Unhappy With Even Minimal Scrutiny, US Removes Last Pretense Of TPP Transparency

from the running-scared dept

One of the central problems of ACTA has been its lack of transparency. TPP has also been negotiated behind closed doors, but unlike ACTA has permitted at least one small opportunity for public groups to engage with the negotiators through the use of stakeholder forums, where organizations and even individuals were permitted to give short presentations about aspects of TPP. This has allowed points of view other than those of industry lobbyists to be heard by negotiators.

But it seems that even that tiny shaft of sunlight being shone upon the measures believed to be in TPP was too bright for the US, which is hosting the next round of the negotiations in Dallas, from May 8 to 18:

"As anticipated, now that the US has taken control of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations it has removed the only pretense of transparency -- the day-long 'stakeholder' programme where critics can present information and analysis directly to negotiators", says Professor Jane Kelsey, from the Law School at the University of Auckland.

The excellent site TPP Watch explains why even a few hours of transparency was so threatening:

The stakeholder presentations have offered detailed expert analyses of the legal issues and implications of TPPA proposals that many countries’ negotiators do not have time, resources or knowledge to develop themselves.

They also provide important support for the positions that countries are taking in the negotiations, especially against the very aggressive demands from the US.

Even though it is voluntary for the negotiators to attend, they often ask for follow-up discussions on the issues and how they might protect their interests -- without, of course, the advisers having access to the draft text.

In theory, there are other ways for critics of TPP to gain access to the negotiators. For example, civil society groups might hold an open meeting about TPP in the hotel where the negotiations were being held -- except that last time they tried to do that, their booking was cancelled at the behest of the USTR.

That action, taken with the latest move, shows that the US will do everything in its power to stop any kind of independent discussion of TPP taking place that might bring inconvenient issues about the treaty to the attention of negotiators from other countries. The only consolation is that this kind of bullying proves just how frightened the US is that open, transparent discussions of TPP could cause the whole thing to unravel -- and provides an additional incentive to fight for even more transparency than those stakeholder forums provided until now.

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Filed Under: acta, tpp, transparency

We Don't Want Everything For Free. We Just Want Everything

from the kids-today dept

Recently, I gave a Sita Sings the Blues talk to a roomful of 15-to-17-year-olds. Near the end I explained Free Culture and my stance against copyright, which led to some interesting discussion. Turns out most of them are manga fans, and familiar with publishers’ complaints about scanned and translated manga shared freely online. They all read them anyway (except one, who prefers to read entire manga in the bookstore). I asked them how they would choose to support artists they liked (once they had some disposable income) and they said:

1. Donate buttons – with the qualification that they want to know as much as possible about where the donation is going. They said honesty and transparency are important.
2. Kickstarter – They all knew about it (which was notable because none of them had heard of Flattr) and valued pitch videos that explained how the money would be used.
3. Custom drawings
4. Merch
5. Physical copies
6. Live Shared Experiences, including ballet, museum exhibits, and concerts. The event aspect was important; they wanted to be able to say, “Remember that one time when that awesome show was here…” They agreed seeing things in person is a more powerful experience than seeing things online, and worth spending more on. One said she would buy CD at a live show because “it reminds you of the show.”
7. One said he would support artists by promoting their work to his friends.

Semi-related, I took an informal poll of how many would prefer to read a book on paper vs. an e-reader. The vast majority said paper, but what they really seemed to want was dual formats: paper copies to read comfortably and collect, and digital copies to search and reference. Makes sense to me. Only two of them had iPads, and none used them for “enhanced eBooks.”

My favorite quote of the afternoon, from a 15-year-old girl:

“We don’t want everything for free. We just want everything.

crossposted from ninapaley.com

 

Filed Under: artists, copyright, culture, free, honest, support, teens, transparency

German Gov't Uses Anger Over Lack Of ACTA Transparency To Justify Further Lack Of Transparency

from the missing-the-point dept

Even though the ACTA text is now finalized, getting details from national governments about what exactly happened during the negotiations is proving extremely difficult, with information still trickling out slowly.

