Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. It's been popping up in the news channels I've been listening to, but I always hesitated about writing on it. Mainly because I didn't know if it was being blown out of proportion by those involved.
Most of it in guesswork, simply because no one really knows about it. It is being designed in private, between industry leaders and politicians, but no one else is really involved. And, all the secrecy pretty much means people are left to guess what is happening about this thing. It doesn't help that "possible" drafts are being leaked and they are... well, scary. The idea of the three-strikes being enforced by EVERY country who sides on the agreement, with a system much like the DCMA is scary. The doomsayers of this thing say that it will have companies like the MPAA and RIAA simply say someone is infringing and, without judical overview, they are going to be disconnected from the Internet. Period.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/05/us-trade-rep-weasels.htmlhttp://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/14/new-acta-copyright-t.html#previousposthttp://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/19/eff-analyzes-the-leg.html#previouspostThe secrecy is the hard part. According to some reporting, the only ones who got to see this thing are heads of organizations like the MPAA, RIAA, and large-scale companies (Walmart, eBay, etc). It is being drafted as an executive memo, not a law. According to some of the legal types, this is a way of getting around Congress and their arguments and reviews. No doubt, if we really take the sinister approach to things, it is done in private because it *will* upset a lot of people. Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission.
I want this to be public, mainly because I don't want to find out one day that suddenly me, and everyone else in the country, is under the oversight of the RIAA and MPAA. And, if it really is that terrible, like people say it could be, will anyone care? We already have people treating the crime of downloading music and movies to be worse than rape, child abuse, and second degree murder (as purely fines go) and somehow people seem fine with that.
This frustrates me, in so many ways. I'm a rather active supporter of movies, I have a couple thousand DVD's in the filing cabinet behind me. I buy music online quite often, but I'm having a doubt that these companies and organizations are really viable. Yes, I'll miss out on movies, but the idea that someone could use my bandwidth and get me kicked off the Internet for LIFE just sickens me.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/30/eu-memo-on-secret-co.htmlThe idea of the DCMA is a wonderful thing for companies who own copyrights. But, it is abused. THere are mutliple cases where people send out blanketed DMCA notices out, if it even matches a single word or two. There is no penalty for sending out frivioulus DCMA notices, so all you need is a battery of printers and you can tie everything up in legal notices. THen, it becomes the duty of the person posting or creating the object to prove they have the right. And, how do you prove Reasonable Use? You know, that thing in copyright law that lets us take parts of something to critique or comment on it? One game writer posted shots of his game on YouTube, which was DMCA's by a company who owned rights to something entirely else.
So, yeah, I'm sure this won't be abused at all... *sigh*
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/04/woman-jailed-charged.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+Readerhttp://consumerist.com/2009/12/charged-with-felony-after-taping-4-minutes-of-new-moon.htmlIn related news, apparently some woman was charged with a felony for recording four minutes of a movie during a birthday party in a theater. This is partially because in Illinois, the MPAA petitioned to make it a felony for any amount of recording in a theater (most thefts are from reviewer copies these days). I don't agree with the severity of this. Or the theater owner who continues to press charges on the issue.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/28/pub-fined-8k-after-u.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+ReaderRelated to that is this. A pub was fined a couple thousand dollars because a customer infringed on the network. It is a pub, just like Starbucks and Barnes and Noble both have public wifi. It was also in the UK, but the idea that a company can't afford to offer public wireless is frustrating. And it becomes a threat. "If you can't prove which customer it was, you are liable." Guess what happens after that? No more public wireless networks.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/28/drm-versus-innovatio.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+ReaderYeah, lots of links to Boing Boing on this. This happens to be a great little article about how DRM stifles innovation. The DMCA is basically another tool for digital rights. Instead of software protections, it protects the protection itself. You can put a simple wrap, a click through license that says you can't, then use DMCA to sue anyone who creates a compatible product or moves a movie to a different machine to watch it there.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/26/how-britains-pirate.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+Readerhttp://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/20/britains-new-interne.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+ReaderIn the UK, they now have an office for protecting all of these. There are a few complaints about it, mainly because they can make rules and, effectively laws, to protect copyright holders. Without going through the House of Lords or any other government body.
It is hard to see the bright light at the end of this. There is so much going on and I honestly can't tell what is serious and what isn't. When ACTA does come out and it really ends up being as serious and abusive as people say it was, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to handle when systems already known to be abused are inflicted on others and it becomes so easy to destroy people's lives.
And I'm really not happy with the idea of this treaty being completely secret, for national security reasons. There is no transparency, there is no negotiation. It sounds like from everything I read, it is going to be presented as "here it is, ignorance is not an excuse."
