The blogosphere is abuzz over an apparently leaked document showing the United States trying to push its controversial DMCA-style notice-and-takedown process on the world. We’re more bothered by the fact that the U.S. proposal goes far beyond that 1998 law, and would require Congress to alter the DMCA in a manner even more hostile to consumers.
News link: here
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33 Responses
12.4.2009
I’d rather valuable content go broadly pirated on a non-filtered open internet, than a filtered internet introduced to stiffle piracy but then once filtered under the heel of coporate and social whim.The reason the internet became so successful, and so many new jobs were created, companies were minted, technologies developed, was because of it’s wide open all served to all structure. Anyone could start whatever they pleased and it could take off and become a global phenomenon, like google, or youtube, or amazon, or wikipedia. You get between that openness and accessibility in the name of enforcing copyright, oversold as real world theft of actual valuables like a car or a handbag, every corporate interest who can benefit from being able to place themselves in that position between you and the network will do so, and stifle and cramp the intternet down to a miserable pay as you go gatekeepered shallow ghost of its former self. IT will destroy the most valuable and potential packed advance the human race has seen since the birth of TV, radio, or the printing press. All under the guise of the value of copyright of a digital media file being so great that it outstrips the importance and value of the entire internet itself.Idiotic and once done, never undone.All I need do to glimpse what a corporate controlled internet would be like, is hit up the "web" through my mobile phone. Castrated funneled through my telco’s "portal" with precious little content all of which is published and controlled by corporate interests not private, all of which has a ridiculous price tag attached which, genuinely online as we accept now, would be utterly and completely laughable. But it’s a captive audience, and given the chance to have an open web for phone users with decentralised content able to be published by all and the good ideas "making it", the telcos have instead chosen to create absolute laughable ***** instead. And it’s what they’ll end up dong with the open internet if they can get their foot in the door through efforts like these.RANT OVER LOL
12.4.2009
He lies. You can tell because he is a politician.
12.4.2009
Copyright was supposed to be limited to promote innovation, not unlimited like it was changed into because of lobbying by special interests. We need to make sure people we select into government actually represent us and change the draconian laws benefiting large corporations. After all, it’s us the citizens that may most of the taxes, large corporations pay practically nothing in comparison, so why are they the ones benefiting the most from all these laws that get passed? Because they use the money the save from not paying same level of taxes to lobby the government. There should be a law to outlaw all lobbying. All laws before they pass need to be proven to benefit the public and if not, no passage!
12.4.2009
I find it shocking that obama’s administration is responsible for this after everything he has said about embracing new technology. I’m pissed off.
12.4.2009
***** THE RIAA!
12.4.2009
I for one DON’T welcome our corporate overlords.You see kids, when greed is left with no checks and balances…it tries to take over the world. And when it succeeds, everyone loses.
12.4.2009
The thing that strikes me is how many of these punishments are based on accusations and not proof or due process. We need an 11th (28th?) amendment to add to the Bill of Rights that will work online. The Bill of Rights has worked quite well for more than 200 years, but it barely applies online, and there are significant dangers involved with the continued use of outdated laws. The potential for griefing by large corporations is enormous, and also worries me greatly. One example of this is how Valve’s "Meet the Scout" in the TF2 shorts was pulled off of Youtube by Viacom because of supposed copyright infringement. I really wish people would study up on the issues of copyright and not assume that they are forced to screw over either artists or consumers. There is such a thing as promoting reasonable download services like iTunes, Steam, and the like in order to combat piracy while helping consumers. It’s not a black or white issue, but people have been focusing on the negative and how to punish to the point that possible solutions and positives have been lost.
12.4.2009
What? Net Neutrality, the concept of all data being treated equally, instead of prioritised according to service and user, based on whatever factors the ISP might dream up?Yes, yes I do still want it.
12.4.2009
Why aren’t we hearing from Google, Comcast, ATT and the other corporations who are going to have their bottom lines affected by this?Remember how hard it was to cancel AOL back in the day? Clearly they wanted to keep every customer, and I’m sure existing ISP’s are no different. They are going to be dropping customers left and right, whether the people were truly infringing or now. We all know how accurate MediaSentry reports are.Google owns youtube, and there is currently no possible way to inspect everything. Plus, if someone uses GTalk to send a music file to someone else, then do they have to monitor this? Let’s be realistic here, the main reason people "pirate" is because the media companies aren’t giving them what they want. Make it easy for me to buy things digitally, with decent quality, for a reasonable price, that I can play on whatever device I want and I’ll be happy to pay for the content. Charge me MORE money for a degraded quality download than you do for actual physical media, and I’ll download it by other means. These people are living in a dream world. The internet is their worst enemy when it could be their best friend.
12.4.2009
It’s so ridiculous that a government would actually seek to stifle the best thing to happen to mankind (the internet) simply because they’re too lazy to make an effective business model. Time will correct this.
