free? (some of those “us” including ungrateful people which imho don’t deserve it). Take some time and think about it… at some point we must realize we DON’T want to live like robots!
andreinla

They are not behaving shamefully, just without morals. When greed is the only incentive, and the goal justifies the means, we get… well, we get what we have as corporate behavior here in the U.S.

No morals, infinite greed, no compassion, zero care for the well-being of impacted human beings, plants, animals and the environment.

We end up converting evertything into cash, like locusts convert everything into locust poop.

For a new perspective on how money can be transformed to heal our wounded society, read this.
- 2k
  
  I wondered how long it would be before the sandwich was linked here.
  by the way: Yikes!
- RussNelson
  
  But …. but … greed is the motive, but it is moderated by the need to please customers (in a free market). The greediest entity gets the most money by pleasing the most people (in a free market). Unfortunately, many many people are dubious of free markets. They want governments to guide markets. Unfortunately, that gives greed people a way to get money WITHOUT pleasing customers. All they have to do is please the government. Then you end up with a fight over control of the government, and it becomes important to shut up corporations.
  
  Whereas, instead, if we had separation of state and markets, just like we have separation of state and religion, many of the problems we have today simply melt away. You may scoff at the concept, but a few hundred years ago, people scoffed at the concept of a state with freedom of religion.
  - remmelt
    
    The free market as you describe it is not a stable state.
    
    Besides all the monopolies that would quickly ensue, bigger companies pushing smaller newcomers out of the game (but what if they have better service? they’re new, they don’t have better marketing/deeper legal pockets), besides the ultimate transparent market being a utopia, there would be the following problem.
    
    Big corp gets big and wants to make more profit. It can only do so by manipulating laws. So, Dick Cheney style, a senior officer retires and goes into politics. Can’t forbid that, right? Making a law against that would be “guiding the market”. So, our Dick gets into office and starts scratching the backs of the guys who got him there (remember, no rules allowed against corporate financing of political campaigns, that would be market guiding) and before you know it, there are going to be rules that favor some corps over others (see: DMCA). And poof! There goes your “free” market.
    
    The “free market” is not a stable state and it needs government guiding to remain free and open, which for some will always mean that it’s not free enough.
- demidan
  
  You are right in a way, they are not acting shamefully, they are acting Shamelessly. Greed is greed, though theirs,(in their minds) is a better pirate free greed.
ElTimbalino

Cory Doctrow [This is like... well, it's like a bunch of fat-cat scumbags behaving so shamefully that you want to smack them.] I love you when you work yourself into a foamy rant. Mostly because in your passion you express the rage that cool logic cannot communicate.
Thalia

Although I do not think their recommendation is something that is appropriate, I do think that the overblown way in which it has been reported is counterproductive. Read the 301 Report. It lists a long list of behaviors that they consider problematic. The Open Source discussion is in the context of “Access to Markets” which is one of the areas they address in their 301 reports. And you know, they’re correct that the recommendation for exclusive Open Source use in government reduces their members’ access to the markets. Is this the reason Indonesia is on the list? Not by a far shot. I realize there is a lot of emotional involvement in these issues at BB, but please do stick to the facts.
- Anonymous
  
  …they’re correct that the recommendation for exclusive Open Source use in government reduces their members’ access to the markets.
  
  Government is not a market. It is a commonweal. It stands above and outside of markets and its influence on markets is intentionally regulatory.
  
  Unless, of course, you live under a government which does not allow representation and participation by the governed.
  
  Your argument is flawed.
Bucket

Is your datacenter breeding Bolsheviks?
efergus3

And I use Open Office – oh, nooooooo!
kevinsky

I’m proud to live in a country that encourages open source software, is easy-going on marijuana, allows gay marriage, and has secretly trapped all of USA’s athletes within an electric perimeter fence, where they will shortly be fitted with head-asploding neck sensors that will eliminate them when they try to escape from their lifetime of toil in our maple syrup mines!
Anonymous

goodbye corporations! your generation will be in weelchairs soon.

you seem like wasps in the autumn. boys (they go nuts and die)