For example, as the Netzpolitik blog explains (German original), the European Commission tried to counter accusations that the negotiations were lacking in transparency by pointing out that the German government had a representative present during all the sessions (that's transparency?). This was news to people, since the German government had somehow omitted to mention this fact.

A natural question was therefore: who exactly took part? A German freedom of information request was put in to find out, and refused on rather remarkable grounds: that it might place the German officials who had been present during the negotiations at risk, because of the "emotional discussions" about ACTA that have taken place recently. The German government even claimed that threats of physical violence had been made against those who had taken part in ACTA, and so it couldn't endanger the persons involved by naming them.

This all seems pretty far fetched. I don't recall hearing about anyone threatening ACTA officials with physical violence, but I suppose it's possible that someone, somewhere in Germany, say, wrote something to this effect. However, the Germany government is really missing the point here.

The fact that such "emotional discussions" have taken place demonstrates how deeply frustrated people are at the continuing lack of transparency surrounding the ACTA negotiations. Using that previous failure to provide information to justify further withholding of details is only likely to exacerbate things. It's time for the German government, and the other signatories, to stop playing these bureaucratic games and to start engaging with their citizens through the release of more details about what exactly happened behind ACTA's closed doors.

As well as details of who took part, there is one other category of information whose release is vital: the preparatory documents used during the negotiations. That's because much of ACTA is worded in an extremely vague way, making precise interpretation difficult. In these circumstances, Article 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties presumably comes into play (pdf):

Recourse may be had to supplementary means of interpretation, including the preparatory work of the treaty and the circumstances of its conclusion, in order to confirm the meaning resulting from the application of article 31 [General rule of interpretation], or to determine the meaning when the interpretation according to article 31:

(a) leaves the meaning ambiguous or obscure; or
(b) leads to a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable.

Without those preparatory materials the true effect of ACTA is difficult to gauge, and those "emotional discussions" that are apparently so problematic are likely to become even more heated. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

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Filed Under: acta, germany, transparency

Obama Administration: ACTA Is Binding & Don't Worry Your Pretty Little Heads About TPP

from the condescension-is-king dept

We've covered how Senator Wyden has been pressing the administration on ACTA and TPP concerning the process behind both agreements. The State Department has now responded by admitting that ACTA is, in fact, binding on the United States.

Under international law, the ACTA is a legally binding international agreement. By its terms, the ACTA enters into force when at least six parties have deposited instruments indicating their consent to be bound. Accordingly, once in force for the United States, the ACTA will impose obligations on the United States that are governed by international law. As in the case of other international agreements, it is possible that Congress could enact subsequent changes in U.S. law that are inconsistent with U.S. international obligations.

That's interesting, because it's what many people had assumed (and what other signatories to ACTA have been saying), but actually contradicts earlier statements from the USTR suggesting that we can ignore parts of the agreement that we don't like or which conflict with existing US law. It also means that, as we've been warning, ACTA dangerously restricts Congress from passing new laws that could push back on some of the worst aspects of copyright law. Sure, Congress could ignore ACTA, but there would be substantial problems if it were to do so. In other words, ACTA is binding on the US under international law... but not under US law. Of course, international law trumps US law here, so that's kind of meaningless.

And yet, the administration still insists that it can pass and ratify ACTA without Congressional approval. In the same letter, the State Department says that it doesn't see any problem in having the President approve ACTA without Senate ratification, because it doesn't require any changes today. First of all, it's not entirely clear if that's true, and there are some areas where it is believed current ACTA provisions likely come into conflict with US law (though the USTR squeezes around this by saying that all depends on how you interpret the phrases in ACTA -- which seems like an issue of piss poor drafting of the agreement by the USTR).

Either way, the claim that this does not need Senate ratification appears to be incorrect. The fact that it is restricting Congress's ability to act on an issue which is Congress's mandate (not the administration's) suggests that there is simply no way that the President can sign ACTA without it being ratified by Congress. Even if it doesn't force Congress to change laws today, it does unquestionably hinder Congress' ability to change laws in the future.

