Internet Access Is A Human Right

The United Nations released a report (PDF) which recognizes that Internet access has become an essential component for freedom of speech and should be considered a human right. The report is critical of ACTA, notice-and-take-down laws that are easily abused, and three strikes laws which cut off Internet access over mere accusations of copyright infringement.

While a U.N. report is not going to sway politicians in the countries where such laws already exist, it is important that the U.N. recognises that these are actually human rights violations. It is completely ridiculous that basic rights are being eroded for the sake of protecting intellectual property.

More in depth analysis can be found here, here, and here.

About Face

After being the most vocal in its doubts about the ACTA negotiations, the EU parliament suddenly supports the treaty now. That's quite an about face. Bloody politicians. Time to start sharpening those guillotines. OK, so it's not that bad yet. It's only a resolution that permits the process to continue, but it was their first opportunity to shut down ACTA in Europe, so why not take it?

Copyright Is A Contradiction

As these articles point out, ACTA may have the completely unintended consequence of actually weakening copyright law, because it was a back room treaty. It's hard for anyone to respect intellectual property laws when compared to criminal laws. The latter clearly benefit everybody by ensuring a just and civil society. IP laws only serve corporate interests.

Some may point out that open source licences are the exception. However, if copyright did not exist, you wouldn't need an open source license, because everything you publish is automatically in the public domain. Everyone is free to use your work as they please. The only way to prevent that would be to keep it private. Copyright law allows you to publish but exert control over the work as if you had kept it private. Copyright is a contradiction.

C-32 Now Tougher Than ACTA

Micheal Geist notes that the U.S. is caving on several areas of ACTA and goes so far as to call it ACTA Ultra-Lite. The downside is that it becomes much more likely that an agreement will be reached. The Europeans are still not very happy with anything about ACTA but is it enough to skuttle the deal?

As Geist points out, Bill C-32, Canada's copyright "modernization" bill, is now tougher than ACTA in some areas. Now, unless C-32 is amended to align with ACTA, it would be easy to conclude that C-32 is the result of some back room dealing between Canada and the U.S. Perhaps ACTA was just a bit of misdirection while the real negotiations happened out of the public eye.

If you think I'm being paranoid, consider that France now has the HADOPI law and the U.K. has the Digital Economy Act, both of which are far, far stronger than the latest ACTA draft release. While C-32 doesn't propose any three strikes laws, it is very tough on things like circumventing digital locks.

Remember, just because you are paranoid does not mean that someone isn't out to get you.

Sharing

This article makes excellent points about the importance of file sharing to a healthy culture. Unfortunately the law makers are so thoroughly brain washed by the content industry's lobbyists, that I fear it may very well take a hundred years before the copyright laws recognise the legitimacy of non-commercial file sharing. In the meantime the laws will become even more draconian, if ACTA represents the future.

Canada And ACTA

The latest draft of the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was leaked last week. One of Micheal Geist's students analysed Canada's position in the negotiations. For the most part Canada has tried to get more balance into the agreement, which can be seen as a positive thing. However, in my opinion, Canada should not be participating at all. No amount of rewording can turn ACTA into a good agreement for ordinary Canadians.

ACTA Draft To Be Public

So next week the the ACTA draft document will be made public at long last. We should be happy, right? Well, not really. First, there's been enough leaks that the document won't contain many new surprises. Second, it's a little late now! Releasing a draft document must mean that the U.S. considers most of the negotiations closed, so there's little chance that public input can affect the agreement now.

The only chance we have is convincing our governments not to enact laws to support the treaty. However, the negotiating positions of the various parties will not be disclosed, which means we won't know what our government's actually agreed with behind close doors. Which is why this IP agreement was disguised as a trade agreement in the first place.

ACTA: The Extremes

Last week the European Parliament passed a resolution which shoots down the entire process in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. On the other side of the Atlantic, President Obama throws his unreserved support behind ACTA. This is about as extreme an opposing view can possibly get. Each nation in the negotiations has a veto over what information can be released, so as long as the U.S. takes this position any transparency on ACTA is impossible.

Wimpy Canadians

This would be funny if it were so darned serious. Compare the Canadian ACTA delegation's concerns to New Zealand's concerns. It looks like the wimpy Canadians were just checking grammar and spelling. Well, thankfully they had more to say than the Australians. ^_^

ACTA Deniers

Another recent ACTA leak tell us which countries support and oppose transparency in the talks. If you are a citizen of one of the denier countries, get some answers before it's too late.

ACTA Road Show

Another meeting in the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations is under way in Mexico. You know, these people sure get around. Government bureaucrats jet around the world using my tax dollars and yet I'm not allowed know what they are discussing. Here is a great summary of the ACTA time line. Definitely worth a read if you need to catch up on the history.

Google ACTA Talk

Here is the video of a Google hosted a talk on ACTA. It's quite lively for a bunch of lawyers sitting around and waffling for almost 90 minutes, so it's worth a look but allow yourself enough time.

Hiding An Elephant

There is a elephant in the room. How do you hide it? Easy! Just don't look at it. This kind of describes the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which depends on secrecy to slip past everyone and create a new copyright world order.

But is getting more difficult to hide the elephant as more questions are being raised in parliaments all around the world. I wonder which government will be the first to crack and reveal all. Unfortunately, it is not difficult to find incentives that will get politicians to ignore certain things, so don't hold your breath on this one.

ACTA

The negotiations for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have resumed at a meeting in Seoul, and is being covered here, here, here, and a boatload of other places. It is hard to get accurate information since the negotiations are not public and the physical documents are all water marked and traceable. That's just for trade negotiations, I remind you.

However, there are always some leaks and, if accurate, the power this agreement would give to corporations is terrifying. Any country that agrees to this treaty would be giving up all control over their internal copyright policy. The negotiations include wonderful provisions to criminalize non-commercial infringement, to disconnect Internet service of infringers, and other nasty, nasty stuff. Yeah, ACTA is getting real scary now.

I don't understand why Canada is still participating this clusterfuck pretending to be trade negotiations. We just completed public consultations on copyright reform and Industry Minister Tony Clement has stated that Canadian copyright laws satisfy all our international commitments. If he can acknowledge that, why is Canada is still involved in ACTA? Something stinks dear reader, and it has the fetid aroma of lying politicians.

ACTA

When trade agreements are negotiated in secret we should all be worried. ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and it is most definitely cause for concern. Micheal Geist has written a timeline summary for those of us who haven't followed all the details to date. Details? Therein lies the problem. Getting details on what the agreement will cover, seems to be impossible. The U.S. has even gone as far as invoking national security concerns to block freedom of information requests. Huh? For a trade agreement?

If that doesn't send shivers up your spine, you must be living in China or some place where government secrecy is perfectly normal.