In these few weeks it is becoming clear that not “just” some lobby groups are pushing the copyright issue wrongly in the EU, it is part of something much bigger.. and yes unfortunately worse idea:
ACTA: Secret copyright treaty leaks. It’s bad. Very bad.
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.
* * 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)
More information also on wikileaks.
Its clear that they have tried to hide this idea, because they know it is wrong. Or in words of the pirate party:
“There is a distinct, and frightening lack of transparency” said Rodney Serkowski, another Pirate Party Australia spokesperson. “A complete disregard for our civil liberties, which are more important than this overbearing monopoly, which is completely out of balance at present anyway. Any move to disconnect any person from the internet because they are partaking in cultural exchange by sharing privately and non-commercially is offensive. We completely reject any plan to make carriage service providers de facto copyright cops. ISPs should be given no right or responsibility to snoop through private communication. We wouldn’t tolerate it with Australia Post, so we shouldn’t tolerate it with our Internet connections”
I really hope we now have reached rock-bottom and are definitely NOT going this secret ACTA direction.
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