US, EU, Canada, Japan, Australia & Others To Sign ACTA This Weekend, Despite Legal Concerns
from the failure dept
Despite serious Constitutional concerns in the US, and significant legal questions in the EU, it appears that the US and the EU, along with most of the other participants in the ACTA negotiations are planning to sign ACTA this weekend in Japan. In the US, this may very well lead to a Constitutional challenge. President Obama, via the USTR, is ignoring the Senate's oversight concerning treaties, by pretending ACTA is not a treaty, but rather an "executive agreement." Pretty much everyone else agrees that ACTA is a binding treaty -- in fact, EU negotiators have been quite vocal on that point.But even if this is considered "an executive agreement," the President does not have the authority to sign an executive agreement concerning intellectual property issues. Executive agreements can only be signed if they cover issues solely under the President's mandate. But intellectual property issues are clearly under Congress's mandate, and nowhere in the Constitution is the President given a mandate over IP issues. This is a clear end-run around Congress, and seems likely to be unconstitutional.
What I really don't get is why they're making such an end-run. As we've seen with things like PROTECT IP, most of the Senate seems to have no problem propping up the entertainment industry's legacy players with bogus laws and "greater enforcement." It seems likely that ACTA would probably sail through the Senate with little problem. But the administration seems to not even want to have the slightest debate on the topic -- which is greatly troubling, considering that the USTR negotiated the agreement in near total secrecy, refusing to allow public comment or debate (outside of leaks which it tried to block) until after the document was done.
The others that are listed as planning to sign the document are Japan, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland. Basically all the countries who took part in the negotiations. The fact that Mexico is on that list is interesting, given that the Mexican Congress has already told the Mexican President that it will not ratify ACTA, and made it clear that Mexico needs Congress to ratify ACTA to have it go into effect. In other words, it sounds like Mexico is facing a similar executive run-around as in the US.
It's pretty amazing. This isn't even just about Presidents doing an end-run around the public, but around their own legislatures. And for what? A bailout of some legacy entertainment industry players who are unwilling to adapt.
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Filed Under: acta, australia, canada, constitution, eu, executive agreement, mexico, new zealand, treaty, us, ustr
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He was bought and paid for long before he ever got in office.
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Um. No. Biden was in the Senate for decades before Napster even existed.
Yes, he's a "friend" to the entertainment industry, but let's not make up completely ridiculous stories.
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Silly Mike...
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And until people stop getting their news from television, stop going to see Hollywood's crap, turn off their radio, cut their cable, start listening to indie music, and get out of their house to see some live theatre (that isn't based on a movie) and invest in their local communities instead of continually feeding international corporations that currently own and control a century's worth of culture, nothing will ever change. Most people seem content to just keep feeding the machine - after all, it's just harmless entertainment.
The internet is still a conduit that can replace most of your entertainment options and give voice to every individual (even though most individuals seem to be morons). It's the last hope of having something that isn't completely controlled by multi-national corporations, and that's why ACTA and all the other corporate-endorsed internet legislation needs to fail.
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Hollywood is designed to continue to export hope to the sheeple that there actually is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you work hard enough, aka The American Dream, when in fact, there is no such thing. With their movies about car chases, shoot em ups, super heroes, love stories, and happy endings, they portray a fantasy world in one and a half bits to soothe the unconscious rage teeming in every single American. This is why Americans are so lazy, deep down, they realize, there is no hope of rising to millionaire, sans the 90 minute respite at your local movie theatre for $40USD.
Controlling the mass media is of utmost priority to ensure that nobody, and I mean nobody sees the man behind the curtain and realized, it's all just bullshit.
It's not that they can't understand why ppl like myself infringe on copyright, it's that they have the mentality of how DARE I. It's no wonder they call this 'The Entitlement Generation'.
This is the prime reason I infringe on copyright, and have for 10 years, and will until my dying days.
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Because the corporations write the laws, the government enforces them. Corporations can write laws however they want.
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Shhh!
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Re: Shhh!
Though I have to say that the past two administrations have used the constitution as toilet paper to this day so I can't see it working out this way.
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Stuff like this
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Not surprised
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In the long run third parties themselves have always died away in the US, but only because one of the other two parties adopts their agenda.
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We might as well have the one party to rule them all.
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They have been on the presidential ballot in most all states for the last few decades and people ignore them because the two party system is able to convince the public that a vote for a third party is a vote in favor of the "other guy"
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Really? The dozen or so broken campaign promises had no influence on your decision?
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No priorities
"Too hard, let's just bail out a few incompetent, self-entitled old men at the expense of everyone else."
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Re: No priorities
Fuck it. I'm done with having culture being raped by a few money-obsessed parasites who consistently refuse to adapt, or even consider what it is in them that makes people not want to buy. So fuck it, I'm done buying shit from these fucks. My money's going to people who earn my respect.
