Entertainment Industry Continues To Try To Sneak Copyright Expansion Through ACTA
from the more-sunlight dept
We've been pointing out how there needs to be a lot more sunlight shone on the discussion surrounding the new "ACTA" treaty, which is basically a way for the entertainment industry to sneak through new copyright laws without getting Congressional approval. Basically, the entertainment industry writes this international treaty, and the US Trade Representative gets it approved. Then, suddenly you get stories from lobbyists for the industry about how we need to change our copyright laws to live up to international agreements. Sneaky, right?Now, according to William Patry, the US Trade Rep is resisting calls to open up the process by which ACTA is written, by claiming that ACTA is really pretty minor and won't require any substantive changes in US law. Of course, that's turning out not to be true at all. At that link, Patry looks at the RIAA's suggestions for ACTA, many of which would substantially change copyright law, in rather astounding ways.
It's a laundry list of an ideal world for the RIAA. Basically, everyone else would be responsible for policing any form of unauthorized usage for the entertainment industry. Things that are now civil offenses would become criminal, and the RIAA would have much lower burdens of proof. ACTA is turning into an agreement designed to prop up the RIAA by forcing everyone else to try to force the market to pretend that technology doesn't do what it was designed to do, and to try to hold back the more efficient market innovations that impact the established industry's business model. And they want to do it all in secret and without letting Congress even have a say in the process. And, to make it even better, it's apparently now on the fast track for approval.
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Filed Under: acta, copyright, intellectual property, international trade, treaties
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Who has been paid off?
Thank you also to the Members present, who have done so much to advance the cause of IP protection, including:
- Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA)
- Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA)
- Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)
- Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Who is really behind ACTA? Follow the money:
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA)[4]
Top four campaign contributions for 2006:
Time Warner $21,000
News Corp $15,000
Sony Corp of America $14,000
Walt Disney Co $13,550
Top two Industries:
TV/Movies/Music $181,050
Lawyers/Law Firms $114,200
Other politicians listed also show significant contributions from IP industries.
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Isn't democracy wonderful?
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Just curious
Taxpayers shouldn't be stuck with this bill. The copyright interests should pony up the cost to put away the perpetrator. There are people killing people out there that need to be locked up, not someone who is copying the latest animated movie.
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LOL Wut?
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Establishing Probable Cause for FBI
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Burden of Broof on the Defendent
"Provide that the presumption of ownership may be rebutted only if the defendant is able to provide concrete evidence to the contrary.1"
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Re: Burden of Broof on the Defendent
Isn't that like "guilty until proven innocent"?
Isn't that unconstitutional?
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Re: Re: Burden of Broof on the Defendent
As the RIAA wants to criminalize what it considers piracy then it has to prove something actually took place and that they own it.
The presumption of innocence is intended to protect against rampaging governments or their agents.
I guess the RIAA and MPAA want to become the government.
ttfn
John
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Its not just changing
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Re: Its not just changing
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so
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Re: so
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the RIAA
Maybe it wants to be awarded judgment and damages just for filing the damn complaint or mandate a confession of judgment for RIAA infringement cases? the damage it is doing to the court system and the FRCP is amazing.
Someone needs to sue it for RICO. Only a racketeering org would want to destroy the justice system.
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The 3 Laws
2) If it's good for business and good for people it will pass.
3) If it's bad for business it will fail.
Ummm I guess there are really only 2 laws, lol.
Good pass
Bad fail
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Someone needs to speak for the people
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Re: Someone needs to speak for the people
> and women, however, unless we enclose larger
> checks, they will be totally ignored. HOW do
> we stop them ? They are acting above the law
> (and in plain site) how do people who feel the
> way all these posts seem to, how do we take
> our country back?
I've been asking this very thing regarding the illegal immigration issue for a long time now. The majority of Americans (the legal ones, anyway) are overwhemling in their consensus that border security needs to be strengthened and immigration law strictly enforced. Yet NOTHING is done. Why? Because both parties are beholden to their own groups of special interests with lots of $$$ who like things just as they are.
No amount of letter writing will change it and you can't vote them out of office because the folks who replace them will just be more of the same.
The system is broken in a big way.
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Re: Re: Someone needs to speak for the people
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Re:
Yes, this is true. If you stop buying from an industry, it goes away. However, there are two important points obscured by your rhetoric.
