Once Again, Public Interest Groups Kicked Out When Trying To Present Concerns About TPP

from the no-respect-at-all dept

It's really quite astounding how terribly obnoxious supporters of the ridiculous TPP agreement have become. This Trans Pacific Partnership agreement is being negotiated entirely in secret -- even as the USTR lies and claims the process is transparent at an "unprecedented" level. Of course, it seems that transparency only extends to big industry lobbyists who support the agreement's concepts already. For everyone else, we're told it's a matter of national security. Furthermore, rather than be transparent, it appears that the TPP negotiators are bending over backwards to (a) not allow those representing the public to even speak, while (b) spending as much time as possible with Hollywood lobbyists. It's as if the USTR and other TPP negotiators are so sure they've completely rigged the process that they're showing off just how little they care about the public.

Honestly, the whole thing is a scandal in the making.

In February, a bunch of groups representing public interests scheduled a public hearing about concerns with TPP in the same hotel where the TPP negotiations were going on... and the USTR apparently contacted the hotel and had them kicked out. The night before all of this? The negotiators went and partied at a Hollywood studio with the key lobbyists. Yeah, the USTR can't even stand to be in the same building as those concerned about the public, but will party with the lobbyists. A few weeks later, some big corporate interests hosted a dinner for ACTA negotiators. Public interest groups found out about it at the last minute and were told they were not welcome. When questioned about this in a Senate hearing, the USTR Ron Kirk took a totally condescending attitude, still insisting unprecedented transparency, even as Senator Wyden pointed out that wasn't even close to true.

And, of course, it gets even worse. One of the things that the USTR had talked about in the past was about how "transparent" they were when holding various "stakeholder" sessions that let people express their concerns. Of course, most of these are free-for-all's and they're positioned to limit the exposure of the concerns -- but at least there was some attempt in the past to offer people a voice. Not any more. As we noted recently, the US has done away with the stakeholder meeting. So the public interest groups are, once again, left out.

Now, the very latest is that during meetings in Chile, public interest groups once again sought to host a stakeholders meeting, and got an agreement to host it at the University of Chile School of Law. The whole thing was organized, and they even had a big name local politician signed up as the keynote speaker. The dean of the school was all for it... and then, two days before the meeting, the University canceled the meeting. Once again, the public interest groups were shut out. It's not entirely clear why, but there is tremendous speculation that the cancellation was due to a faculty member who consults heavily with the pharmaceutical industry.

Either way, it seems clear that there is influence peddling going on here, and it's astounding that the USTR seems to think that these moves won't backfire and just make it look worse. In talking to someone who was in Chile working with the public interest groups, it's been claimed that many of the delegates had no idea this would happen -- and were quite upset that the USTR had basically hijacked the process. The organizers of the event were actually able to find an alternative, but it is too bad that they had to spend days scrambling to figure this out.

Filed Under: chile, national security, negotiations, tpp, transparency, ustr

Chilean Miner Copyrights Note Announcing Trapped Miners Were OK

from the copyright-gone-mad dept

Reader Matt Jones points us to the news of the latest in copyright insanity. It turns out that one of the miners, Jose Ojeda, who was trapped in the Chilean mine had sent a note up, reading "Estamos bien en el refugio los 33" ("We are okay in the refuge, the 33 of us"). That note was found 17 days after the mine collapsed, and is what gave people hope that they'd eventually be able to rescue the miners, as they obviously did quite some time later. The note was a sign of hope and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera started handing out copies of the note to various people, such as the British Queen and prime minister while he was visiting. Apparently, a writer in Chile was somehow offended by this and registered the copyright on the note for Ojeda. Now that the miner is safe, he's demanding the note back, while Pinera is claiming that it's a part of national heritage.

All I can think is that this is yet another sign of just how ridiculous copyright law has become in the eyes of most people. They really do think it's all about "owning" words. Copyright is to create incentives for creation -- and I don't think it helped give Ojeda the incentive for creation. I'm not sure how Chile's copyright law works, but even if it has moral rights (requiring attribution of authorship), again, I don't believe anyone here is trying to pass off the note as being written by anyone but Ojeda. Furthermore, is there really any "creative" element to the note that should be deserving of copyright protection? This is just blatant "ownership" culture, where a note that was used to give the world hope is now being fought over using a silly law that should have nothing to do with it.

Filed Under: chile, copyright, jose ojeda, miners, notes

Chile Gets New Copyright Law: Some Good, Some Bad

from the doesn't-sound-all-that-good dept

We recently wrote about how India had proposed changes to its copyright law that included a few surprisingly good ideas (and a few really bad ones). However, some other countries have been changing their copyright laws as well. Earlier this year, a friend involved in these things told me to keep an eye out for Chile's new copyright laws, suggesting that I would be pleasantly surprised. Michael Scott points us to a brief description of the recently approved changes to copyright law in Chile... and, like India, it looks like a mix of good and bad. And, contrary to what I had hoped for, the bad seems to outweigh the good. To be fair, the summary is very cursory, so perhaps there's more to the changes than what's written. But the report highlights three changes, and from the summary, it seems like one change is good, one is bad and one is probably neutral.

