Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html

by Flemlord • 17 years ago

588 287 17 years ago

boingboing.net

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

This is a better article:

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

tsally5• 17 years ago

To: The profit mongering companies with lobbyists and idiotic politicians who cause legislation like this to be created.

We'd like our internet back now.

Sincerely,

The Compter Scientists, the group of people who invented the internet.

amichail6• 17 years ago

What effect would this have on the US economy?

blintson3• 17 years ago

Bitching about it accomplishes nothing. I doubt there's anybody here who thinks this is a good thing, and even if there were, that sort of language persuades nobody. The smart thing to do is to write your congressman, and get people together to protest. Anybody here have any experience with politics and know what we could do to stop this?

tumult11• 17 years ago

Protesting does nothing.

edit: I'm specifically talking about in-the-streets-marches kind of thing.

aohtsab3• 17 years ago

You are right: bitching does nothing, yet writing our representatives is almost as bad. I interned for a certain senator a while back—all the letters that people sent in were recorded as tallies in a system, and the responses were typed up by office staff. By the way: most of the letters which were sent in were spam—the same letter with different signatures.

pg5• 17 years ago

The problem is not companies that are "profit mongering" (whatever that means). It's companies with obsolete business models that are willing to destroy the more dynamic parts of the economy in their fall.

amichail6• 17 years ago

But won't much stronger copyright enforcement allow these companies to survive?

tsally5• 17 years ago

I was attempting to get at the destructive themes associated with the phrase "war monger". To be more precise, I was trying to describe companies that don't mind destroying innovation in order to make profit. My language was too loose, but I think we're both coming from the same place.

blhack3• 17 years ago

To: The profit mongering companies

I believe the preferred nomenclature is "profiteering gluttons".

derwiki2• 17 years ago

someone's been watching 'Hackers'

stse6• 17 years ago

To: The Compter Scientists, the group of people who invented the internet.

Hey, maybe you could invent some technology which actually provides some privacy and security instead of all this 80's tech?

Sincerely,

The Users, the group of people who use the Internet on a daily basis.

tsally5• 17 years ago

Everything needed to achieve a high level of security and privacy on the internet has already been invented. If you're looking for a reason why reality doesn't reflect this, you'll have to look at some other force besides the researchers.

olefoo2• 17 years ago

The mechanism is wide open for abuse. If this regime comes to pass, I would expect different groups to be issuing bogus takedown notices against competitors...

Imagine if PETA activists started nailing the public IP's of meatpacking companies with allegations of copyright infringement...

or imagine that you're in the middle of a complex court fight and your law firm, and most of your lawyers home and mobile ips are shut down in a coordinated attack...

derwiki2• 17 years ago

I had a conversation similar to this topic with a friend this weekend, but about net neutrality. I contended that certain restrictions put on the internet would be so obtuse that there is no way they could be enforced -- this seems like one of them.

I'm not sure PETA would do that, because they're a legitimate organization that could have action taken against them. But that's an interesting point: if every IP address was reported, how do they enforce or verify it?

Personally, they can pry my internet from my cold dead hands.

regularfry5• 17 years ago

PETA may be a legitimate organisation, but the people involved may well have friends who perform actions which, while it is obviously impossible to condone them, your honour, do support their cause.

dschobel3• 17 years ago

Right but the take down notices would require that you own some IP to allege infringement upon and have the resources to actually produce a non-frivolous legal missive.

I really doubt this is going to be some grand populist legal tool.

olefoo2• 17 years ago

I think you missed the part where the takedown happens without the need to prove anything. And it's easy enough to gin up something. Also most activist groups generate a fair amount of media content. Content which is likely to be monitored by the people most likely to be in their sights.

And if someone mildly technically knowledgable gets involved you could really cause trouble. Imagine the havoc that could be wreaked by AT&T disconnecting Verizon. Or shutting down Dreamhost.

Instant disconnection on accusal is a recipe for stupid things.

Hell, someone would probably set up a linkbait news posting to a webpage that they claim is protected ip and have a script issue automatic disconnect requests to everyone who views the target page.

aohtsab3• 17 years ago

Here's Wikileaks' coverage:

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Proposed_US_ACTA_multi-lateral_int...