Perhaps even more ridiculous is that earlier today, USTR Ron Kirk appeared before a Senate committee on trade issues, where Senator Wyden was able to ask Kirk about both ACTA and TPP. The answers were quite disturbing, and show the rather imperialistic attitude that the administration and Kirk in particular have taken on this issue: After repeating what the State Department said about it being binding, the discussion on TPP is downright ridiculous. Kirk insists that the USTR has been super-transparent on TPP. That's interesting, considering that no documents have been released, no efforts to discuss the document with the public are planned and, in fact, the USTR has planned to keep all background documents on TPP secret until four years after the agreement is ratified.

Wyden points out that the public is clearly up in arms over intellectual property issues, as seen by the response to SOPA and PIPA -- and notes that, currently, the USTR is requiring people to have security clearance to see TPP. He questions what's wrong with having the USTR publicly display what its own proposals are for TPP. He's not saying they should reveal trade secrets or proposals from others -- but make the US's own proposals public. Kirk insists that it's unfair to compare TPP to SOPA and PIPA. That would be a lot more convincing if we could actually see the details, but we can't, since we don't have security clearance and we haven't been "chosen" by the USTR.

In response to the request to put the proposals up publicly on the internet, Kirk insists that if we do that, we'll "never be able to negotiate another trade agreement again" because others wouldn't come to the table. Kirk made this identical argument about ACTA. Of course, later, after the secret documents leaked, we found out that most of the other negotiators wanted the documents public... but it was the US and Ron Kirk who wanted them secret. So I'm sorry, but his claims that others would leave the table and wouldn't negotiate just don't make any sense at all.

Wyden points out, again, that "the norm" for how the public views intellectual property changed on January 18th -- and the public needs to be involved in these debates. He asks Kirk to "throw open the doors" to the USTR so that the TPP negotiation info is a lot more public. Kirk's response is quite bizarre. He talks about the importance of democracy and elections, and letting the elected officials represent the public's interest.

Forgive me for asking, but when did we elect Ron Kirk to head the USTR? He's an appointee, not an elected official. He doesn't represent the public. At all. And that needs to change.

Filed Under: acta, binding, copyright, ron kirk, ron wyden, tpp, transparency, ustr

Darrell Issa Posts Text Of 'Unconstitutional' ACTA For Open Feedback; Something USTR Never Did

from the well-look-at-that dept

We've been really impressed (though we can see where it needs improvements in its next version) with the "Madison" platform that Rep. Darrell Issa put up to allow for open feedback and comments concerning the OPEN Act. And it appears he's not done using that platform, either. He's now posted the text of ACTA to the same platform to ask for feedback and comments. It comes with an initial statement showing that he's very concerned about the nature of ACTA (I believe this is the first time Issa has spoken out against ACTA:

Stopping SOPA and PIPA was a historic victory for digital citizens, but ACTA potentially poses a similar threat to the global Internet community. While the agreement’s stated goal of strengthening intellectual property rights is one all should support, it does so by undermining individual privacy rights and by empowering an unaccountable enforcement bureaucracy. And just like SOPA and PIPA, ACTA was crafted without input from citizens and key stakeholders in a secretive, closed-door process.

Worse, ACTA appears to be an unconstitutional power grab started by President George W. Bush and completed by President Barack Obama - despite the White House’s January 14 criticism of legislative solutions that harm the Internet and erode individual rights. The Constitution gives Congress the power to pass intellectual property legislation - like SOPA and PIPA - and gives the Senate the power to ratify treaties. But the Obama Administration maintains that ACTA is not even a treaty, justifying the exclusion of both American citizens and their elected representatives. It is a practice Vice President Joe Biden decried as a U.S. Senator.

Closed doesn’t cut it. We opened up ACTA in Madison so you can sign up, speak out and collaborate to build a better “treaty.”

For all of the USTR's ridiculous claims of unprecedented transparency, why couldn't it have done something like this before ACTA was "finalized"? The answer is that there's no reason at all. Instead, the USTR released the "final" draft of ACTA as a done deal, and any public comment was meaningless, because the document was not open for any additional changes.

