USTR Wants People To Know That At Least Someone Likes ACTA

from the yeah,-the-folks-who-wrote-it dept

The US Trade Rep is proudly promoting the fact that there's someone out there who likes ACTA. It's put up a new info website, where it highlights the fact that it's received TWO WHOLE LETTERS in support of ACTA. Of course, those letters come from two lobbying groups -- the International Trademark Association (ITA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) -- two groups who have been heavily involved in the creation of ACTA in the first place. Of course they support it.

But, really, it's incredibly telling that the USTR is only willing to promote the letters it's received in support of ACTA, isn't it? Lots of people have been contacting the USTR with concerns about ACTA, and those don't get highlighted on the website at all. It's as if the USTR wants to make it clear that it works for the RIAA and the ITA, rather than the citizens of the country. It's reached the point where it's obvious that the USTR's focus is not on creating a good trade agreement, but on the trade agreement that some lobbyists wanted. It seems obvious that the USTR is not interested in understanding the complaints, but only in getting ACTA finished.
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Filed Under: acta, lobbyists, ustr


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2010 @ 2:21pm

    The RIAA? Aren't they the organization that sued a bunch of people to curb the infringing of their copyrights? Which didn't actually work?

    Why would anyone listen to what they have to say?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      :Lobo Santo (profile), 25 Mar 2010 @ 2:23pm

      Re: RIAA...

      They still have some money left--they're using it to hire assassins from their deathbed...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Ben, 25 Mar 2010 @ 2:23pm

    transparency fail

    Go to: http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/blog/ask-ambassador-acta-text
    In Kirk's response:
    "In the case of the ACTA negotiations, the ACTA participants have agreed to the release of certain information, and the United States has released that information. You can find the text here."

    The link he points to gives a 404 not found error.

    I guess he was just telling the truth. :P

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2010 @ 9:28pm

      Re: transparency fail

      "In the case of the ACTA negotiations, the ACTA participants have agreed to the release of certain information, and the United States has released that information. You can find the text here."

      Great, after the documents have already leaked they NOW release them. Wow, that's being transparent all right.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Analyst, 25 Mar 2010 @ 2:28pm

    Of course...

    The USTR is promoting those whole two positive letters. ACTA means more jobs at the USTR. What government official isn't in favor of growing their empire?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Freedom, 25 Mar 2010 @ 2:40pm

    Details...

    Never let details, facts or reality get in the way of your goals!

    Freedom

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2010 @ 2:54pm

    I sent the USTR a letter..
    If they wish to acknowledge 2 comments, lets give them 100's more.

    http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/contact-us/your-comment
    lets ALL comment to them.

    "http://ow.ly/1qrlU

    You mention 2 groups that Support this, ACTA.
    That would be considered improper, as these are the groups Nominating these changes.
    Until the USA decides to force companies and corps to fight among themselves. They will not advance. Giving away rights of the individual isnt the way to force them to fight. You have already given away Imports of Video/audio products to the movie industry. No one can bring a product into the USA and think of making a profit, without Over pricing their goods.
    Most USA companies are no more then Distributors of products they have manufactured Outside the USA and sold, AS IF' they were made in the USA. Made at 1/10 the cost and sold at 10 times the price point.
    ACTA is a way to let the music and movie industry SIT and not advance into the future. As if a spoiled child.
    They dont see the Net and other advances as Opportunities.
    That they could drop DRM, Lawyer, Manufacturing costs, Labeling and Shipping. Use a new distribution system in the internet, and lower prices over 1/2 the cost of a recording. Taking the cost of shipping 1 movie in Tape format, and reduce it to every company connecting to the net and Capturing it for distribution to the world, in less then 1 day. 1 copy, not 10,000 Shipped copies. think of the savings. But they dont want the consumer to Save money, they want More profit.
    Make them Fight to get our attention. They have over priced themselves. They are using Net distribution. And keeping the inflated prices. They are getting the Profits, and the consumer Isnt getting the savings."

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    ECA (profile), 25 Mar 2010 @ 2:56pm

    Sent them a letter.

    I sent the USTR a letter..
    If they wish to acknowledge 2 comments, lets give them 100's more.

    http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/contact-us/your-comment
    lets ALL comment to them.

    "http://ow.ly/1qrlU

    You mention 2 groups that Support this, ACTA.
    That would be considered improper, as these are the groups Nominating these changes.
    Until the USA decides to force companies and corps to fight among themselves. They will not advance. Giving away rights of the individual isnt the way to force them to fight. You have already given away Imports of Video/audio products to the movie industry. No one can bring a product into the USA and think of making a profit, without Over pricing their goods.
    Most USA companies are no more then Distributors of products they have manufactured Outside the USA and sold, AS IF' they were made in the USA. Made at 1/10 the cost and sold at 10 times the price point.
    ACTA is a way to let the music and movie industry SIT and not advance into the future. As if a spoiled child.
    They dont see the Net and other advances as Opportunities.
    That they could drop DRM, Lawyer, Manufacturing costs, Labeling and Shipping. Use a new distribution system in the internet, and lower prices over 1/2 the cost of a recording. Taking the cost of shipping 1 movie in Tape format, and reduce it to every company connecting to the net and Capturing it for distribution to the world, in less then 1 day. 1 copy, not 10,000 Shipped copies. think of the savings. But they dont want the consumer to Save money, they want More profit.
    Make them Fight to get our attention. They have over priced themselves. They are using Net distribution. And keeping the inflated prices. They are getting the Profits, and the consumer Isnt getting the savings."

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2010 @ 3:04pm

      Re: Sent them a letter.

