The FCC should be the regulator of ACTA treaty
Summary: If the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement comes to pass and somehow goes through Congress and becomes law it will be the dawn of a new millennium in itself.
If the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement comes to pass and somehow goes through Congress and becomes law it will be the dawn of a new millennium in itself. There's a long way to go before that happens. Nobody knows exactly what's in the proposals going back and forth between negotiators. Reports suggest some kind of three strikes you're out rule has been agreed upon. There are reports of language in the agreement that makes it a crime to pirate intellectual property and master name and internet I.P. addresses being compiled. Telecommunications regulators do not appear to be at the table, only trade representatives of each country. To be sure, there has been input from the FCC.
Intellectual property associations need no introduction. Many consider the MPAA, RIAA public enemy number one. The reality is very different. The organizations have valid arguments and have countered torrent and peer to peer sharing entities in the same manner as the freeloaders, with money and resources. They represent those that have been wronged by anyone that believes its okay to steal property and distribute to the general public as they please and not compensate the rightful owners.
The argument that torrent sites are not profiting from distribution, nor the individuals, is flawed. That's like saying it's okay for a crowd of people to watch someone break into a liquor store and then pass around the cases of beer to all the witnesses (and willingly accept it) and anyone associated with it shouldn't be charged with possession of stolen property. File sharing users will to have to face the music; the intellectual property groups are coming after you whether you like it or not. Going underground trying to obtain copyright protected files, the guiltier they are going to look. Finding you is not hard to do, even with encryption and proxy servers galore. The arms race has begun; the MPAA and RIAA have the funds to combat the problem, you don't. The feds got Al Capone with tax evasion law, not prohibition charges. One way or another they are coming after file sharers with a three strikes you're out or criminal charges of stealing and huge fines. Lawyer fees are on top of that.
If it does come to pass, where does that leave the public interest? Very few lawyers understand how to defend such cases on behalf of a defendant. The courts barely understand the technology and rely upon witnesses brought forward by defense attorneys that just getting used to this stuff. The FCC with all of its history, good and bad, is viewed as big government that has no clue. The FCC is perhaps the only agency equipped with the knowledge and people that understand the subject matter. They deal with complaints and disputes with every telecom provider in the country. They have regional offices and deal with justice representatives every day. In other words, they know their way around every nook and cranny of the kinds of challenges we would have no access to.
The FCC could create a complaint and dispute review board operating in the same processes as other agencies (USITC, FTC, etc) with administrative law judges and commissioners. Documentation, trained legal counsel options for defendants could be supplied if an individual could not afford do so. The FCC has some pluses; relationships with every telecom and ISP around the nation, expertise beyond most (let alone your lawyer), offers affordability, can review submitted evidence and validate any complainants data and verify its authenticity.
It wouldn't be perfect, but it could be better than the alternative, which is doing a Google search to find a good internet / copyright / defense lawyer and finding 'torrent file sharing lawyer specialist!' that just put up a website last week.
Have an alternative solution? Reader feedback is always welcome.
Next: The MPAA / RIAA are out of their minds..
Additional resources:
FCC's National Broadband Plan: Net Neutrality, R.I.P.
FCC releases 'Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan'
FCC may set aside free wireless spectrum for Internet broadband
FCC, Comcast, others testify before Congress: NBC Universal-Comcast merger
Canadian MP: Tax media devices to pay for copyright infringement
British Telecom chief: File share users should be fined, not disconnected
British wireless internet users - you're guilty
Net Neutrality: Why the Internet will never be free. For anything. So get used to it
AT&T to FCC: Open to Net Neutrality ideas - with conditions
Net Neutrality: You own the Internet - make sure it becomes Law
Internet: A threat to government or the other way around?
Electronic Frontier Foundation links net neutrality to copyright
United Kingdom National Archives
French solution to illegal download and copyright infringement - tax Google and Yahoo
Google loses book copyright case in France
Lobbyist: Canada cans copyright deal in exchange for U.S. dropping Buy America
European Parliament notice to ACTA negotiators: Open up discussion and be transparent to the public
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Talkback
There should be no ACTA treaty in the first place
"...The argument that torrent sites are not profiting from distribution, nor the individuals, is flawed. That?s like saying it?s okay for a crowd of people to watch someone break into a liquor store and then pass around the cases of beer to all the witnesses..." "...File sharing users will to have to face the music; the intellectual property groups are coming after you whether you like it or not. Going underground trying to obtain copyright protected files, the guiltier they are going to look. Finding you is not hard to do, even with encryption and proxy servers galore. The arms race has begun; the MPAA and RIAA have the funds to combat the problem, you don?t. The feds got Al Capone with tax evasion law, not prohibition charges. One way or another they are coming after file sharers with a three strikes you?re out or criminal charges of stealing and huge fines. Lawyer fees are on top of that. ..."
Is demonstrably false on three separate grounds :
(1.) By the same logic, Google (which, like any fully functional search engine) can be easily used to locate .torrent files containing possibly "copyrighted" materials, is just as "liable" as would be a dedicated torrent search site. The only practical solution to this (supposed) "problem" would be a blanket prohibition against ALL searches of any type, for .torrent pointer files. (Can we say, "overkill"?)
(2.) Your assumptions are all based on U.S. domestic law (e.g. DMCA), which the United States, against the strenuous opposition of public interest groups in other nations around the world, is trying to shove down everyone else's throat, through a variety of extra-legislative tricks such as the "ACTA" treaty.
Unfortunately, people outside the United States are aware of, and are horrified by, the results of the DMCA, including but not limited to million-dollar lawsuits against individual file sharers. How DARE you Americans try to force the same unfair, draconian regime on the rest of us!
