Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lord Dullard]

So, check this out, fellow gamers. It's freakin' scary. Actually, let me revise that statement: it's fucking scary.

ETA: Wow, this junk is even on wiki already.

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACTA_treaty

    ACTA would establish a new international legal framework that countries can join on a voluntary basis[1] and would create its own governing body outside existing international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations.[4][12] Citing a fact sheet published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the USTR's 2008 Special 301 report the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) states that the goal of ACTA is to create a new standard of intellectual property enforcement beyond the existing standards in the TRIPs Agreement and to increase international cooperation, including the sharing of information between signatory countries' law enforcement agencies.[2]

    According to the European Commission the goal of ACTA is to establish an international framework that improves the enforcement of existing intellectual property right laws. The Commission states that ACTA is to create improved international standards for actions against large-scale infringements of intellectual property. To this end ACTA will have three primary components: "international cooperation"; "enforcement practices"; and "legal framework for enforcement of intellectual property rights". The "ultimate objective" of ACTA is that large emerging economies, "where intellectual property rights enforcement could be improved, such as China, Russia or Brazil, will sign up to the global pact".[8] According to New Zealand ACTA aims to facilitate a "strong and modern legal framework so that law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, and private citizens have the most up-to-date tools necessary to effectively bring counterfeiters and pirates to justice." Areas for possible ACTA provisions include: criminal enforcement, border measures, civil enforcement, optical disc piracy, and Internet distribution and information technology.[13]

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-6197-0-32-32--.html

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn’t infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

H/T @miccolis, @ilabra & @exposur3

MORE:
The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

From EFF.org:

Negotiations on the highly controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement start in a few hours in Seoul, South Korea. This week’s closed negotiations will focus on “enforcement in the digital environment.” Negotiators will be discussing the Internet provisions drafted by the US government. No text has been officially released but as Professor Michael Geist and IDG are reporting, leaks have surfaced. The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations. The Internet provisions have nothing to do with addressing counterfeit products, but are all about imposing a set of copyright industry demands on the global Internet, including obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies, and a global expansion of DMCA-style TPM laws.

As expected, the Internet provisions will go beyond existing international treaty obligations and follow the language of Article 18.10.30 of the recent U.S. – South Korea Free Trade Agreement. We see three points of concern.

First, according to the leaks, ACTA member countries will be required to provide for third-party (Internet Intermediary) liability. This is not required by any of the major international IP treaties – not by the 1994 Trade Related Aspects of IP agreement, nor the WIPO Copyright and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. However, US copyright owners have long sought this. (For instance, see page 19 of the Industry Functional Advisory Committee report on the 2003 US- Singapore Free Trade Agreement noting the need for introducing a system of ISP liability). (Previously available at http://www.ustr.gov/...r_reports.htm.)

Second and more importantly, ACTA will include some limitations on Internet Intermediary liability. Many ACTA negotiating countries already have these regimes in place: the US, EU, Australia, Japan, South Korea. To get the benefit of the ACTA safe harbors, Internet intermediaries will need to follow notice and takedown regimes, and put in place policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of allegedly copyright infringing content.

Read the rest here

More stuff:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/181312/trade_talks_hone_in_on_internet_abuse_and_isp_liability.html

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4510/125/

The United States has drafted the chapter under enormous secrecy, with selected groups granted access under strict non-disclosure agreements and other countries (including Canada) given physical, watermarked copies designed to guard against leaks.

Despite the efforts to combat leaks, information on the Internet chapter has begun to emerge (just as they did with the other elements of the treaty).  Sources say that the draft text, modeled on the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, focuses on following five issues:

1.   Baseline obligations inspired by Article 41 of the TRIPs which focuses on the enforcement of intellectual property.

2.   A requirement to establish third-party liability for copyright infringement.

3.   Restrictions on limitations to 3rd party liability (ie. limited safe harbour rules for ISPs).  For example, in order for ISPs to qualify for a safe harbour, they would be required establish policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content.  Provisions are modeled under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, namely Article 18.10.30.  They include policies to terminate subscribers in appropriate circumstances.  Notice-and-takedown, which is not currently the law in Canada nor a requirement under WIPO, would also be an ACTA requirement.