Maybe it's worth toying with the idea of setting up a private ISP—a pre-emptive underground? This situation is absolutely ridiculous.

iheartmemcache• 17 years ago

As I understand it, you'd still have to buy transfer from a tier 1 provider, who'd cut you at the first sign of pressure from the federal government. Logistically, how would one go about doing this?

tumult11• 17 years ago

You could start another internet. Wouldn't be very useful at the beginning, though.

Raphael• 17 years ago

Encrypt everything, and disguise it as public domain work?

btilly3• 17 years ago

That coverage looks like it is from an earlier leak of the same negotiations. Look at the date.

pg5• 17 years ago

If this report is accurate, this treaty would be the biggest threat to the startup business that I've seen.

How can we tell if it's accurate?

CapitalistCartr2• 17 years ago

The involved governments have refused to disclose to their own citizenry the contents of the treaty they're negotiating "for us". That leaves us with only leaks to work with. This is all the accuracy you get, as long as our governments can get away with such gross abuses.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

It doesn't matter what they negotiate, treaties do not become US law. See, for example, Medellen v. Texas:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Mede...

"We conclude that neither Avena nor the President’s Memorandum constitutes directly enforceable federal law that pre-empts state limitations on the filing of successive habeas petitions."

If they want this to become law in the US, they will have to follow the usual process. If they want criminal sanctions without trials, as the treaty proposes, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. (The fact that enforcing these laws will be technically impossible is another annoying issue.)

ensignavenger2• 17 years ago

Gross abuses? Because its being written in secret? The US Constitution itself was written in secret! That fact alone does not make this a bad thing- but it is certainly something to be concerned about- and I'm certainly very concerned about the alleged contents of this treaty. We can only hope that once it becomes public, Congress will be convinced by public outcry not to ratify it.

omouse• 17 years ago

The government no longer works for its citizens. It is a completely separate organization from whatever the citizens create. Their laws do not apply unless they use force. Simple as that.

I'm going to just install FreeNet now and setup some encryption software now...

amichail6• 17 years ago

It's hard to justify the right for people to break copyright law.

At the same time, I can see how startups that are depending on the safe harbor clause to host copyrighted material to attract users would be upset with the rules of the game changing.

CamperBob• 17 years ago

It's hard to justify the right for people to break copyright law.

Considering that copyright isn't a natural right in the first place, I don't see the problem.

blhack3• 17 years ago

I think it is more along the lines of people being afraid that their users might break copyright law.

For instance: my website allows users to upload profile pictures. From the sound of this, if one of them were to upload a copyrighted picture, _I_ am liable. My website is small right now, so monitoring this is feasible...if it gets much larger, I would need to hire a team of people just to police it.

Obviously, if somebody says "Hey, Ryan, user $foo has uloaded picture $bar, would you mind taking it down?" I will, but if this is the way boingboing is making it sound...it won't be that easy.

westbywest• 17 years ago

The concern I see being voiced is less about protecting copyright, for which many protections already exist, and more about implementing a level of regulation/protectionism that is out of step with what is usually just a civil complaint. True, criminal penalties do exist in US for certain instances of willful copyright infringement, but it is still overwhelmingly an area where there must be a plaintiff for any litigation to occur.

It is appropriate to treat copyright infringement in the same way one treats the international opium trade?

fauigerzigerk• 17 years ago

The threat is not that startups wouldn't be able to infringe copyright law. The threat is that startups would have to carry the burden of policing copyright law.

The cost of doing that may be prohibitive, and the vulnerability to frivolous claims by bigger competitors would mean that any startup dealing with user generated content would have to employ lawyers at all times.

If phone companies were liable for crimes coordinated over their networks, telephony would not exist.

fnid• 17 years ago

I think there are a lot of other big threats to startup businesses. Not all startup businesses depend on user generated content. Startups that make software or other products that aren't used and/or contributed to by essentially anonymous internet users don't have much to fear from this.