The changes that will soon go into effect can be divided into three groups: the establishment of a new framework of exceptions and limitations to copyright and related rights, the incorporation of new offences, increased penalties and the consecration of new tools intended to prosecute crimes against intellectual property, and an extensive chapter on the liability of Internet Service Providers (ISP).

The first one is obviously the "good." More and better exceptions -- a la fair use -- is an unquestionably good thing. But, looking at the few details provided, it doesn't look like broad fair use-style exceptions were added. Instead, the exceptions look pretty limited:

For example, extending the framework of action for libraries and nonprofit archives in terms of the reproduction, translation and digitization of a particular work allows for it to be used for criticism, illustration, teaching or research purposes and also expands the use of works that aim to benefit a person with visual or hearing impairment.

Those are good exceptions, but those a pretty small subset of the type of exceptions that any good copyright law should have.

The "bad" is the second one. Increasing penalties makes little sense when penalties for violating copyright law are already way out of line with the "harm" done. The "neutral" one is the last one, concerning liability for service providers. Creating good safe harbors for service providers, so they're not blamed for the actions of their users, is definitely a good thing. But the devil is very much in the details -- and what the requirements are for a service provider to qualify for those safe harbors. While the report says "the ISP must meet certain requirements in order to be exempted from liability," it does not detail what those "certain requirements" are.

Filed Under: chile, copyright, copyright law

DNS Screwup Accidentally Extends Great Firewall Of China To Chile And The US?

from the yes,-but-could-you-use-Google? dept

A bit surprised this story didn't get more attention, but apparently some sort of DNS networking "error" meant that certain computers in both the US and Chile came up against the infamous Great Firewall of China -- meaning many sites were suddenly inaccessible (and, one assumes, Google sent folks to Google Hong Kong):

Security experts are not sure exactly how this happened, but it appears that at least one ISP recently began fetching high-level DNS (domain name server) information from what's known as a root DNS server, based in China. That server, operated out of China by Swedish service provider Netnod, returned DNS information intended for Chinese users, effectively spreading China's network censorship overseas. China tightly controls access to a number of Web sites, using technology known colloquially as the Great Firewall of China.

The issue was reported Wednesday by Mauricio Ereche, a DNS admin with NIC Chile, who found that an unnamed local ISP reported that DNS queries for sites such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com and YouTube.com -- all of which have been blocked in China -- were being redirected to bogus addresses.

I'm reminded of the case when Pakistan tried to block YouTube and ended up blocking YouTube around the globe. Just a bit of a scary reminder of how fragile and interconnected the internet can be at times.

Filed Under: chile, china, dns, great firewall, us

Chile Rejects Attempt To Force ISPs To Filter And Block Copyrighted Works

from the sorry,-that's-a-no dept

While some other countries have caved to pressure from the entertainment industry and US diplomats to implement ridiculously draconian copyright laws, it's always nice to hear of some pushing back. Nicolas A. Barriga points us to the news that despite several attempts by Chile's president to pass extremely draconian copyright laws, that would force ISPs to actively police their networks and block access to content that was accused (not proven) of being infringement, the provision was definitively rejected (Google translation of the original). Apparently, it was rejected in such a way that the President can no longer re-introduce it.

What's interesting here (beyond a victory for user rights) is that a big part of the argument pushed by the entertainment industry representatives, was that this law was necessary to remain in compliance with trade agreements (there they are again) with the US. However, it appears that Chilean politicians recognized this was a load of bunk. Nothing in their trade obligations required such a solution. This sound similar to pressure put on countries like Canada and Israel, where they're told they need to introduce copyright laws well beyond anything in the US just to live up to their international obligations. So far, both Canada and Israel have pushed back, and it's good to see Chile doing so as well.

Filed Under: chile, copyright, filters, isps, lobbyists

Chilean Hacker Uses Anonymous Coward As Nom De Hacker

from the amusing dept

When Slashdot first started up, it automatically put the name "Anonymous Coward" into its comment system for anyone who chose not to leave a name. When we started using Slashcode ourselves in the early days, we followed suit, and have kept it up ever since (which still gets amusing when people assume all of the Anonymous Coward comments are by the same person). However, it looks like a malicious hacker (or, cracker, if you must) in Chile has decided to take that name a bit further. After stealing data on 6 million Chileans (including the daughter of the president) and posting it all online, it came out that the hacker was using the name "Anonymous Coward" to brag about his exploits. Hopefully, the Chilean police don't now try to shut down Slashdot.

Filed Under: anonymous coward, chile, cracking, hacking