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If a treaty really needs to be kept secret because of sensitive information involved (since executive agreements were thought up for war time treaties between allies) then it shouldn't be a treaty in the first place, it's simply an agreement between two or more allies.
But now lots of 'executive agreements' that need zero secrecy for security reasons, and have no secrecy at all, are regularly made ever since the Supreme Court ruled it was legal.
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No More Incumbants
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"why they're making such an end-run"?
You aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto, you're in a federal district labeled "KS", where the Constitution doesn't apply.
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Re: "why they're making such an end-run"?
So...you're saying Congress is the Patriot's Wisemen's Committee from Metal Gear Solid?
Sorry, couldn't resist ^^
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Re: Re: "why they're making such an end-run"?
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Balance of Trade
I'm not an economist, but I know the money's gotta come home. You can't run a trade deficit forever or you'll run out of money unless you just print it, and if you do that, it loses value really fast.
So, I suspect what nobody who knows the real score wants to say out loud is that we dearly need to keep our IP close to the vest, or we've got very little to offer any trading partners. Once that happens, we're in deep, meaningful sheep dip.
So, ACTA? You betcha. It's not just the RIAA and MPAA - everybody wants to keep from killing the Golden Goose.
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What is absurd still is that IP is not real property and it is not something Americans export as you say, because if it was you wouldn't have other countries surpassing the US without paying a dime.
What IP builds inside a country is a core of people who will own every piece of IP available and will try to extract rents from others, all that crap will coalesce into one super giant pool of nonsense and that is when people will get mad, because nobody will be able to do anything without paying someone for something they didn't work for, created or care about.
Further without producing anything and with competitors being able to outsmart American business people how long do you think those same competitors will take to hassle from American control those same IP you think it is so important and use it against American interests?
The 5th stage of social evolutions some say is services, but some took it to mean IP which is just crazy and downright stupid.
IP laws only favour the incompetents that don't know how to make something work and create more incompetent people that become social parasites, but that is not the worst part the worst part is making rules that you will need to respect in the future and will become hard to change once they get ingrained and when others start producing more IP which is easy since you don't need to implement it and you just need to imagine things you can bet that 6 billion people will beat any 350 million any day of the week.
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My comment was addressed solely to the characterization of patentees as being "incompetents", which experience time and time again demonstrates is not a universal trait.
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You say that like there was ever any doubt that this would happen. The entertainment industries spent too much time and money on ACTA for there to be any other outcome.
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Try to keep in mind that in matters of the law there will always be those who say "illegal" and those who say "legal". The intimation here that perhaps persons with constitutional concerns about ACTA are greater in number than those who express contrary views is not borne out in the literature. Also try to keep in mind that sovereign nations all have their system of laws, and what might be accepted as a "treaty" in one does not mean that the same is true in others, with the US being a leading example of the latter.
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That makes about as much sense as the people booing the gay soldier at the last GOP primary debates.
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As per usual, you provide no citations. Because you can't.
Also try to keep in mind that sovereign nations all have their system of laws, and what might be accepted as a "treaty" in one does not mean that the same is true in others, with the US being a leading example of the latter.
Ha! You are being intellectually dishonest yet again. While countries may have different standards for what is a treaty -- what *must* happen is that both sides of an agreement agree on the nature of the agreement that is being signed. You don't get to say one side says it's a memo of understanding, while the other says it's a binding contract.
If ACTA is a treaty in Europe it's a treaty here. And you know that.
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Other nations are free to call and view ACTA however they want, but that does not mean that it comprises a "treaty" in a constitutional sense under US law.
While I would personally prefer that matters such as this follow the "treaty" process articulated in the constitution so that a broader consensus is demonstrated, executive agreements, like them or hate them, are a fixture in US law and authorized to be used so long as they do not impinge upon the separation of powers doctrine enshrined in the constitution.
Importantly, Congress is especially keen on making sure that its legislative powers unter Article 1 are not infringed. It is telling that with regard to ACTA only but a very, very few are even talking about ACTA, and even then most of the talk has been directed to the negotiation process, and not ACTA's provisions.
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If it's not a binding treaty, what's the point of creating and/or signing it?
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If ACTA is viewed as an instrument somewhat along the lines of an MOU, it may prove useful in answering the question you pose.
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How odd
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Ads
The offender was one that took over the entire screen due to a misclick while moving over to the scrollbar (the ad hadn't even fully loaded yet when it did it). Reloading the page, it was a large banner ad where if you left the mouse pointer over it for 3 seconds, it took that as permission to take over the entire tab. Any click anywhere on the ad would also immediately do the same thing. Not cool.
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http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
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The true darknet
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conflict
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this is something what i mean if you want to get back to america it would be better to start by boycotting hollywood and all the movie theators in america and around the world..
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