On the contrary, there are lots of startup businesses on the content creation side of the equation that could benefit from this legislation due to the increased risk and difficulty of pirating and distributing copyrighted works.

tumult11• 17 years ago

I create original art. When I have to work on distributing, I'm hampered by copyright law. I don't benefit from it. It harms me. Directly.

I've seen artists have their work infringed by others working for large corporations, and their ability to have something done about it quashed by a corporation wielding copyright law (see, for example, Timbaland vs. tempest)

Addendum: it looks like someone (someones?) is going around in this thread blanketing it in votes in favor of stricter copyright. Slightly creepy.

milkshakes• 17 years ago

the EFF seems to think so, that's scary enough for me

zouhair• 17 years ago

If this is real, I'd go further it's the end of the Internet pure and simple.

borism• 17 years ago

Yes, free and open Internet we knew will cease to exist in near future, this is reality we Internet citizens have to face.

rbanffy2• 17 years ago

It's too bad we can't found a moon colony right now. Count me in as a founding citizen when the time comes.

Estragon• 17 years ago

pg, this is an uncommonly hysterical and poorly thought through response, for you. Has someone hacked your account?

You can tell it's accurate for the US because the DMCA has codified those provisions here for the better part of a decade.

moe• 17 years ago

I have strong doubts this could ever be implemented, simply because reality works against it.

Sure, they can try and criminalize half of the internet in one fellow swoop - but that won't change how we do things. There would be a few lawsuits thrown out by sane judges and that's it.

nym• 17 years ago

There are a lot of laws that are selectively enforced.

This will give power to easily attack ISPs, and force them to secretly wiretap and censor in order to stay in business.

scscsc• 17 years ago

Easily. It has already been passed as a law in France. And is under discussion in the entire EU. Therefore we conclude by analogy.

cabalamat2• 17 years ago

> How can we tell if it's accurate?

We can't, but the fact that they're keeping it secret strongly suggests to me that there's some very nasty stuff in it.

As I usually point out on these occasions, one way to stop these anti-freedom laws is to organise politically -- you can find your national Pirate Party at http://www.pp-international.net/

Don't let them take away our internet.

tdonia2• 17 years ago

so, i'm curious, what are the best arguments for this?

the reason i ask is that it seems like the rules, as they currently exist, are valid on paper but illegitimate in practice. is it really worth it to extend the illusion of copyright protection to the rest of the planet knowing full well that it's got little hope of succeeding? or is there a way to argue that the system, as it works in the U.S. is a success?

tumult11• 17 years ago

Whenever you see legislation that is massively in opposition of common sense and the well-being of a people, just think to yourself, jacuzzi full of money.

johnaspden5• 17 years ago

OK, to rephrase the question, what will the people accepting the jacuzzis full of money use as arguments?

tshtf2• 17 years ago

Last week MI5 in the UK argued against the 3-strikes filesharing laws as they would encourage private citizens to use cryptography better in their filesharing efforts.

If this treaty goes through it very well could be the harbinger of the widespread adoption of darknets, better censorship-resistant networks, and even more creative use of cryptography and networking technologies.

Rather than trying to affect legislative change (which is a viable strategy too), some may wish to consider disruptive technologies which will render treaties such as this irrelevant.

dschobel3• 17 years ago

Excellent point. People have become accustomed to an unfettered flow of media and information. They're not just going to throw their hands up and go back to the pre-napster days of walled media gardens.

lucifer2• 17 years ago

Excuse my (regrettable) cynicism, but people were accustomed to various other things as well and I don't recall their even bothering to throw up their hands in the post 911 Patriot Act regime when they were taken away.

blintson3• 17 years ago

They'll just make encryption illegal. And record everything everybody does all the time. They never stop. Their objective is to take everything they can. As soon as this is passed they'll look into making even more restrictive laws. It will never stop, the only solution is to play their game and try and keep legislation from being passed, and get existing laws dismissed.

gloob3• 17 years ago

A second option is to get out of the first world. It's not so much that developing countries won't pass these laws, but rather that they'll have a somewhat tougher time enforcing them (if they even bother to try).

anamax6• 17 years ago

> It will never stop, the only solution is to play their game and try and keep legislation from being passed, and get existing laws dismissed.

