Talk-Polywell.org

In the tradition of the boiling frog, our individual rights and privacy continue to be eroded in favour of corporatized copyright laws. In theory the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - "SUPER-DCMA" appears a legitimate theme, however in practice, some concerns...

ACTA Guide, Part Three: Transparency and ACTA Secrecy
The ACTA Guide, Part One: The Talks To-Date - Video (15 minutes)

To summarise the above...

• Lack of transparency.
  Incredibly high security.
  Treating copyright rules as akin to nuclear secrets.
  Efforts to obtain through FOIA request denied on national security grounds.
  Individually watermarked draft documents - each with specific phrases identifying country, to track where leaks come from.
• Why the secrecy? Its NOT a trade agreement, just a copyright agreement.
  However its NOT just an agreement, it aims to create a full instituion with secretariat
• Loss of domestic sovereignty over IP policy choices.
  Will deal will be concluded without public input and present fait complete such that countries then have an "obligation" to subscribe?
• Authorities to confiscate infringing goods for one year, based only on prima facie claim by rights holder.
  No liability to rights holders for storage or destructions of goods.
• Significant privacy concerns on mandated disclosure (by ISPs)
• Eroded Safe Harbour for 3rd-party intermediaries (ie your ISP) with prequisite of Three-Strikes-And-Your-Out having one year ban
  • Estimating The Cost of a [ACTA] Three-Strikes and You're Out System
    Copyright abuse can shut down online artists, political analysts, or -- as in this case -- ordinary families who simply want to share snippets of their day-to-day lives.
    For example: Universal issued take-down notice for video of lady's toddler dancing and jiggling about for 29 seconds, with a barely audible Prince song playing in the background. Universal Music claims that it is not reasonable for the copyright holder to take fair use into consideration before sending a takedown notice, and it looks as though the judge agrees.
  • The DMCA has been used to invade the privacy of Internet users, harass Internet service providers, and chill online speech. The subpoena and takedown powers of Section 512 are not limited to cases of proven copyright infringement, and are exercised without a judge's review. The following is a small sampling of abuse, overreaching, and mistakes in the use of Section 512(h) subpoenas-takedown-demands. http://www.eff.org/wp/unsafe-harbors-ab ... poenas-and

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

The stuff will just go underground. It is what happens. Everything will get encrypted.

I am a big advocate of beefed up "fair use" provisions and a heavily curtailed DCMA. Capitalism works in part by giving the consumer choice and a fair bit of control over what s/he buys and uses. Legal over-protection of corporations leads to oligopolies, not a free market.

Also, I think there are many instances where file-sharing has amounted to a form of free advertising. Sure, some sales that would otherwise have happened are lost, but other new sales are generated. DCMA tries to stifle technological advancement by keeping us in a 1960s-80s paradigm. One of the beauties of capitalism is rapid technological innovation. Old business models fail, old corporations die, new ones are born. The state shouldn't try to bail out and shore up failing enterprises... let them die.

I am anti-copyright and anti-patents.

Why am I not surprised?

IMO copyright is necessary to give people/corporations a profit motive. Copyright carried too far stifles innovation.

Being able to sue someone who makes a knock-off of your product and starts selling it for a profit = good.

Someone buying your movie/software etc. and sharing it with a few of his/her friends = fair use. People have lent books for centuries.

Not allowing people to tinker with software, encryption systems, etc. and innovate = bad.

Josh Cryer wrote:I am anti-copyright and anti-patents.

Patents should be such that licenses are guaranteed at a reasonable rate.

Copyright terms should be reduced to 25 or 35 years.

i.e. no patent should be able to wall off an invention.

CaptainBeowulf wrote: Someone buying your movie/software etc. and sharing it with a few of his/her friends = fair use. People have lent books for centuries.

Yup, so lend the DVD. People have NOT been authorized to copy a book and lend the copy to a friend. The is NOT fair use.
You want to make a copy for YOURSELF in order to preserve the pristine cleanliness of your new book, that is debatable.

How many songs do I want that I never would have heard in my sheltered life if it hadn't been for youtube? Lots. I still need to buy most of it, but I wouldn't even be wanting it otherwise.

MSimon wrote:

Josh Cryer wrote:I am anti-copyright and anti-patents.

Patents should be such that licenses are guaranteed at a reasonable rate.

Copyright terms should be reduced to 25 or 35 years.

i.e. no patent should be able to wall off an invention.

That's certainly an improvement, though I would reduce the patent term to the same term (25-35 years).

Actually, I'd prefer it, if we *had* to have government enforced policy, it to be even lower. 10-15 years.

MSimon wrote:Copyright terms should be reduced to 25 or 35 years.

Back to what it was originally...

[wikipedia]

Josh,

Patents are now 20 years from date of filing.

MSimon wrote:Josh,

Patents are now 20 years from date of filing.

I wasn't aware of that. Not bad!