Which raises another unfortunate point. The Obama administration has already signed ACTA. Hopefully this means that Congress is actually going to get serious about challenging the administration on its claimed authority to sign and ratify ACTA without Congress' approval. Until now, the only Congressional official who had questioned that right publicly was Senator Wyden -- though, we've heard of a few others who have sent pointed questions to the administration about its claims. With Issa going public and directly questioning this attempt to deny Congress the right to review ACTA -- despite the Executive branch not having the right to make copyright or patent law -- perhaps Congress will finally step up and make it clear that it won't let the President simply ignore Congress' mandate over both IP law and international treaties.

Also, when do we get the Madison'ed version of TPP?

Filed Under: acta, darrell issa, discussion, madison, transparency, treaties, ustr

Shining Light On ACTA's Lack Of Transparency

from the don't-a-billion-people-matter? dept

One of the key problems with ACTA is the lack of transparency during its negotiation. That this is becoming a big issue in Europe is shown by the fact that the European Commission has tried to dispose of the question twice -- first in its "10 myths about ACTA", which I discussed recently on Techdirt, and now with a page entitled "Transparency of ACTA negotiations":

This factsheet aims at clarifying the way the European Parliament, civil society and all stakeholders have been informed and involved in the negotiation process.

Note that it insists all stakeholders were "informed and involved". I'd like to explore that a little.

One important group are the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), since they are the representatives of the 500 million citizens in the European Union. The Commission spells out exactly how often they communicated with this group of politicians:

During the ACTA negotiations, the European Commission has shared the following documents with the European Parliament (see annex for full list of documents):

7 successive draft texts of the agreement
3 detailed written reports on the negotiation rounds
14 notes and internal working papers

But there's a problem with those documents, as the Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström highlighted in a blog post back in 2010: MEPs weren't allowed to pass on any information they obtained.

The ACTA negotiators from the Commission came to the European Parliament today, to inform the Parliament about what happened in the last round of negotiations in Luzern.

However, the meeting where the information was to be given was declared “in camera”, i.e.: closed to the public.

At the meeting, I asked if this meant that there were restrictions on how the information given could be used and spread. At first the Commission seemed unwilling to answer this question with a straight yes or no, but after I had repeated the question a number of times, they finally came out and said that I would not be allowed to spread the information given.

In fact, Engström pointed out that the situation was even worse:

According Article 218(10) of the Lisbon Treaty, the Commission has a duty to keep the European Parliament “immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure”.

To give oral information in a closed meeting, with no documents at all handed out, hardly qualifies as keeping the Parliament “fully informed”.

It is obvious that the Commission has no intention of living up to its obligations under the Treaty when it comes to informing the Parliament.

That is disgraceful.

So according to an MEP who was theoretically privy to at least some of those drafts, reports and internal working papers supposedly available, the Commission failed even to inform the European Parliament properly. Moreover, what information there was, could not then be passed on to the people the MEPs were representing.

But there was another route for information to be conveyed to them: via non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Here's the kind of transparency the European Commission says it provided to those groups:

the team of negotiators have invited, met and extensively debriefed NGOs, academia and representatives from political parties such as the Pirate Party during the last four rounds of negotiations in Wellington, Luzern, Washington and Tokyo. These meetings took place on side events during the negotiation sessions. The stakeholders had access to the negotiators' teams and issues and concerns raised by Civil Society were discussed and explained.

That sounds pretty good, but as Techdirt reported about the last of those meetings, the reality was rather different:

For the past month, negotiators had been telling the NGOs that the meetings were starting September 27th. Then, they suddenly announced that it would actually start September 23rd, and the NGO meeting would be on the 24th. Except, by the time they announced it, it was too late for most representatives to get to Japan in time (many had booked flights for the following week), and the Japanese government refused to change the time of the meeting. Then, finally, when the meeting was held and only 2 or 3 NGOs were actually able to make it, it wasn't so much a "meeting" as it was lunch -- and, even then, all the ACTA negotiators sat together, leaving no room for the NGOs.

So, it looks like the only channels of communication that the public had were direct ones. Here's what happened there according to the European Commission:

4 stakeholders' meetings -- open to all citizens -- were organised in Brussels:
23 June 2008
21 April 2009
22 March 2010 and
25 January 2011

That's it: one opportunity a year for 500 million people somehow to find out everything that had happened with ACTA -- based on the five documents that were publicly released, three of which were "speaking points" -- and to make their own views heard.