"The only solution"? Not hardly.

Lampposts, rope, politicians. Some assembly required.

dtf• 17 years ago

Could they really do this? HTTPS is pretty much vital to a major part of the economy now. I find it hard to see how they could word anything other than a blanket encryption ban in a manner which would prevent surreptitious use of the remaining systems.

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I really feel the cat's out of the bag here - technology will always trump legislation.

JoeAltmaier3• 17 years ago

ANd there will be murder in the streets, and fire will rain down, and dark times will come for all, and ... This thread is most dramatic. Where is the demand for references I have come to expect from this forum? Folks, lets stop responding to emotional venting as if its fact.

Vivtek10• 17 years ago

I'm sorry, but I vehemently disagree. I depend for my livelihood on my -- aboveboard! -- Internet connection. Yet I also expect to be permitted to express a dissenting political opinion. This type of treaty gives authorities and anyone with a large legal team the instant ability not just to shut me up simply by accusing me of copyright violation - with no burden of proof - but to ruin me financially as well.

That is not democracy. Not even close.

Political dissent is not just something done by free Tibetans way off in the distance, and it's not the exclusive purview of dedicated activists who have the time to set up darknets. Political dissent is everybody feeling free enough to disagree with the powers that be. This really and truly endangers that, and it's incredibly, incredibly stupid for the American government even to consider it. That the Obama Administration is not only considering it, but actively supporting it by keeping the process secret for as long as humanly possible is profoundly disappointing.

tshtf2• 17 years ago

I agree with you almost entirely, but I feel there is no dichotomy here. There is room for several strategies to approach this treaty.

There is the need for dissent within in the political sphere for this treaty, and I'm certain that many activists will take this strategy up. There's also room for technological dissent; for citizens to develop strategies and technologies to mitigate the effects if this treaty does go into effect.

We're all in the same boat.

johnnybgoode6• 17 years ago

> That is not democracy. Not even close.

Why is that not democracy? What does democracy have to do with it? I often see the word "democracy" used as if it means "freedom".

johnaspden5• 17 years ago

And that will mean that we've got good darknets for real criminals to use, whilst people doing nothing wrong cover for them.

pbhjpbhj6• 17 years ago

some may wish to consider disruptive technologies which will render treaties such as this irrelevant.

It's only irrelevant if you don't mind breaking the law. If you are trying to be a law abiding citizen the ability to avoid being caught is itself irrelevant.

dschobel3• 17 years ago

EFF's statement: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/leaked-acta-internet-pr...

tocomment• 17 years ago

Maybe vote it up on Reddit[1], that might spread some awareness, or submit it to Slashdot.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/a0nnp/secret_cop...

peregrine• 17 years ago

I'd also Twitter bomb it. Make it a trending topic so it can show up on CNN. :)

Splines• 17 years ago

This post has more momentum and is getting more attention.

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/a0o98/obama_admini...

stse6• 17 years ago

Stupid title, as ACTA predates the Obama administration.

gruseom2• 17 years ago

Cory Doctorow, Michael Geist, and the EFF are three pretty credible sources. Nevertheless, something doesn't feel right about this. My guess is someone's leaking a draft or a proposal in an attempt to influence the negotiations, probably someone who knew it would kick up a shitstorm. As well it should.

I'll go out on a limb and predict nothing much comes of this.

Edit: after reading more about it, I learned that ACTA is a treaty process that's been going on for years. It's hard to see how something this draconian ever gets ratified in all these countries.

forensic16• 17 years ago

This.

I don't know who is running the show but obviously this leak has ulterior motives of some kind. The elites are always planning further lock down on their slave populations, it's really just a question of whether the public is sufficiently conditioned to accept it at some particular moment.

ericwaller• 17 years ago

ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability.

DMCA is the new DOS

CulturalNgineer2• 17 years ago

This is hopefully some huge hoax. But if it isn't it should (and deserves to) create and real worldwide firestorm.

This cannot stand and they can't possibly be stupid enough to try to make it stand!

