Secret Copyright Treaty Leaks

[Norseman]

Link here and of course the longer Original link.

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* * 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, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

You know if this is true then it is bad, very bad. In fact the shitstorm has already begun (see links at bottom). SO what do you think? Hysteria or something to be worried about?

[General Zod]

The secrecy is pretty bothersome, but until we can see the text of the proposed measure itself it's impossible to really say one way or the other. If this winds up being anything like the DMCA it just means it's going to push piracy further underground and make ISPs more jumpy about take-down notices.

[darthdavid]

God damn it Obama! I wanted to support this administration so badly but it gets harder and harder to do so every time something like this happens. And the worst thing is the opposition are like 10x worse (and bat-shit crazy) so it's not even like there's a viable alternative...

[Serafina]

God damn it Obama! I wanted to support this administration so badly but it gets harder and harder to do so every time something like this happens. And the worst thing is the opposition are like 10x worse (and bat-shit crazy) so it's not even like there's a viable alternative...

There is. Get the hell out of there. You speak english, you can start over in, like, half the world.


@Topic:
What the hell does this have to do with "national security"? Thats what bothers me most - that the Obama adminisration is apparently using this cop-out card revived by the Bush administation.

[darthdavid]

God damn it Obama! I wanted to support this administration so badly but it gets harder and harder to do so every time something like this happens. And the worst thing is the opposition are like 10x worse (and bat-shit crazy) so it's not even like there's a viable alternative...

There is. Get the hell out of there. You speak english, you can start over in, like, half the world.


@Topic:
What the hell does this have to do with "national security"? Thats what bothers me most - that the Obama adminisration is apparently using this cop-out card revived by the Bush administation.

I suppose I should clarify, I meant a viable alternative within American politics. I've been seriously thinking about whether or not to leave the country when I finish up with college for years now(the more educated you are the easier it is to emigrate). And yeah, the secretive nature of the whole thing really grates on me too. If you want to pass asinine legislation you should atleast have the balls to do it openly and face the fucking consequences.

[Agent Sorchus]

What section of the US Federal Government deals with legislating copyright laws? I know that externally it should be among the powers and responsibilities of the Executive to negotiate with other countries, but I do not know who decides policy internally.

[darthdavid]

What section of the US Federal Government deals with legislating copyright laws? I know that externally it should be among the powers and responsibilities of the Executive to negotiate with other countries, but I do not know who decides policy internally.

Congress. Because legislating things is the job of the legislative branch (no one ever accused the founding fathers of creative naming practices ).

[Rogue 9]

What stage is this treaty at? I can see the negotiations being secret, but it should have to be made public when it goes to the Senate for ratification.

[General Zod]

What stage is this treaty at? I can see the negotiations being secret, but it should have to be made public when it goes to the Senate for ratification.

So far I can't see anything in the article that suggests it's even close to going up to the Senate and it's still in negotiation. As annoying as greater restrictions would be a lot of this seems overblown.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Sounds like this treaty is headed for a fall; if there are clauses included that the EU (other than the EU Commission) has said aren't acceptable, then chances are that it won't be ratified in those countries. If you're trying to hash out a new global standard, you can't exclude such nations and have it be worth anything.

[Edi]

Extend US copyright law all over the world?

I can hear the US being told to fuck off and go bugger itself already. Nobody is going to surrender the amount of sovereignty this "treaty" proposal would require.

[Oskuro]

* * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules

Excuse me? How can something legislated by the US Congress affect the whole world? This part makes the text a bit suspect of not being the real thing.

Also, fuck you Edi and Psychic_Sandwich for posting about this before me

[Ford Prefect]

This part makes the text a bit suspect of not being the real thing.

Did you honestly believe it was real to begin with? Copyright is generally an issue upon which complete insanity is pretty reasonable to expect, but I can't exactly put a lot of faith in Michael Geist's completely nameless sources.

[darthdavid]

The way I see it if they feel the need to hide what it says until it's voted on for the BS reason of 'national security' that it's perfectly reasonable for me to assume the worst about it. After all, if it was benign why would the need to hid what it says?

