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NEWS: Japanese Industry Launches Global Anti-Piracy Effort

* * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright...

Not to ignore you, LordRedHand, but I so love it when the irony of timing becomes simply overwhelming...


Secret ACTA Internet chapter leaked: Global DMCA and 'three strikes'
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/20233.cfm
Google (for more)
http://www.google.com/search?q=acta+internet


My favorite for summarizing the results of this proposed and secret action (emphasis mine):

"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. (I will add that this is also used as an anti-competition business tactic -- pp)

* * 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)

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


But this statement cuts through immediately to the insanity, and the danger, of it:

"The proposal is based on the assumption that ‘intellectual property rights’... trump personal privacy, data protection, probable cause, and lots of other important principles in western democracies."

http://torrentfreak.com/proposed-treaty-turns-internet-into-a-virtual-police-state-080524/

One purpose exists for it, and that is to theoretically increase revenue for entertainment companies. If you ever needed an example of short-sighted, bad intentions toward mankind for personal gain without regard for consequences, this is it. The net effect of this would be to enable and enact a system of harassment and control virtually the same as the Chinese censorship system. The agreements and technology would all be in place to surveil and to penalize Internet users without due process of law, directly counter to fundamental rights of U.S. citizens.

This isn't proposed legislation, meaning that the public are not being allowed to participate its formulation in any fashion. Hell, they aren't even being told about it. The participants are the entertainment industry and the law enforcement organizations under the executive branches of government, with the full blessing of our current U.S. administration. Exercise of The Freedom of Information Act revealed less than 15% of the text of the agreement, and none of substance, because those involved have gone to great lengths to keep the entire document and the process completely secret. I will be most interested to see if it even reaches the front page of newspapers or is suppressed in the general media. I predict that even if it does, it will be downplayed and spun in so many ways that the public will never understand the implications.


When Orwell wrote 1984 and Huxley wrote Brave New World, they were prescient and thoroughly understood human nature. While speculative in nature, the works factually represent how far human beings will go in the wrong direction given the chance and the capability. China is moving precisely in that direction by the book, and of course Orwell already had Nazi Germany, Japan and the USSR as examples (which makes Huxley all the more impressive in extrapolating the history of oppression into a future, total global context). The authors had to envision or assume technology capable of enabling the societal and governmental conditions. The enabling technology has emerged. We can spy on every human being visually, we can monitor all communications including personal speech, we have governmental mechanisms in place to bypass due process of law and representative legislation. We have the means to enable a police state across the globe. All that remains is the will and the resources to use them, and modern governments have plenty of each. Recent events show that printing enough money is no problem.

I just find it too ironic that the supposed upholders of the rights of artists, who have historically been at the vanguard of freedom, are the very people attempting to destroy it. Obviously, they are lying about their true materialist intentions. And if anyone thinks this is an overreaction, I just have to remind you that the vast majority of humans thought Hitler was justified in his actions as late as 1939 and that Stalin died of old age having murdered more humans than anyone else in history. We humans have a bad habit of repeating mistakes and avoiding confrontation. Unless we get smart enough, soon enough, it's only a matter of time until we make that a big one that takes us beyond recovery.

[a lot before I did...]

But let's go past the fear your trying to cause

...The internet is a tool, nothing more...

Obama has been extremely secretive about his own roots, both personal and political (of which there are admittedly few in terms of experience). But his first cabinet appointment ended any misconception created by him as being a populist, anti-politics, new age President. He is a pure politician, raised in Chicago politics, and is the current penultimate example of the species in the U.S. My own current projection in terms of actual accomplishment is that he will end up being the uber-Jimmy-Carter.

Now... you have the last word.

LordRedhand wrote:

...The internet is a tool, nothing more...

No... the Internet has done more than any politician since the Founding Fathers in enabling freedom of speech and communication, as well as creativity, for the human race.

You are naive if you think the world works in the way they taught you in civics class. This is pure politics, being done in secret to create a fait accompli before people can find out about it. The technicalities of approval are just window dressing after it's all been decided behind closed doors. Sure, there will be some minor changes, because, unfortunately, politicians have to appear to be earning their salary. But don't doubt it, the entertainment industry will have spent millions in preparing all the proper marketing material to spin it favorably to legislators and the public via their lobbyists and the liberal mass media. Much of it will sound just like you, accusing me of being Chicken Little.

Obama has been extremely secretive about his own roots, both personal and political (of which there are admittedly few in terms of experience). But his first cabinet appointment ended any misconception created by him as being a populist, anti-politics, new age President. He is a pure politician, raised in Chicago politics, and is the current penultimate example of the species in the U.S. My own current projection in terms of actual accomplishment is that he will end up being the uber-Jimmy-Carter.

Now... you have the last word.

...even mentioned by anyone who's trustworthy?