The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting Pieces Together
ACTA Guide, Part 1: The Talks To-Date
ACTA Guide, Part 2: The Documents (Official and Leaked)
ACTA Guide, Part 3: Transparency and ACTA Secrecy
March Round of ACTA Negotiations Delayed at U.S. Request |
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Friday February 20, 2009
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Inside U.S. Trade reports (sub required) that the next round of ACTA negotiations, which had been scheduled for next month in Morocco, has been delayed at the request of U.S. officials. While this does not signal a change in perspective on ACTA, the U.S. did want to provide incoming USTR officials time to review ACTA before continuing with the negotiations. No new meeting has been established. The meeting had planned to review the full ACTA draft, which has language proposed for most of the six chapters (more details on the unreleased ACTA here and here). The report indicates that much of the discussion is focusing on the form of dispute resolution (with the possibility of a binding mechanism) and the Internet-related chapter, with fears that the U.S. may push for the inclusion of an international DMCA. In other words, beyond the earlier leaked provisions that raise serious privacy concerns, the treaty could ultimately lead to a backdoor Canadian DMCA with a dispute resolution policy that forces Canada to comply. Given those possibilities, any delay is welcome and the need for greater transparency is more urgent than ever. Comments (6)
Mark
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One of the biggest problems I have with a canadia DMCA.... ... is that it's going to lock down consumers in ways that have not been foreseen by the lawmakers. One might argue that the copyright holders might _want_ this sort of lockdown, but the reality is that they just as easily might not. Here's an example.... let's say that a consumer has some digitally protected content that they want to transfer to their iPod... okay, under the proposed legislation, they would need copyright holder approval to do that... and let's say that the copyright holder has no problem whatsoever with such use and provides a mechanism for the consumer to transfer the content to their iPod for their own personal use. The consumer, by the way, has to pay extra for this privilege from the copyright holder. That's my understanding of how things would operate if a digital copy protection act were in place, and in this scenario there's not really that much wrong with it beyond the fact that there doesn't seem to be any sort of exemption for private use. But what if the consumer didn't have an iPod? Let's say they had some competing device, or maybe Apple comes out with a newer type of iPod that didn't utilize the same mechanisms. The copyright holder might theoretically not have otherwise had problem with people doing this, but they did not possess either the foresight or the ability to support the device and so the consumer ends up locked into a particular type of hardware that is limited by what the copyright holder has the capability to support. It doesn't take much of an imagination to foresee how such a bill could end up impairing new technological developments. Another problem I have with it is that people are going to ignore it anyways... and in particular, if one only ignores it within the context of copying content for their own private use, nobody's ever going to be the wiser for it, so the reality is that this proposed law is not only largely unenforceable, but the fact that our current government may be pushing for this sort of thing to go through demonstrates that they are _willfully_ trying to pass a law that they have no ability or even intent to fairly enforce, and are merely trying to present some sort of facade that they are doing something about the problem of copyright infringement in the digital age (when in fact it won't really solve anything... pirates will just go deeper underground rather than become more visible, and the average home user will just find himself locked out of being able to utilize even his own stuff. |
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European Parliamentary candidate 2009 Please note a question H-0089/09 has been put to the EU Council Will the final draft be published prior to political agreement in the Council? Will parliaments have enough time to scrutinise ACTA prior to political agreement in the Council? Can the Council ensure that ACTA is not quietly passed during parliamentary recess? http://tinyurl.com/arhesc |
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Consererial party of canada So an entire set of multiple generations will become criminals ...join your gaings now boys , get involved and get soem friends for the "inside" cause BIG BORTHER IS COMING. They are dong this cause these stimulus packs aren't going to do jack, and htey need ot remvoe as many rights as quickly as htey can to take over hte world as fast as they can. Preventign htem now and for even 5 years means more and more of these OLD FARTS will die off and every year we hold on longer means a better chance to win. |
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CRUEL and UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT How does the charter section on CRUEL and UNUSUAL punishment work regarding acts that the majority of your citizens do? Would it not be cruel and unusual to make a crime of smiling? Why everyone doe sit , and they could make a law outlawing it world wide.... |
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