[Patrick Degan]

This is insanity. The corporations won't be satisfied until intellectual exchange is ground to a complete halt. That this treaty is unenforcable on a global scale is about the only roadblock to the achievement of that "aim".

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

This is insanity. The corporations won't be satisfied until every last facet of everyone's existence is completely and finely controlled and monetized in order to extract the absolute maximum production and revenue the laws of physics will allow.

FTFY. Call it a slippery slope if you want, but that's the way the trends have been going since Reagan.

[Ryan Thunder]

This is insanity. The corporations won't be satisfied until every last facet of everyone's existence is completely and finely controlled and monetized in order to extract the absolute maximum production and revenue the laws of physics will allow.

That's just what happens when you have an economy focused around the accumulation of fiat currency. We could've made it something more useful like, I dunno, energy, but the idiots with money seem to be resistant to that idea because it'd ruin them...

[Patrick Degan]

This is insanity. The corporations won't be satisfied until every last facet of everyone's existence is completely and finely controlled and monetized in order to extract the absolute maximum production and revenue the laws of physics will allow.

That's just what happens when you have an economy focused around the accumulation of fiat currency. We could've made it something more useful like, I dunno, energy, but the idiots with money seem to be resistant to that idea because it'd ruin them...

What a nice, totally irrelevant red herring —and one addressed to a reply somebody else quite obviously re-edited, since I actually wrote this:

This is insanity. The corporations won't be satisfied until intellectual exchange is ground to a complete halt. That this treaty is unenforcable on a global scale is about the only roadblock to the achievement of that "aim".

[PeZook]

That's just what happens when you have an economy focused around the accumulation of fiat currency. We could've made it something more useful like, I dunno, energy, but the idiots with money seem to be resistant to that idea because it'd ruin them...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, currency is america's problem! Not culture, not a large right-wing voter base, not the legislation system or political corruption: currency!

Because, God knows it's true, every other country that uses fiat currency has the same problems as America! Oh, wait...

Also, people really need to wait with their outrage untill they get information with an actual source, rather than what amounts to "I got access to this super secret information and it's totally true! Honest!"

[Ryan Thunder]

Other countries have just been more effective at legislating the fuck out of it so that its actually useful.

But that's kind of like saying you turned a screwdriver into a saw. Why not just get the tool that gets the result you want in the first place?

[PeZook]

Other countries have just been more effective at legislating the fuck out of it.

That's a problem with banking law, not fiat currency itself. The problem would be the same whatever you use as money.

[Darth Wong]

This is insanity. The corporations won't be satisfied until intellectual exchange is ground to a complete halt. That this treaty is unenforcable on a global scale is about the only roadblock to the achievement of that "aim".

It's more likely the inevitable result of politicians who are routinely bought and paid for. The real question is how far this bill would get once it is exposed to scrutiny.

I'm sure the early private versions of Max Baucus' health-care bill looked something like "Maximize insurance company profits, find ways to limit negative profitability impact of chronically ill people, talk to CEO of health insurance corporation to thank him warmly for Christmas gift".

[Big Orange]

Aren't the current copyright laws in the US already horribly counterproductive, Balkanized, and incompatible enough already? With too many owners of rights set in iron, the US media corporations would grind to a halt much like the Russian shops did in the 1990s when there were too many competitive owners, not enough fair minded regulation, so few goods were legally sold and a black market ballooned.

[Rogue 9]

Balkanized? They're certainly counterproductive, but they're hardly fragmented. Copyright and patents are handled by the federal government and applied uniformly throughout the country; it's not a state matter.

[ThomasP]

For what it's worth, Wikileaks has had some of this up for close to two years now:

Link

I have no idea how likely this is to pass, especially given some of the recent EU activity in this area, but it's a scary thought that it's being shoved behind closed doors and defended by the Obama administration grounds of "national security".

Though given that Holder is an ex-RIAA lawyer and given that the content lobby has its grubby hands all over this, I suppose it's not that surprising.

Edit: fixed link tags