Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

[Zeta]

Yeah expect that shit to intensify after July of this year when ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is set to pass at the G8 summit. It will set up it's own international governing body that doesn't need to answer to national laws.

What it will do:
* It will give governments the right to require ISPs to collect information about your downloading habits and turn them over to law enforcement agencies without a warrant.
* Attempt to push to make the sale of blank DVDs and CDs illegal, as well as DVD and CD burners.
* Random laptop and mp3 device checks by customs at border crossings and international airports.
* Challenge numerous "fair use" laws, such as the one Bulbagarden itself uses to post Pokemon pictures.

Discuss. It seems to be violating pretty much any right to privacy anyone could expect to have ever online, or with their own personal digital media.

http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/science/story.html?id=ae997868-220b-4dae-bf4f-47f6fc96ce5e

 

[GrnMarvl14]

Yeah, this basically seems to be a direct blow to a person's right to decide what they do. I'm not ENTIRELY against monitoring what people do (I go back and forth on it), certainly stopping the sale of blank DVDs/CDs and CD/DVD burners is a bit extreme. Unless they expect us to go back to floppy disks/drives. Or switch to Zip disks. Or just use flash drives. Though, in that case, how can I put my home movies onto DVD so I can annoy people with them? How are high school bands going to be able to distribute their music without CD burners?

* Random laptop and mp3 device checks by customs at border crossings and international airports.

...Checking for bombs? Okay. Checking for illegal downloads? C'mon. Leave that for the local or governmental law enforcement agencies.

* Challenge numerous "fair use" laws, such as the one Bulbagarden itself uses to post Pokemon pictures.

So stupid. Just...so stupid.

I say, set up a governing body and allow corporations or companies to bring the issues up as they see fit. Then deal with them on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Zeta]

What really gets to me is the underhanded way they're trying to do this without the government or the people of any of these countries having a say. Ultimately, the goal of Hollywood and the music industry is to shut down the internet, this scary thing they don't understand. Worst-case scenario for us and the best case scenario for the entertainment industry is thus:

All they need to do is get the requisite laws in place, first they throw out people's rights over their own property, then they lean on the ISPs and privacy laws can be kissed goodbye. Finally, with both those in place, censorship blankets the whole net.

You'll have ISPs blocking the ip of anywhere that's not a major financial contributor, sniffing your packets based on download traffic, and shutting down anyone transferring large amounts of data that are NOT coming from a recognised major media site. Anywhere that tries to post the truth will be denied membership in their elite "club" and so will be shut down, because the ISPs will cut off their access.

The internet will cease to exist as we know it, and hey, suddenly we all live in China!

The hardest part will be doing anything about it once the generation who didn't grow up with the internet as it is now, but instead only know the internet as "that thing you buy stuff on, that you can pay a little more for to access even more sites" become the majority, after that point, we'll have no chance of disturbing the status quo.

Next step after that, they can start extending the laws to cover solid purchases, prohibiting you from trading in your stuff (Several in the gaming industry have already stated that services for trading in your games should not be provided by stores, as it hinders the publishers' profits - a baseless claim) so you'll be a criminal if you sell anything you own.

 

[Jukain]

This is bull.

 

[Astragali]

I'm sorry, Zeta, but I'm a little confused... I've been doing a few Google searches, and I couldn't find anything to do with ACTA relating to a potential ban on blank discs, or on the burners. Not even in the article which you linked in your initial post. I certainly found stuff about points 1 and 3, though, as well as mentions about the possibility of banning sales of multi-region DVD players, and attempting to stop large-scale disc copying operations (http://wikileaks.org/leak/acta-proposal-2007.pdf)

Thing is, a ban on the discs and burners would be unfeasible - it would hurt PC manufacturers, disc manufacturers, camcorder manufacturers, organizations which need to back up to optical discs - all kinds of people.

Gateway objected to a previous attempt to ban CD-burner sales in 2002 (http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-879811.html), and for me, it's hard to imagine that governments would cause harm to legitimate businesses just to pander to the MPAA and RIAA (but that is just my opinion, and not subject to any form of accuracy )

I mentioned "camcorder manufacturers"... one of whom is Sony. I believe they have a music division... I checked Sony's consumer electronics website, where they sell camcorders that record directly to DVDs. A ban on the sale of blank DVDs would hurt their camcorder division - and the only company I recall whose internal divisions battled it out was Apple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#1981_to_1989:_Lisa_and_Macintosh). Oh, yeah - Sony have branded CDs and DVDs, too. And computers, which can be bought with CD/DVD burners. They might not make 'em (couldn't be bothered to check LOL), but their name's on 'em. Mêlée à quatre, anyone?

Mark, just putting in his two cents

 

[Zeta]

I guess the board I was on mistook multi-region DVD players for burners, but it's still an example of an attempt to control all digital media internationally.

I really think the law needs to be going in the opposite direction to adapt to the internet by forcing companies to keep up with consumer demand:
* A company must distribute material at least once every 10 years or loose the rights to press charges if the material is distributed for non-profit reasons. IE, people who hold the rights to television shows or books can't complain if someone is spreading around their material for consumption if the company isn't offering them opportunities to purchase said material.
* Material should be free to share and download for non-profit in any country provided there is no local publication of said material in that country and it has been over five years since the original release in the country of origin. IE - people should be able to have free access to television / books/ or films from other companies that the parent company refuses to distribute internationally. (IE - Mother 3).

 

[Astragali]

I really think the law needs to be going in the opposite direction to adapt to the internet by forcing companies to keep up with consumer demand:
* A company must distribute material at least once every 10 years or loose the rights to press charges if the material is distributed for non-profit reasons.[...]
* Material should be free to share and download for non-profit in any country provided there is no local publication of said material in that country and it has been over five years since the original release in the country of origin. [...]

These sound like reasonable propositions I'd go for those

Mark

 

[Zeta]

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/features/2160382/internet-remain-neutral

A related fear to this is the push to make the internet more like cable television. Specifically:

* Shut down personal websites.
* Make people subscribe to personal websites and pay an amount of money for each website, with said websites paying the ISPs in response to being hosted.

Basically, to kill the internet so that Hollywood and the music industry remain totally unchallenged and in control of international media.

The main problem with stopping this sort of thing is that the people who should be in charge of defending mediums are just too damn old to understand just what the "series of tubes" is.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

And those of us who are young enough to get what it is don't have the drive to do anything. Ironically, it's been sapped from us by the internet. We're only good for flash mobs and YouTube videos. And online petitions.

 

[Zeta]

Well that and the people trying to get these things together are desperately trying to keep young people from finding out about it before it's too late. IE - no news broadcasts, public announcements, or even disclosure about it.

 

[Kavidun]

God please no.

This is apsolute bull.

This is violating what many people believe to be a Human Right - Being Anomynous. And also our privacy.

And seriously - WTF? Ban Blank Disks? What if you make your own Game/Movie? Want to show your freinds. Oh look, you can't. Pointless.