      Might command more attention were you to repair the sentence structure. It has no flow at all, but rather is guttural like some SciFi alien speaking the language for the first time.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        The Mighty Buzzard, 25 Mar 2010 @ 4:03pm

        Re: Re: Sent them a letter.

        Could use a good spell/grammarcheck too.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 25 Mar 2010 @ 10:35pm

      Re: Sent them a letter.

      I sent the USTR a letter..
      If they wish to acknowledge 2 comments, lets give them 100's more.


      I sincerely hope you did not send what you wrote below. If you are going to send such a letter, please get someone to proof read it, and please think carefully about the argument you are trying to make. As it stands, the letter above is poorly written and poorly argued, and probably does significantly more harm to the position you are staking out.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    ant TAM uncorrectional bad spelling guild, 25 Mar 2010 @ 3:17pm

    time to play mean with the USTR

    I think it should just have that website DOSSED into non existence.

    WHY NOT, its not doing anyone any good its useless and its showing how one sided they and the gvot is towards the rest of the world.

    FUCK THE USTR

    @8 gay persons like you forget we were around the net before your gramatically correct assholes were and why the need for absolute perfect structure ?

    ILL TELL YOU cause this guy is a fed and like all feds they neeed you to be as clear as you can be for evidentury purposes. OR hes part of the writers guild or a mpaa shill its literally now the same shit.

    SO MAKEa surea youspelt everythin wong so it drives this troll out of his TAMMY mind

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Big Al, 25 Mar 2010 @ 3:51pm

      Re: time to play mean with the USTR

      Actually, grammatically correct people were on the net prior to people who feel the need to mangle the language to the point where a lot of it is unintelligible. You would do well to remember that its initial reason for existing was for military and academic use.
      End of history lesson.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2010 @ 9:41pm

      Re: time to play mean with the USTR

      Simple answer: No one will take you seriously if their 3rd grade child forms more intelligent sentences.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Johnny Canada, 25 Mar 2010 @ 3:34pm

    Check Out
    http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/1738

    On Friday 16 April @ 11:00 AM they will discuss Transparancy at the New Zealand mettings

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      The Mighty Buzzard, 25 Mar 2010 @ 4:06pm

      Re:

      Screw that. Best way in the world to obscure important information, while still technically releasing it, is to put it in a PDF. Sure, I hate ACTA. I hate PDFs more though.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    crade (profile), 25 Mar 2010 @ 4:32pm

    I wonder how come they havn't put up Satan's support letter yet.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Hephaestus (profile), 25 Mar 2010 @ 5:54pm

    Just finished reading ACTA ....

    I am going to send the USTR a letter of endorsement on ACTA. The key thing I noticed was that it is not anti-competive where the media industry is concerned. I will re-read it and look at it from an anti-competition pharma perspective later.

    ACTA creates an opportunities for some outside entity to seriously speed up the demise of the Record labels, TV, and Movie studios. The demise of the current large media players will create a large vacuum that will need to be filled and can be very financially lucrative.

    The first order of business is to create several types of Creative commons lisc based on ??1960?? copyright that specifies all uses and terms. Each type should only differ in duration. The terms should include length of time for-in CC, fair use terms, orphan works terms, public domain terms, owner, transferablity, copyfraud prevention terms, fines and penalties for abuse, etc.

    The second order of business is to create a much better explaination of the CC1960 liscense than is available for the current CC liscenses. Training materials, Videos, multimedia, line by line explainations of the CC1960 with video or audio or text, etc.

    The third .... well I could go on for hours ...

    The whole idea here is to go back to the meaning and flavor of the copyright clause of the US constitution. The media giants will become less relevant as time passes. The mess they leave behind wont.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    xenomancer (profile), 26 Mar 2010 @ 12:30am

    "Fact Sheet"

    http://www.ustr.gov/acta-fact-sheet-march-2010

    At some point these people really must have decided to follow the Catbert philosophy of following one's own policy to cruelly toy with perceived underlings, in this case the electorate. The only alternative is they really are as stupid as they are presuming those reading their site to be. I still don't understand how anyone could defend this (link above) so called "fact sheet," especially in light of the recent leak. It is a bulleted list of blatant lies. This is EXACTLY why there is so much controversy over ACTA transparency and, unfortunately, why there is so little being done in response. Its business as usual with the caveat of leaving out any accountability to the people it affects most.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    duffmeister (profile), 26 Mar 2010 @ 8:36am

    posted questions to the Trade Ambassador

    Well I sent my questions off asking several questions.

    points asked about:
    - how does ACTA help the average citizen?
    - why if this trade agreement can't change law does it add requirements to laws that have nothing to do with counterfeit?
    - why are the only 2 letters in support of it from the very groups that helped draft it?
    - why has this agreement been conducted out of the public eye, and at times been listed as a state secret?
    - why is congress not being allowed to debate what seems to be a major change to international trade agreements?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Joel (profile), 26 Mar 2010 @ 9:56am

    Two Whole Letters?

    "Two whole letters from the industry, I'm so surprised like O.M.G. this is going to be the game changer!!"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 26 Mar 2010 @ 11:47am

    Why would they be againt it?

    Hmmm...how could the USTR be against ACTA which, if enacted, would expand the bureaucracy?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Mar 2010 @ 6:19pm

    "Of course, those letters come from two lobbying groups -- the International Trademark Association (ITA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)"

    So the USTR ignores the thousands of people and groups that don't want ACTA and only pays attention to the small minority who is brilliant enough to make the remarkable, noble prize worthy, discovery that humanity was unable to figure out for thousands of years and that's that piracy somehow undermines humanitarian efforts in Haiti. This is very re - assuring, now I know the USTR is acting in the best interest of the public and they're listening to the smartest people ever to figure out what's in our best interest and ignoring the retard public who isn't smart enough to know any better.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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