The December Surprise - Not What You Think

I don’t have time to do a comprehensive diary right now (just moved to California from Canada to start a job) but the Bush administration is trying to slip some major, invasive reforms under the radar in the form of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This treaty, negotiated in secret between trade representatives of Canada, Europe, the US, Japan, and others, would drastically reform copyright and privacy laws, and would be presented as a fait d’accompli in December – after Americans have voted, and (if I understand right) binding on the new administration.
Some relevant links:

The Democrats should be fiercely opposing this treaty. It’s being negotiated in secret, in consultation between trade officers and large corporate interests. It eviscerates private property rights, privacy rights, and rights to freedom of speech. Among other things, it will likely mandate search and retention of data on laptops, iPods, and other storage devices at border crossings; filtering and monitoring of traffic by ISPs; and other similarly draconian measures.

There’s no good reason for this treaty. We need to put a stop to stealth law-making outside the democratic process through “trade agreements” and “treaties” with scopes well beyond trade and foreign relations.

[Update]: Cory Doctorow posts about a Wikileaks’d memo. Apparently, ACTA attempts to outlaw “P2P”, even when used to share works that are legally available! I really have to wonder how this is managed. It sounds like it might make, say, the entire BitTorrent protocol illegal, which a lot of companies will not be happy about.

5 Comments

Egarwaen on June 6, 2008 at 12:46 am

Bonus surprise: an excellent article on why Network Neutrality matters.

Oui on June 6, 2008 at 4:53 am

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Act Against ACTA!

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Egarwaen on June 6, 2008 at 11:46 am

Thanks, I’ll give that a read tonight!

ask on June 6, 2008 at 6:15 am

ACTA seems to be sidelining the organization that already exists for protection of intellectual property. WIPO’s core tasks are:

Developing international IP laws and standards
Delivering global IP protection services

Oui gave a very useful link to IP Watch.

Speculation Persists On ACTA As First Official Meeting Concludes

ACTA’s nature as free-standing agreement constituted another “forum shift” in the international regime of intellectual property, he added. “One such shift took place in 1994 when discussion on IP moved from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to the WTO. The current forum shift is now occurring from the WTO to bilateral negotiations. While civil society and emerging developing countries exercise pressures on the WTO to maintain or even lower TRIPs standards, the United States and the European countries have found in bilateralism a way to extend international IP protection.”

A spokesman of the Canadian government had rejected the notion of forum shopping in his answers to earlier questions from Intellectual Property Watch. The ACTA approach of negotiations of only a few partners, wrote Dordi, “particularly penalizes developing countries as they do not have equal input to the agreement text they could adhere to.”

With regard to the question of whether the ACTA in the end might constitute a “new WIPO” and “a new layer of IPR standards,” Dordi stated that “the industrialised countries’ approach to enforcement, in sharp contrast to a public policy approach that takes into consideration issues broader than industry interests in formulating policy, is one of the major emerging challeng

I believe the underlying purpose is to curtail the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut (ACTA being promoted by the ‘old’ economies). But someone quickly saw the potential to further intrude on privacy rights.

Egarwaen on June 6, 2008 at 11:46 am

I think a whole bunch of established but fading interests saw an opportunity to do an end-run around the democratic process and force draconian restrictions on populations that want nothing to do with them. It’s pretty clear that the “old system” – democratically-passed laws, WIPO as international enforcement, etc – was, like FISA, too fair for the tastes of these interests.

Egarwaen on June 6, 2008 at 12:46 am

Bonus surprise: an excellent article on why Network Neutrality matters.
Oui on June 6, 2008 at 4:53 am

.
Act Against ACTA!

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
- Egarwaen on June 6, 2008 at 11:46 am
  
  Thanks, I’ll give that a read tonight!
ask on June 6, 2008 at 6:15 am
ACTA seems to be sidelining the organization that already exists for protection of intellectual property. WIPO’s core tasks are:
- Developing international IP laws and standards
- Delivering global IP protection services
Oui gave a very useful link to IP Watch.

Speculation Persists On ACTA As First Official Meeting Concludes

ACTA’s nature as free-standing agreement constituted another “forum shift” in the international regime of intellectual property, he added. “One such shift took place in 1994 when discussion on IP moved from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to the WTO. The current forum shift is now occurring from the WTO to bilateral negotiations. While civil society and emerging developing countries exercise pressures on the WTO to maintain or even lower TRIPs standards, the United States and the European countries have found in bilateralism a way to extend international IP protection.”

A spokesman of the Canadian government had rejected the notion of forum shopping in his answers to earlier questions from Intellectual Property Watch. The ACTA approach of negotiations of only a few partners, wrote Dordi, “particularly penalizes developing countries as they do not have equal input to the agreement text they could adhere to.”

With regard to the question of whether the ACTA in the end might constitute a “new WIPO” and “a new layer of IPR standards,” Dordi stated that “the industrialised countries’ approach to enforcement, in sharp contrast to a public policy approach that takes into consideration issues broader than industry interests in formulating policy, is one of the major emerging challeng

I believe the underlying purpose is to curtail the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut (ACTA being promoted by the ‘old’ economies). But someone quickly saw the potential to further intrude on privacy rights.
- Egarwaen on June 6, 2008 at 11:46 am
  
  I think a whole bunch of established but fading interests saw an opportunity to do an end-run around the democratic process and force draconian restrictions on populations that want nothing to do with them. It’s pretty clear that the “old system” – democratically-passed laws, WIPO as international enforcement, etc – was, like FISA, too fair for the tastes of these interests.

The December Surprise – Not What You Think

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