The European Commission is obviously aware that this is a joke, and desperately tries to mitigate its blatant failure to involve ordinary citizens by adding:

During the whole negotiation process, the European Commission has not recruited any consultants, be it from industry or from NGOs or civil society. The European Commission denies having provided any kind of preferential access to information to any group of stakeholders, be it from industry, trade unions or from other stakeholders.

Even if it's true the EU negotiators didn't provide such preferential access, that's irrelevant, because the US side did:

Apart from the participating governments, an advisory committee of large US-based multinational corporations was consulted on the content of the draft treaty, including the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the International Intellectual Property Alliance (which includes the Business Software Alliance, Motion Picture Association of America, and Recording Industry Association of America). A 2009 Freedom of Information request showed that the following companies also received copies of the draft under a nondisclosure agreement: Google, eBay, Intel, Dell, News Corporation, Sony Pictures, Time Warner, and Verizon.

So the European Commission's claim that "all stakeholders have been informed and involved in the negotiation process" is true only at the most superficial of levels. Yes, MEPs were told minimal information -- but weren't allowed to pass it on to the people they represent; yes, NGOs were able to sit in the same room as the negotiators for an hour or two -- if they managed to overcome the series of obstacles designed to stop them getting there on the right day; yes, members of the public could express their views – but only once a year, by travelling to Brussels at their own expense, and without access to the vast majority of relevant documents.

In reality, the only stakeholders that were truly informed and involved were the copyright industries who were present right from the start. ACTA is simply the implementation of their one-sided demands without any meaningful checks or balances for the benefit of the billion people who will be most affected by it, but who were consistently ignored during its negotiations.

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Filed Under: acta, eu, transparency

The SOPA/PIPA Protest Shows Why There Needs To Be Complete Transparency With TPP

from the keeping-stuff-secret-is-simply-not-an-option dept

Lawyer Jonathan Band has written up an execllent analysis for why what happened with SOPA/PIPA (pdf) demonstrates why the Obama administration and the USTR in particular must be significantly more transparent when it comes to TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. TPP, of course, is the evil stepchild of ACTA. Rather than learning that excessive secrecy in ACTA was the wrong approach, it appears that the USTR simply determined that since it got away with being so secret with ACTA, it might as well double down and be even more secret with TPP. Not only that, but early reports and leaks from the ultra-secret TPP negotiations suggest that the USTR -- once again acting as the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce's personal waterboys -- was trying to shove in every bad idea that it failed to get into ACTA.

However, as Band notes in his paper, the problems with excessive copyright legislation that impacts the internet is becoming a big issue with the public, and that shouldn't be taken lightly. Most of the paper goes through the specific problems of SOPA and PIPA, as well as the public's response to the attempts by the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce to push through such a ridiculously bad bill that would impact internet sites worldwide. It then uses that to explain why the USTR simply needs to be more transparent:

The transparency surrounding TPP must increase. If the public feels that the provisions included in TPP jeopardize the openness of the Internet, it will strongly oppose the adoption of TPP. To prevent this from happening, the negotiations concerning the IP chapter must become more transparent. Drafts must be made available online for public comment. The fact that in the past some trade negotiations have had little transparency is irrelevant. The SOPA experience demonstrates that a new era of public engagement in IP policy has begun

Furthermore, Band makes the point that the USTR (and any government, really) can no longer pretend that copyright laws are obscure laws that do not impact the public. The public has hopefully now clearly established itself as a very important -- if not the most important -- stakeholder in any debates around copyright issues going forward.

Internet users care deeply about its vitality. The overwhelming public opposition to SOPA and PIPA generated by just one day of online protests indicates that the members of the public will take strong and immediate political action to protect this medium which has become a central part of their lives at home, school, and work. IP, at least to the extent it intersects with the Internet, is no longer an issue of only narrow technical interest.