But beware their "fallback" positions! And the devil is in the details. They may just feel that by putting out such an outrageous proposal they can fall back to a merely disgusting and slimy one.

lucifer2• 17 years ago

Lets organize a network strike: Drop all net activity (specially e-commerce) for a day to send a message that we all have a say in this matter.

chrischen• 17 years ago

How do they expect to make other countries adopt US-style takedown rules?

CulturalNgineer2• 17 years ago

There are much better solutions to deal with these issues without trying to turn ISP's and Website administrators into the second-string secret police!

I know it's a real problem and does deserve attention. But it's one thing if some guy is trying to sell millions of digital copies of the latest Madonna video from some motel in Eastern Europe, but it's quite another if someone uses a few snips of songs in a video he's doing for YouTube!

I've experienced PERSONALLY what I would consider a smart approach and a dumb approach on this.

I did some 30 second little YouTube videos to promote a thing I'm doing... and in a couple of them I used snippets from a couple of popular songs... I'm fairly naive and didn't think much of it because I wasn't selling the videos, but I was promoting my thing (fortunately very benign so that wasn't an issue)! Though it could be a fair concern...

Anyway, to make a long story short...

Their YouTube algorithms or whatever found 'em and did their robot "thing"... but here's the interesting surprise!

On one (with a clip for a Barbara Streisand song) they just added a little button to the bottom of my video identifying the song with a link for purchase! I was fine with that and so were they!(it was Sony) A smart approach!

But for the other, with a great guitar clip from Jeff Beck, they just stripped the audio from my 30 second video... which I suppose was in a way fair... but all that ended up happening is I had a useless video... and they lost an opportunity for some sales... I forgot the publisher on that one... but it was a damn good video!

This obviously doesn't cover all issues but the point is that there are much wiser approaches that this abominable plan.

But politicians are like very stupid carpenters. They only understand hammers... so everything becomes a nail to be pounded into the ground.

eugenejen• 17 years ago

I can't help to start a facebook group "Stop Obama Administration to destroy Internet". I see there are a lot of ACTA related groups already formed. All groups should join together if the content is confirmed.

nzmsv• 17 years ago

Well, sooner or later the Internet will go the way of radio and TV: megacorps only. Once there's a critical mass of people using a medium who don't really care about it, and just consume what's available, it is only a matter of time.

The question is, what comes next. Maybe it's mesh networks, maybe private satellites, maybe something else entirely. Of course, the new network will initially be slow, and for geeks only. Then there will be explosive growth. Then it will be regulated into oblivion. And the cycle will repeat itself.

btilly3• 17 years ago

Thank Biden for this.

Seriously, he has been a long time friend of the content industries. Ever since he was nominated I've been looking for something like this to happen.

regularfry5• 17 years ago

ACTA has been in negotiation for years. This is nothing new.

roc5• 17 years ago

It's been through six rounds of negotiation (a few days each round) across two years. Not really twisting in bureaucratic hell, the way your emphasis on 'years' paints it.

And the fact that all these insane provisions have survived five previous rounds of negotiation certainly shouldn't provide any comfort.

yason• 17 years ago

I see this as a perfectly logical next step: the demands eventually grow outrageous enough that it's all just begging for a huge backfire.

The potential difference between the old fashioned copyright business and the new wave is growing. In order to keep things balanced as the new wave is gaining more energy the old business must expend an equal amount of energy to compensate for this change.

That's why when old structures are breaking they first resist until the last straw, and then come down collapsing.

ubernostrum• 17 years ago

Prediction: the treaty at the moment is deliberately bad in order to provoke outrage and allow parties to the talks to negotiate a "better" compromise.

So, say, "three strikes" will get thrown out or, more likely, modified to include an appeal process, and anticircumvention provisions will quietly get ratcheted up as the other side of the "compromise".

nazgulnarsil2• 17 years ago

upvoted for political realism rather than the kneejerk reactions that politicans have been taking advantage of for centuries.

chaosprophet2• 17 years ago

Okay, this one reeks of Classic American Arrogance (as in on the part of the Government). You guys can enforce whatever stupid policy you want within your country, but what makes you think you can get all other countries to join with you???

