Last week MI5 in the UK argued against the 3-strikes filesharing laws as they would encourage private citizens to use cryptography better in their filesharing efforts.<p>If this treaty goes through it very well could be the harbinger of the widespread adoption of darknets, better censorship-resistant networks, and even more creative use of cryptography and networking technologies.<p>Rather than trying to affect legislative change (which is a viable strategy too), some may wish to consider disruptive technologies which will render treaties such as this irrelevant.
Prediction: the treaty at the moment is deliberately bad in order to provoke outrage and allow parties to the talks to negotiate a "better" compromise.<p>So, say, "three strikes" will get thrown out or, more likely, modified to include an appeal process, and anticircumvention provisions will quietly get ratcheted up as the other side of the "compromise".
Here's Wikileaks' coverage:<p><a href="http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Proposed_US_ACTA_multi-lateral_intellectual_property_trade_agreement_%282007%29" rel="nofollow">http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Proposed_US_ACTA_multi-lateral_int...</a><p>Maybe it's worth toying with the idea of setting up a private ISP—a pre-emptive underground? This situation is absolutely ridiculous.
There are much better solutions to deal with these issues without trying to turn ISP's and Website administrators into the second-string secret police!<p>I know it's a real problem and does deserve attention. But it's one thing if some guy is trying to sell millions of digital copies of the latest Madonna video from some motel in Eastern Europe, but it's quite another if someone uses a few snips of songs in a video he's doing for YouTube!<p>I've experienced PERSONALLY what I would consider a smart approach and a dumb approach on this.<p>I did some 30 second little YouTube videos to promote a thing I'm doing... and in a couple of them I used snippets from a couple of popular songs... I'm fairly naive and didn't think much of it because I wasn't selling the videos, but I was promoting my thing (fortunately very benign so that wasn't an issue)! Though it could be a fair concern...<p>Anyway, to make a long story short...<p>Their YouTube algorithms or whatever found 'em and did their robot "thing"... but here's the interesting surprise!<p>On one (with a clip for a Barbara Streisand song) they just added a little button to the bottom of my video identifying the song with a link for purchase! I was fine with that and so were they!(it was Sony) A smart approach!<p>But for the other, with a great guitar clip from Jeff Beck, they just stripped the audio from my 30 second video... which I suppose was in a way fair... but all that ended up happening is I had a useless video... and they lost an opportunity for some sales... I forgot the publisher on that one... but it was a damn good video!<p>This obviously doesn't cover all issues but the point is that there are much wiser approaches that this abominable plan.<p>But politicians are like very stupid carpenters. They only understand hammers... so everything becomes a nail to be pounded into the ground.
This is a better article:<p><a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4510/125/" rel="nofollow">http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4510/125/</a>
To: The profit mongering companies with lobbyists and idiotic politicians who cause legislation like this to be created.<p>We'd like our internet back now.<p>Sincerely,<p>The Compter Scientists, the group of people who invented the internet.
The mechanism is wide open for abuse. If this regime comes to pass, I would expect different groups to be issuing bogus takedown notices against competitors...<p>Imagine if PETA activists started nailing the public IP's of meatpacking companies with allegations of copyright infringement...<p>or imagine that you're in the middle of a complex court fight and your law firm, and most of your lawyers home and mobile ips are shut down in a coordinated attack...
Cory Doctorow, Michael Geist, and the EFF are three pretty credible sources. Nevertheless, something doesn't feel right about this. My guess is someone's leaking a draft or a proposal in an attempt to influence the negotiations, probably someone who knew it would kick up a shitstorm. As well it should.<p>I'll go out on a limb and predict nothing much comes of this.<p>Edit: after reading more about it, I learned that ACTA is a treaty process that's been going on for years. It's hard to see how something this draconian ever gets ratified in all these countries.
As I read it this is no longer about Copyright any more; it is about certain government positioning themselves, their lawmakers and their major companies into a situation where they wish to control the internet.<p>This is a bad thing.<p>I am a supporter, generally, of the idea of copyright (it needs a review, sure) but this is just silly...
Thank Biden for this.<p>Seriously, he has been a long time friend of the content industries. Ever since he was nominated I've been looking for something like this to happen.