(3.) Your statement about encryption (etc.) is also false. Many different types of computer communications are encrypted for perfectly valid reasons. Here again (viz. comparison with Google), the only real way to prevent "unauthorized file sharing via encrypted communications" would be to prohibit ALL encrypted communications. This might work for (say) the Iranian or Chinese parts of the Internet, but would be completely impractical for the rest of the world.
What an insular, American-centric way of framing this very complex issue. The rest of us, outside the U.S., do not have a political system that has been totally corrupted by the American entertainment industry, and we are not willing to throw away all of our privacy rights, simply to placate an unreasonable media oligopoly.
Not just outside the U.S.
As for criticism of America, no you weren't corrupted by the entertainment industry (like us), you were corrupted from the start by your own social philosophies.
Don't go pointing out the mote in America's eye until you've pulled the beam from your own eye.
More rubbish
Equating copy right violations with taking stuff from a liquor store is just ridiculous. Once a bottle is taken it can no longer be sold. Downloading a copyrighted song does not prevent the rights holder from selling that same song a million times over. By just putting forward your argument you have completely lost all credibility and end up looking like a rights holder mouthpiece.
Last time i checked, most of the western world were still democracies, who vote governments in and out. The voting public is becoming more and more informed about copyright issues. Until real copyright reform is implemented, this issue will not go away.
And don't get me started on the copy right mafia and how they acquired some of their their so called rights. They do not give a damn about the artists, they just want to protect their dying business.
Unless you can write an at least half balanced piece on the subject, why bother to write at all.
A Load Of Crap From One Of The MAFIAA's Spin Doctors
The guy was guilty, but...
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-142933.html
The lesson is that protecting yourself from cyber crime is as bad as not protecting yourself?
Uh, NO THANKS!
important. Who cares if the RIAA or MPAA members lose out
on royalties? Certainly not the average consumer. However,
counterfeit antibiotics or statins could [i]really[/i] ruin
someone's life. Better yet, the next time you're on a plane (or
see one flying overhead) think about whether you want the
FCC determining if the parts used in the last repair or
overhaul were really approved components or cheap knock-
offs.
Still more rubbish
As another poster mentioned, Disney and other entertainment heavyweights bribed/pressured politicians to extend their copyright, and the pharmaceuticals did the same with Bill C-61 in Canada, and similarly elsewhere.
It's all about money, and all about the few.
And as for airworthiness, believe me, there are much better mechanisms in place for controlling that -- staffed by engineers, not cops and customs agents.
RE: The FCC should be the regulator of ACTA treaty
I couldn't be bothered...
Well...
The ACTA Treaty should...
Problem with 3 strikes is lack of legal overview. They accuse you three times and you lose the internet. No evidence required except for the "say-so" of the MAFIAA. No way to counter the argument (that I have heard of to this point) in any of the three-strike schemes. It is so easy to spoof or hack somebody and get them accused of theft while you stay off the hook for it.
And the MAFIAA wants to shift the financial burden to the tax-paying public instead of themselves. That is NOT what copyright law is about.
I wonder what the incentive was for the authors to write this garbage. Especially wanting to put the FCC in charge of this. Their main concern seems to be punishing others for "warbrobe malfunctions" or "f-bombs" which is hardly applicable to this overreaching bit of unlawful law that is being concocted.
Just think:
A little hack and spoof here and there and your opponent is accused three times of downloading copyright material.
There is always that...
Except for one thing. We all know that the Politicians will break the rules and get away with it.
The biggest problem lies in the constitution itself.
Crazy world, eh? Glad I live in Canada }:P
I'm glad you live in Canada too
First, the Constitution does not ALLOW the people anything. The Constitution cedes certain, limited powers to the federal government.
Second, the rights you cite are from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, and do not declare a right to pursue life or liberty. It asserts that individuals are endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator, that AMONG these rights are the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to PURSUE happiness.
(And I submit that the newly discovered "right" to healthcare is superseded by the pre-existing right to PURSUE healthcare. Just as no one can dictate to someone else what constitutes "happiness", no one can dictate to someone else what constitutes "healthcare".)
And life, liberty and happiness are NOT a zero-sum game. My life costs no one their life, my liberty costs no one their liberty, and my pursuit of happiness costs no one their happiness.
I would call you a fool, but you already said you were Canadian :)
Wrong kind of pursuit
A pursuit is something with which one occupies one's time. The closest term in the modern lexicon is "lifestyle". Thus, all men have the right to life, liberty and a happy lifestyle, and the purpose of government is explicitly to protect those rights for its citizens.
Not so.
"That all men [...] have certain inherent rights, [...] namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."
Your conclusion is correct, in that the Declaration is saying that it is the responsibility of Government to protect that right and never abridge it, but your definition of "pursuit" is clearly wrong.
hold on a second...
Using services like Bittorrent, Vuze, etc. and doing so is illegal in Canada when downloading since you are uploading content you do not own.
That is correct!
Under Canadian copyright law, it's technically infringement if I burn a copy of a CD to give to one of my friends. However, the government realizes that while it may be technically against the law, since so many Canadians do it, it would not be in their best interests to strongly enforce it.
Downloading is not considerred infringement any more than watching a movie on a television set through a shop window is. Being on the internet means that the item has been placed on "public display". While placing copyright material on public display when you do not own the copyright is considerred an infringement of copyright, looking at any such material is not. Therefore, downloading is allowed.
These decisions came about because the record companies went after the downloaders, just like in the states. After the decision, they started going after the uploaders. Not only is that a smaller number of individuals, it's also easier and cheaper to prove. It's a practice that also doesn't get the mass of Canadians upset. A simple "desist" letter in Canada is usually enough to get stuff off the internet.
And yes. Torrents are technically illegal in Canada because they upload as well as download. However, at the time of these decisions, torrents didn't exist.
RE: The FCC should be the regulator of ACTA treaty