1) Just what industry are you talking about? You want us to assume that the "music industry" is the one fading. This is incorrect, as people are spending *more* money on music than ever before. The music industry is doing great, and is as healthy and vital as ever. The industry that is fading is the recording industry, that is, the industry of making and selling plastic discs.
2) Industries fading is a natural part of the business cycle. To pull out an old saw, the buggy whip industry isn't exactly an international powerhouse these days. Why? Because people stopped buying! And so it faded away. Industries must justify their existence by making things that consumers want to buy; they don't get a free pass that states that they must survive, unless they are truly a national necessity that would harm our economy to be without. You'd need a mighty convincing argument to make anyone believe that pressing plastic disks with patterns that correspond to music and movies is an industry of national importance.
1) Please, justify this statement. Mike gives examples all the time of artists both big and small who are prospering under the new regime of digital sharing. Your statement is a bald-faced lie, and you should be ashamed of yourself for uttering it.
2 & 3) You almost sound like you believe if everyone just followed the law and acted like good little citizens, the industries would wither away on their own. I'm sorry, but "Sit down and shut up, 'cause I know what's good for you" has never resulted in anything good for the people on the receiving end.
The copyright industry (that is, the RIAA, MPAA, and related) aren't a bunch of charitable folks that want everyone to just get along. They are not just 'reacting' to the infringers. They are trying their very best to not only protect the status quo, but change it to benefit them further. They are trying to eliminate Fair Use. They already act like it doesn't exist, and argue that it doesn't in court. These are not the actions of a poor beleaguered industry just trying to defend itself, they're the actions of a fat, powerful industry trying to ensure that nothing can ever harm it, even and especially at the expense of the average consumer. After all, it's been said time and time again (because it's true) that DRM doesn't do a thing to a tech-savvy person, as they can just get around it or find a cracked version. All it does is harm the ability of the average consumer, who doesn't even know what a torrent is, to use the media they purchased the way they want to use it.
I'm sorry, infringing gave the governments of the world little choice? We see yet again the explicit conflation of "what's good for the industry" with "what's good for the country". Filesharing has no effect on the government of the United States or any other country whatsoever. If we end up with an online police state, it's because our governments are weak, filthy things that bow to the whims of their corporate donors rather than their people. Let me repeat this for emphasis: filesharing has no effect on the government of the United States or any other country whatsoever.
You trade your liberty to protect the recording industry. You accept and embrace horrifying intrusions of the government into our private lives at the request of the recording industry. You refuse to speak up and say "That's not right" because you assure yourself that as soon as everyone just stops filesharing the recording industry will stop all these silly lawsuits.
It won't stop. The recording industry is engaged in one of the most powerful erosions of privacy and personal liberty in the history of America, and the world is following suit. You won't get those rights back when this is finished. It'll be law, actual law taught to judges and lawyers and written in big books, and it won't easily change. Look at what's being done. Look at how the recording industry is trying to remove "innocent until proven guilty" because they don't have the ability to search our computers deeply enough to find sufficient legal proof. Look at how the recording industry is trying to make it legal for them to search your computers deeply enough, not so they can find the proof they want, but so they can find even more partial 'evidence' against you for further 'crimes'. Look at how they choose to recoup their losses by suing millions of ordinary, innocent people. Look at how they are so sloppy and indiscriminate in their methods that they send cease-and-desist notices to networked laser printers.
The recording industry doesn't care about you. They don't care about what they're doing to you. They don't care about what the laws they are pushing will mean in the future when an FBI agent can enter your house at any time and demand you allow him to search your computer, demand that you give him any encryption keys or you go to jail, demand that you allow him to install government-sponsored spyware on your computer to monitor your actions online. This is not crazy conspiracy-mongering, it is exactly what the RIAA wants to be able to do. The recording industry doesn't care about what the laws they are pushing mean right now, where it may be illegal to watch the DVD you just bought on your computer, or cut a ringtone from music you own, or get that computer game you bought working again after you installed new hardware (because you've already used up your 'allowed' registrations on previous hardware upgrades) or just because the game company folded and isn't running their authentication servers anymore.
They don't care about you.
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post 17
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ok and ACTA need to change laws first and need ideas too
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