Finally, the paper makes it clear that, no matter how many times the lobbyists backing these bills and trade agreements like to pretend that they don't impact US sites, that's simply laughable, and the public knows it:

IP rules can have a significant impact on legitimate websites. The Internet democratizes commerce and communications. Platforms such as eBay or YouTube allow individuals and businesses of all sizes to reach large audiences and markets. But IP rules that place too heavy a legal burden on the platforms for user activities, as do SOPA and PIPA, will constrain the growth of this Twenty-First Century medium of trade and discourse.

IP rules can affect international trade. The Internet does not recognize national boundaries. IP rules in one country can affect the operation of websites in another country. SOPA and PIPA would not only impose liability in the United States on non-U.S. websites that may be legal in their host countries; they also would interfere with the operation of these websites in their host countries. Provisions like SOPA and PIPA would allow countries – and indeed, individual companies – to erect trade barriers without following multilaterally agreed procedures with notice and due process.

These points seem obvious to many of us. The real question is whether or not the administration and the USTR recognize it yet. The fact that it's still been negotating the TPP agreement in secrecy suggests not. That it thinks it can get away with such blatant rent seeking for Hollywood interests, in the face of a public that is now paying attention to these issues shows an incredible disrespect for the public's best interests. It's a shameful statement on whose interests the USTR is really representing -- and the nature of crony capitalism in the US government these days.

Filed Under: acta, pipa, protect ip, sopa, tpp, transparency

Why Chris Dodd Failed With His SOPA/PIPA Strategy

from the time-to-engage,-chris dept

The NY Times has a fascinating, if ridiculous, interview with Chris Dodd about everything that happened regarding SOPA/PIPA. It starts off with the suggestion that the real problem here was that, due to Senate ethics rules, Dodd can't personally lobby Congress until 2013. You may recall that, before leaving the Senate, Chris Dodd promised that he would not become a lobbyist -- a promise he broke just a few months later in taking the top job at the MPAA. And make no mistake about it: Dodd's role is as a lobbyist. He is barred from personally lobbying Congress, but can lobby the White House, and is the main "strategist" behind the MPAA's PIPA/SOPA strategy trainwreck.

But the bigger issue in the article is that Dodd still doesn't seem to understand what happened. Sure, he talks about how the internet made a difference, but he thinks this sprang up out of nowhere.

By Mr. Dodd’s account, no Washington player can safely assume that a well-wired, heavily financed legislative program is safe from a sudden burst of Web-driven populism.

“This is altogether a new effect,” Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing “an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically” in the last four decades, he added.

The thing is, if he'd actually been paying attention, he would have know that this has been building for a long, long time. For all the talk in the article of what a brilliant "strategist" he is, it appears his strategy was with the old way of doing things. He reacted to the internet with tremendous hubris -- pretending that the complaints weren't an issue, or were "just Google." Some of us have been watching this closely for years. This goes back quite a ways. Before SOPA, before PIPA. Before COICA. Before ProIP. There's been a growing recognition online that copyright is being used as a tool to block, censor and regulate our civil liberties, and there's been a growing sense of outrage over this. We've reported on it. We've told people at the MPAA and RIAA about it directly. And they've ignored it. Like Dodd did. His "strategy" may work in a world where his lobbyists are the only ones at the table, but it's no strategy for dealing with the public.

Even worse, Dodd's own actions fueled the problem. His own statements built up this attack posture from the very beginning. We had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Dodd would come in as a "reformer," intent on helping the MPAA adapt to the internet, embrace its opportunities and build better business models. But, instead, Dodd continued down the well-trodden path of blaming everyone else for his own industry's unwillingness to adapt -- and continued the MPAA's disastrous strategy of focusing on anti-piracy rather than revenue maximization (or, even worse, believing that anti-piracy is revenue maximization when nearly all of the evidence suggests succeeding at anti-piracy does almost nothing to improve the bottom line).

As a "strategist," the MPAA needed someone who understood the world that Hollywood is operating in. Dodd understood the way Washington DC used to work. That's a big disconnect. And it does not appear to be getting any better.