I could imagine this coming from any administration and any congress in my lifetime. Very little has changed no matter how often the parties swapped, and no matter how pretty the speeches were. The content industries continue to be powerful lobbyists, to our detriment.<p>We are constantly relearning the lesson: don't trust politicians. Democracy is a machine for serving concentrated interests at the expense of the general well-being<p>Hopefully our champions will stop this. However, there will be no idealistic debate behind the scenes on the topic of what constitutes the public interests. There will only be politicians silently weighing what is in their own personal interest. As it always has been, and as it always will be.
I'm a little late to the party here, but a lot of people are obviously angry about this. Skimming the comments, it looks like a lot of 'end-of-the-internet' speculation.<p>Not if we can help it. If you're in the U.S., please write your representatives and let them know how dangerous this is. This is still a country ruled by its people, for its people. Even if this is a hoax, it will let your elected officials know copyright law is a serious issue in their district, and hopefully treat it as such.<p>Find out who your reps and senators are at this link, and write!
<a href="http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml</a>
Well, sooner or later the Internet will go the way of radio and TV: megacorps only. Once there's a critical mass of people using a medium who don't really care about it, and just consume what's available, it is only a matter of time.<p>The question is, what comes next. Maybe it's mesh networks, maybe private satellites, maybe something else entirely. Of course, the new network will initially be slow, and for geeks only. Then there will be explosive growth. Then it will be regulated into oblivion. And the cycle will repeat itself.
I see this as a perfectly logical next step: the demands eventually grow outrageous enough that it's all just begging for a huge backfire.<p>The potential difference between the old fashioned copyright business and the new wave is growing. In order to keep things balanced as the new wave is gaining more energy the old business must expend an equal amount of energy to compensate for this change.<p>That's why when old structures are breaking they first resist until the last straw, and then come down collapsing.
I am dubious that such language will appear in any kind of treaty in the future.<p>I'm not calling BoingBoing a liar, but I find it hard to believe that the U.S. is going to pass laws or engage in treaties that destroy some of its greatest companies. Either these provisions are misunderstood, they are proposed amendments that nobody thinks will be in the final language, or they are interpretations by folks looking to sabotage the negotiations. If I had to guess I'd say the latter, but that's just intuition.<p>My call based on one article? Flame bait for nerds.<p>Show me some more sources and we'll see if this develops into something worthy of all the yelling and shouting.<p>Even if this is true -- multi-source, people. It's much too easy for "leaks" to be more manipulative in nature when the internet is one big echo chamber.
I think it's enough of a reason to build community networks. You are just connected to friends over wifi and they are connected to some other friends. As long as it stays distributed enough that would be ok.
You have to expect it will be bad if they won't even say what is in it because doing so would "threaten national security".<p>They must think everyone is an idiot if they will believe that.
so, i'm curious, what are the best arguments for this?<p>the reason i ask is that it seems like the rules, as they currently exist, are valid on paper but illegitimate in practice. is it really worth it to extend the illusion of copyright protection to the rest of the planet knowing full well that it's got little hope of succeeding? or is there a way to argue that the system, as it works in the U.S. is a success?
This is hopefully some huge hoax. But if it isn't it should (and deserves to) create and real worldwide firestorm.<p>This cannot stand and they can't possibly be stupid enough to try to make it stand!<p>But beware their "fallback" positions! And the devil is in the details. They may just feel that by putting out such an outrageous proposal they can fall back to a merely disgusting and slimy one.
I wonder what happens if the 'infringement' occurs over an open wifi network, how can one be made accountable if anyone can use your connection? Even if they enforced it by a hardware fingerprint or something, laptops can be stolen, and who the hell is going to enforce no open wifi networks!? The outrage!
<i>That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger</i><p>Is there a confusion between an ISP and a Web site here? I've never heard the term "ISP" applied to companies that just run Web sites.
Okay, this one reeks of Classic American Arrogance (as in on the part of the Government). You guys can enforce whatever stupid policy you want within your country, but what makes you think you can get all other countries to join with you???<p>I hardly think you will be able to convince 10 countries to sign that treaty.
Maybe vote it up on Reddit[1], that might spread some awareness, or submit it to Slashdot.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/a0nnp/secret_copyright_treaty_leaks_its_bad_very_bad/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/a0nnp/secret_cop...</a>
I can't help to start a facebook group "Stop Obama Administration to destroy Internet". I see there are a lot of ACTA related groups already formed. All groups should join together if the content is confirmed.