I hardly think you will be able to convince 10 countries to sign that treaty.

johnaspden5• 17 years ago

So the freedom of the world now depends on the European Union, which we know is corrupt. Is there any way to buy shares in whatever method media giants use to bribe European politicians?

pwmanagerdied• 17 years ago

You obviously haven't been paying attention, then. Internationally there is a ton of support among governments and industries for measures like this to be taken; the general lack of support among the public hasn't been very relevant.

chaosprophet2• 17 years ago

Yeah, I wasn't reading fully. Frankly I'm stunned that there is this much support, even from Asian countries, whom I thought would not like adopting something as restrictive as this.

gruseom2• 17 years ago

The internet, startups, and the values favored by most people in this thread are even more Classic American than the tendencies you deride. The US is complex. The US government is complex. Angry reductionism sheds no light.

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

As I read it this is no longer about Copyright any more; it is about certain government positioning themselves, their lawmakers and their major companies into a situation where they wish to control the internet.

This is a bad thing.

I am a supporter, generally, of the idea of copyright (it needs a review, sure) but this is just silly...

marze• 17 years ago

You have to expect it will be bad if they won't even say what is in it because doing so would "threaten national security".

They must think everyone is an idiot if they will believe that.

nazgulnarsil2• 17 years ago

they'd be right to think that.

tybris• 17 years ago

This seems like speculation. Also, completely out-of-line with Obama's support of net neutrality and a poorly timed economic disaster.

chunkyslink• 17 years ago

fuck the US Government ! Screwing it up for the rest of us again.

thanks very much

petercooper• 17 years ago

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

Is there a confusion between an ISP and a Web site here? I've never heard the term "ISP" applied to companies that just run Web sites.

DanielBMarkham• 17 years ago

I am dubious that such language will appear in any kind of treaty in the future.

I'm not calling BoingBoing a liar, but I find it hard to believe that the U.S. is going to pass laws or engage in treaties that destroy some of its greatest companies. Either these provisions are misunderstood, they are proposed amendments that nobody thinks will be in the final language, or they are interpretations by folks looking to sabotage the negotiations. If I had to guess I'd say the latter, but that's just intuition.

My call based on one article? Flame bait for nerds.

Show me some more sources and we'll see if this develops into something worthy of all the yelling and shouting.

Even if this is true -- multi-source, people. It's much too easy for "leaks" to be more manipulative in nature when the internet is one big echo chamber.

raquo• 17 years ago

I hope this will be on major news channels ASAP.

jrwoodruff• 17 years ago

I'm a little late to the party here, but a lot of people are obviously angry about this. Skimming the comments, it looks like a lot of 'end-of-the-internet' speculation.

Not if we can help it. If you're in the U.S., please write your representatives and let them know how dangerous this is. This is still a country ruled by its people, for its people. Even if this is a hoax, it will let your elected officials know copyright law is a serious issue in their district, and hopefully treat it as such.

Find out who your reps and senators are at this link, and write! http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Shamiq• 17 years ago

I think the time is ripe for some creative destruction.

jacoblyles• 17 years ago

I could imagine this coming from any administration and any congress in my lifetime. Very little has changed no matter how often the parties swapped, and no matter how pretty the speeches were. The content industries continue to be powerful lobbyists, to our detriment.

We are constantly relearning the lesson: don't trust politicians. Democracy is a machine for serving concentrated interests at the expense of the general well-being

Hopefully our champions will stop this. However, there will be no idealistic debate behind the scenes on the topic of what constitutes the public interests. There will only be politicians silently weighing what is in their own personal interest. As it always has been, and as it always will be.

albemuth• 17 years ago

I wonder what happens if the 'infringement' occurs over an open wifi network, how can one be made accountable if anyone can use your connection? Even if they enforced it by a hardware fingerprint or something, laptops can be stolen, and who the hell is going to enforce no open wifi networks!? The outrage!

yread• 17 years ago

I think it's enough of a reason to build community networks. You are just connected to friends over wifi and they are connected to some other friends. As long as it stays distributed enough that would be ok.

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

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