India vows to sabotage ACTA
Jun. 9th, 2010 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneFed up with the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), India hopes to whip up an anti-ACTA chutney so spicy that negotiators have no choice but to purge every trace of the loathed agreement from their systems.
Though countries like Morocco are involved, rich countries have driven the ACTA process. The World Trade Organization—ignored. The World Intellectual Property Organization—bypassed. Instead of using the very fora that they played such a role in establishing, countries like the US, EU, Canada, Japan, and Australia formed a coalition of the willing. ACTA has been negotiated in secret, though the recently released negotiating draft text envisions a permanent secretariat that will receive new members.
In other words, existing international institutions, where countries like Brazil, China, and India have recently acquired some real power, will be bypassed to create the tough new restrictions in ACTA.
India raising hell, I think, is a good thing. India's objection is not over media anti-piracy and copyright, but over pharmaceuticals. There's some very nasty patent protections that extend even if country X doesn't recognize country Y's patents or have different term limits or such.
But what really ticks me off is the secret negotiating aspect of this treaty, and as the article points out, bypassing WTO and WIPO to institute it. It's like the USA trying to get everyone to sign on to DMCA, but not being very above-board about it. DMCA is now crawling out of the grave in Canada again, so we'll see what happens there. In Canada, currently, if you buy an iPod or Music CD-Rs, you pay an additional tax that supposedly helps reimburse artists for losses due to piracy, but that money never seems to trickle down from the studios for some strange reason.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/india-vows-to-sabotage-acta.ars
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/02/2157252/India-Attempts-To-Derail-ACTA?art_pos=12
Though countries like Morocco are involved, rich countries have driven the ACTA process. The World Trade Organization—ignored. The World Intellectual Property Organization—bypassed. Instead of using the very fora that they played such a role in establishing, countries like the US, EU, Canada, Japan, and Australia formed a coalition of the willing. ACTA has been negotiated in secret, though the recently released negotiating draft text envisions a permanent secretariat that will receive new members.
In other words, existing international institutions, where countries like Brazil, China, and India have recently acquired some real power, will be bypassed to create the tough new restrictions in ACTA.
India raising hell, I think, is a good thing. India's objection is not over media anti-piracy and copyright, but over pharmaceuticals. There's some very nasty patent protections that extend even if country X doesn't recognize country Y's patents or have different term limits or such.
But what really ticks me off is the secret negotiating aspect of this treaty, and as the article points out, bypassing WTO and WIPO to institute it. It's like the USA trying to get everyone to sign on to DMCA, but not being very above-board about it. DMCA is now crawling out of the grave in Canada again, so we'll see what happens there. In Canada, currently, if you buy an iPod or Music CD-Rs, you pay an additional tax that supposedly helps reimburse artists for losses due to piracy, but that money never seems to trickle down from the studios for some strange reason.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/india-vows-to-sabotage-acta.ars
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/02/2157252/India-Attempts-To-Derail-ACTA?art_pos=12
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 05:26 pm (UTC)ACTA was started, and is being pushed hard by, the US, with the UK an enthusiastic supporter. The UK recently passed a bill saying that ISPs are required to shut off service to anyone caught illegally downloading - and only one company has said publicly that they will refuse to do so. I've heard that a friend of a friend had that done to them already in the US; they didn't fight it at ALL, even though it's not law in this country. Still, private businesses can choose to refuse service to anyone, but if enough people think something is wrong - like restaurants refusing service to someone because of their skin color - then polices change.
Not that this opinion is because I think stealing music and software is right; people work HARD to create games & such, and deserve compensation. Like me. But if ACTA was in everyone's best interest, why all the secrecy?
There has been one case so far of a company's right to copyright a human gene being overturned. Hopefully, more lawsuits will be filed, so more overturning can happen.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 05:52 pm (UTC)People talk about how the Constitution needs to change to keep up with modern times. At the same time, you have the ??AA and their refusal to change their business practices to adapt to changing technology and culture. Well, refusal might be too strong a word, but molasses in winter comes to mind. Glacial perhaps is a better term.
There was a great comment in the Slashdot thread and a reply:
The question the modern capitalist must ask themselves is a question of priority. What is more important to you, the lives of poor individuals or profits?
Corporations have chosen profits but what do individuals choose?
To which someone replied:
We're not a capitalist country anymore; we're corporatists.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 06:24 pm (UTC)