12.4.2009
It’s not about offering alternatives. It is about total control. If you don’t want to play by the game that the corporations are playing, they are trying to prevent you from coming along and offering something better than they can.Oh, this treaty also looks like it has some stiff punishments for circumventing DRM. It won’t be long after the treaty is written into stone that you will see an explosion of various DRM schemes to protect IP…when the reality of it is, back to the original problem…TOTAL CONTROL.
12.4.2009
I was surprised to find that this was one of the things he was lying about, i guess that helped him become a successful politician
12.4.2009
This isn’t Net Neutrality, its draconian copyright laws that will nosedive into a distinctly non Net Neutral world.
12.4.2009
frcc, like you, I instead want the corporations responsible for pushing draconian copyright laws *directly* in control of what I can and can’t do on the Internet.Down with government intervention! Let the corporations dictate my freedoms!
12.4.2009
so i guess this is why the revolution wont be televised.
12.4.2009
We need a third party. Like, one that doesn’t suck. And curses alot. I don’t trust parties that don’t curse.
12.4.2009
I suspect McCain would have been no different though. Copyright policy isn’t an election-deciding issue.
12.4.2009
Yes, it applies to all of those. The basic concepts of copyright law date from before the internet, remember.The purpose of the treaty seems to be to make copyright laws that can be enforced, because they are free from all the difficulties provided by due process, proof of guilt and a fair trial. If you strip all that from the law, then enforcement can be entirely automatic – a simple task of searching a p2p network, and sending automated demands to the ISPs of every result returned demanding disconnection of the identified IP address.
12.4.2009
The solution to both problems may be in part technological. More encryption.
12.4.2009
Let’s cut out the middle man and all the song and dance; instead of wasting a Billion, so that your war contractor buddy can make a Million, and instead of the DMCA, so that Disney can copyright Pinnochio for 200 more years and break into your house because you painted Dumbo on the wall — let’s just print the money and give it to the 25 families that are on the "winner list."Let’s get the fascism out in the open, so at least we can tell who we need to blow all our kisses to.
12.4.2009
Change we can believe in.
12.4.2009
I agree with you in a lot of ways, but I guess what I was saying may have been kind of murky. I have no doubt that there is a big push for total control, and that total control is a huge fear of mine. My concern is that those on the fringes, who do have a say in this, but aren’t directly involved (ie congress), are being misled because of a strong focus on negativity, piracy, and punishment. Apple and Valve have shown that there is a valid online market, but you need to provide a genuine service in order to be successful; I think that when more people recognize these examples, they will be more reasonable in the realm of public policy.
12.4.2009
Okay, look, regardless of how true or untrue your statement is, nobody agrees with everything any government does all the time. That does not mean they are all secretly Dr. Evil wearing masks.Also, it’s worth pointing out that no single government can "regulate the internet". Its citizens’ access to it? Sure, but the internet goes beyond America (rumour has it there’s a whole world out there).
12.4.2009
Firstly, a lot of those ISPs are also involved in media. Comcast, for example, is a major cable TV provider. They don’t like piracy at all – people who download TV won’t be subscribing to cable TV or viewing the adverts.Secondly, heavy pirates cost them money. If they can find an excuse to dump just the top 5% of users, it’d probably take more than half the load off their network, saving them a fortune in upgrade costs, fiber rental and peering costs.
12.4.2009
Man i didn’t even see it coming! I can’t believe i thought things would change. Anything i can do to help bring around change?
12.4.2009
Several Google employees (who have been present at the ACTA talks) signed an NDA legally preventing them from speaking about the talks (see keionline.org/node/660 for details). I suspect that this may have implications for the company as a whole.I wouldn’t expect anything good to come from Comcast & AT&T, nor from the rights-peddlers. Companies are bound by law to represent shareholder interests above all else. In the current mindset, that means short-term profit must trump long-term good, unless you can come up with some damn good reasons to convince your board that the two are functionally equivalent.We need corporate reform on a global level, to make long-term good something that corporations can actually work towards rather than against, and we need political reform that stifles both corporate influence on politics and overbroad government powers, so governments have no incentive to get involved in these kinds of shenanigans in the first place.
12.4.2009
I certainly don’t trust people who don’t cuss. Nor am I all that comfortable around people who can’t take a tasteless joke now and again.I’ll vote for the first man who rolls out his wife, along with his mistress and his wife says; "I’m very happy sharing my man."Because now I know, there’s someone who isn’t in a hurry for the rapture.
12.4.2009
"make sure people we select into government actually represent us and change the draconian laws benefiting large corporations." Ron Paul. Everyone had their chance.
12.4.2009
This has been an ongoing battle for a long time. Everyone is getting so bent out of shape over another so called law that is going to fail just like the rest of failed attempts to implement the same exact thing.Amazing, one infringment, $150,000 in damages. Does that apply to one mp3? One movie? One image?What tickles me is that when these attemps to pass these laws fail, the music and movie industry just look like even bigger A-holes.
12.4.2009
Net Neutrality grants government the authority to regulate the internet. This article shows you the consequences. Treating data equally is a talking point to get it passed.
12.4.2009
Still want "Net Neutrality"? Giving government authority over the internet won’t end well.