4.   Anti-circumvention legislation that establishes a WIPO+ model by adopting both the WIPO Internet Treaties and the language currently found in U.S. free trade agreements that go beyond the WIPO treaty requirements.  For example, the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement specifies the permitted exceptions to anti-circumvention rules.  These follow the DMCA model (reverse engineering, computer testing, privacy, etc.) and do not include a fair use/fair dealing exception.  Moreover, the free trade agreement clauses also include a requirement to ban the distribution of circumvention devices.  The current draft does not include any obligation to ensure interoperability of DRM.

5.   Rights Management provisions, also modeled on U.S. free trade treaty language.

Revised somewhat: it appears you CAN find this on google by just typing in 'secret copyright treaty leaked'. Google's search algorithm just sucks more than I thought.

[Dakk]

What.

This is just a carefully played joke this is just a carefully played joke this is just a carefully played joke this is just a carefully played joke this is just a carefully played joke this is just a carefully played joke this is just a carefully played joke this is just a carefully played joke.

[Neonivek]

Well it is going to happen eventually, but it seems unfortunate that this may make running a website impossible anyhow.

[Dakk]

If the world becomes a 1984 mockup in the next years, I'm joining the Liberal Crime Squad.

[Armok]

This can't be real... right?

[Lord Dullard]

Nope, this is totally serious. Try typing the search into google, then Bing, yourself.

However, it probably won't be long before Bing censors the same stuff, so... yeah. You might want to do it now, while you can.

[Neonivek]

If the world becomes a 1984 mockup in the next years, I'm joining the Liberal Crime Squad.

Not the world, just the internet.

I have no problem with internet monitoring if they follow certain rules similar to what the police have when investigating.

These however don't seem to.

It is also hillariously abusable! It is basically pandering to large corperations. Want to stop a small buisness from running a successful website? For pennies you just attack your competition with accusations!

-There was a Judge a while back who charged a drycleaner millions of dollars for his pants. People on the internet thought he was parodying the way these cases are done. HECK NO! he INTENTIONALLY made the claim unreasonable not because he was fighting an unfair justice system but because constantly sending the small time drycleaners back to court would cost them much more money then paying for a reasonable settlement ever would. It is a common strategy to bankrupt people by constantly sending them to court, one of my mother's friends has a daughter who is basically becoming broke because her Ex-Husband is doing this to her.

[Myroc]

...

WHAT?

...

WHAT?

[Lord Dullard]

@ Neonivek:

You do realize that if this gets passed, it would be several orders of magnitude WORSE than the Patriot Act, right?

I'm doing my part by posting it wherever I can to make sure word gets out. 

[Cthulhu]

If the world becomes a 1984 mockup in the next years, I'm joining the Liberal Crime Squad.

This is happening under a liberal administration.  Since the conservatives have taken steps of their own to harsh our collective mellows in the past, I think the best choice is to join the Independent Crime Squad.

Or just hope people come to their senses and realize this is retarded.

[Neonivek]

@ Neonivek:

You do realize that if this gets passed, it would be several orders of magnitude WORSE than the Patriot Act, right?

I'm doing my part by posting it wherever I can to make sure word gets out. 

Heck according to this act a company (or heck anyone) could effectively eliminate Dwarf Fortress by accusing it of copyright issues. Without any legal action needing to take place.

Anyhow I somewhat doubt this is what is going to be enacted (it needs serious tweeking and part of this requires global concent). I understand that at the heart of things they want people to be accountable for their actions... they have taken it to degrees that break the constitutions beyond the Patriot act though... and they had to seek exceptions and start a war just to get the Patriot Act to work!

[DennyTom]

a) I had no trouble searching this on Google
b) Since my english sucks I do not understand the first and third point. Does the first one mean that you have to prove that your material does not break law and then you can upload it? And the third - who is writing this? How can you make whole-world law?

[Lord Dullard]

Yeah, I just noticed typing in only 'secret copyright treaty leaked' to google actually churns out results. So I'd have to say google isn't being censored as I originally thought - it's just got a shittier search algorithm.

ETA: Fixed the original post.

[chaoticag]

Google simply cannot handle that many words in search terms.

But yes, this law sucks, and will slow down your internet speed to an ungodly slow speed. Besides, what ever happened to the criminal's right to a speedy trial? Innocent untill proven guilty? If the US goes back on those constitutional rights, then who knows what might happen next.

[DennyTom]

Yeah, I just noticed typing in only 'secret copyright treaty leaked' to google actually churns out results. So I'd have to say google isn't being censored as I originally thought - it's just got a shittier search algorithm.

I did exactly the same search as you and I have about 10 500 results ...