Equally hilarious are his calls for a meeting -- perhaps organized by the White House -- of tech companies and Hollywood:

Mr. Dodd said he would welcome a summit meeting between Internet companies and content companies, perhaps convened by the White House, that could lead to a compromise. Looming next Tuesday is a cloture vote scheduled in the Senate, which appears to promise the death of the legislation in its current form.

“The perfect place to do it is a block away from here,” said Mr. Dodd, who pointed from his office on I Street toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Sure. He'd welcome it now. Where was he three months ago when a group of entrepreneurs in the tech sector offered to sit down and meet with him? Where was he just a few weeks ago, when Senator Feinstein tried to set up a meeting between the tech world and Hollywood -- which Hollywood rejected, claiming that it didn't need to meet with tech companies, because it had this bill sewn up tight?

Now he wants to meet?

But even more to the point -- and showing just how much Dodd still doesn't get it... he wants to "meet with internet companies." Not internet users. He still seems to think that this is about internet companies, and not their users. Part of the protests were about the process and the backroom dealing. There is no "backroom" for making political deals on the internet.

If he wants to meet, why not meet in an open format where anyone can contribute? Why not meet on the internet? Why not do a Reddit AMA? Why not hold a Twitter conversation? Why not set up a forum or do some Google Hangouts? Why not actually use the tools he seeks to regulate?

Obviously, sometimes it helps to meet face to face, but if that's to be done, why not stream it live online? Why not let anyone watching contribute, make comments and ask questions? This can't be another backroom deal, even with "the internet companies." This has to be open and inclusive. This is about the whole process of DC-insiderism. This is about the whole process on which the article premises itself: that Dodd could have won this battle if he'd just been able to glad hand his way around Congress. That is what the internet was rejecting here. And I don't think trying to do the same basic thing again is going to accomplish very much. Dodd isn't going to win the internet over with a handshake and a sparkling smile.

Later in the interview, he discusses "missteps" in a way that shows he's still missing the point:

He acknowledged his side had committed a misstep by allowing Hollywood to become the face of laws that were intended to protect not just movies, but also more mundane products — for instance, home smoke alarms — that are frequently counterfeited abroad, sometimes with disastrous effects.

“In terms of public perception, I’m Exhibit A,” said Mr. Dodd, who spent last weekend hobnobbing with stars at the Golden Globes. “This is seen as a red carpet business.”

It was a further problem, he said, that Hollywood’s writers, directors, producers and blue-collar workers — whose unions squarely backed the new law — never personally campaigned in a way that might have helped to counter the Web assault.

Notice that he's not talking about substance here, but merely positioning. He's talking about the marketing of the backroom deal, not the meaning of the backroom deal. Yes, the fact that Hollywood elites were driving this process was a part of the problem. But he's wrong that it was because of how they positioned it. The MPAA absolutely did try to do exactly what he said. It set up CreativeAmerica as an astroturf group, staffed by former MPAA/studio execs, and pretending to represent the "grassroots." The only problem was that the actual "blue collar" workers didn't support the bills and recognized how bogus the claims of the MPAA were. And that was evident in the fact that the group totally failed to drum up any significant support -- even with a huge war chest that is still running slick, expensive ad campaigns on TV and in Times Square in NY.

Finally, Dodd still shows the kind of hubris that got him into this mess when he starts complaining about the White House, and how disappointed he is, because of how much money the industry donates. This is the same tone deafness that we saw earlier with the studio heads:

“There’s a disconnect between the business interests and the politics of Hollywood,” Mr. Dodd said, meaning that the film industry and its denizens provided money for many campaigns, including those of Mr. Obama, without pushing its issues to the fore.

[....]

While Mr. Dodd is barred from Congressional contact, he has had a free hand in lobbying the White House and federal agencies. On Saturday, however, the Obama administration dealt his efforts a blow by announcing publicly, in response to online petitions, that it had reservations about a provision in the proposed laws that called for blocking user access to offending sites.

Mr. Dodd spoke with barely concealed anger at what he called a “really gratuitous” statement delivered by what he had presumed was a sympathetic administration, which came after the blocking provisions had effectively been killed in Congress.

It's really incredible that Dodd can go from saying that this shouldn't have been seen as Hollywood fat-cats asking for handouts... and then immediately shift into talking about how much money they gave the administration, and how they expected the administration to simply give them what they wanted. That is a big part of the problem. That is what the internet is complaining about. People were upset that Hollywood can "buy" legislation that goes against the public's best interests.

Furthermore, the idea that Hollywood donors did not "push the issue to the fore" is pretty laughable. Hollywood has been pushing incredibly hard to get this bill passed over the past year. We've heard time and time again about how much time and effort have gone into lobbying for this bill, and how there were ever-increasing efforts over the past few months, with some Congressional staffers saying it was an unprecedented push for a particular bill. They pushed. But they failed to recognize the reality outside the beltway.

And that's why Chris Dodd failed.

If he wants to turn things around, it's time for him to stop focusing on the DC inside ballgame. It's time for him to join the internet community and actually engage. That may be tough to do, and he's certainly burnt a lot of bridges, but there are ways to build new relationships. But it can't happen if he's still taking the attitude he takes in this article. It's still about getting what he wants, and not actually listening to the concerns of the wider internet. And until he understands that basic fact, Chris Dodd is going to continue to fail.

Filed Under: chris dodd, copyright, dc, internet, lobbying, pipa, protect ip, sopa, transparency
Companies: mpaa

Is It Time For A Federal Scanning Commission?

from the yes-we-scan? dept

We just wrote about the move by the House Oversight Committee to put hours upon hours of archive footage of hearings up on YouTube, led by Carl Malamud, who (we noted) is always working on interesting projects to make government data more accessible. Carl Malamud, himself, wrote in (actually, before we posted that other story -- so he must have known we were about to write about him!) to alert us to another project he's working on: trying to get the government to create a Federal Scanning Commission, to focus on scanning tons of government content and putting it online. As he says:

Locked in our federal vaults is a tremendous storehouse of information that if digitized would form a core for our digital public libraries in America with huge benefit for our country: cutting costs in the Federal government, creating jobs throughout America, and revolutionizing how we educate our citizens, how we practice the law, and how we create news, art, and scholarly works.

Imagine if the riches contained in the National Archives, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, Government Printing Office, National Library of Medicine, National Agricultural Library, National Technical Information Service, and scores of other federal organizations were made available, becoming the core of a national effort to make access to knowledge a right for all Americans. The dream is a big one, but if we do not begin the questions of what it would take to get there, we will never start down that road. Today, we don't know what it would take.

There's also one of those White House petitions to go along with this program... This would be a big project, but it seems like one government project that would be worthwhile.

Filed Under: carl malamud, federal scanning commission, government archives, scanning, transparency

Will The Food Industry Ever Swallow Transparency's Bitter Pill?

from the who's-next-for-openness? dept

A fascinating trend in recent years has been the gradual move from a presumption of secrecy to one of openness, transparency and sharing. This began with free software/open source, and has progressively spread to include areas such as open content, open access, open data, open science and open government.

Here's the latest field where people are advocating a more open approach:

Food costs are on the rise, as are obesity and diabetes. Food recalls, environmental pollution, and food insecurity are all far too common. The system clearly needs to be re-engineered to better serve the needs of everyone involved.

But before thinking about redesign, we need to really understand how the current system works. Doing so requires the ability to examine the different pieces of the system and supply chain, something currently impossible given the proprietary nature of the food and agriculture industries.

Herein lies the major roadblock and opportunity- hacking the food system requires creating incentives to move from closed, proprietary approaches to open ones.

Providing detailed information about the entire food chain – from production through distribution to sales – would allow all kinds of interesting data mash-ups to be created: showing how far your food must travel to your table, how long it takes, even things like your cumulative daily pesticide intake.

There would be clear benefits for the companies involved in production and consumption: it would allow foodstuffs to be tracked more precisely, trends analyzed, techniques optimized and savings identified. But it would also make it much easier to expose facts that the food industry would probably rather you didn't know - about what's in the food you eat, how it was produced and who owns the companies involved. Which means, of course, that it is likely to fight this move to openness with every means known to lobbyists.

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Filed Under: food, transparency