Insane Copyright Treaty Leaked - EXTREMELY important

[Paul Schlegel]

"According to once-secret, now-leaked sections of the new, plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, global Internet users and ISPs might be in for a world of hurt in the near future.

A U.S.-drafted chapter on Internet use would require ISPs to police user-generated content, to cut off Internet access for copyright violators, and to remove content that is accused of copyright violation without any proof of actual violation. The chapter also completely prohibits DRM workarounds, even for archiving or retrieving one's own work. Read on for details and implications."

...and later on...
" In other words, whether or not a piece of content or media violates copyright would be arbitrary; the content would be removed by the ISP as soon as a takedown notice was issued. The takedown would be enforced regardless of considerations such as fair use."

Original source and more:
U.S/International Copyright Treaty Leaked, Trouble Ahead for ISPs & Users

Good thing I can still post the snippet as of now. LOL

[bgmacaw]

This sounds political and we're suppose to whistle by that particular graveyard around here.

[BIG Mike]

I don't know about the politics behind it, but I like it

Mark, if you're concerened that anyone could get your content taken down, that's not a problem - there are penalties for filing false DMCA's related to the content takedown.

In fact, this type of agreement could go a long way in the fight against pirates.

[Richard Odell]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

In fact, this type of agreement could go a long way in the fight against pirates.

It could also be abused by competitors and larger corporations hell bent on dominating the Internet.

Another example of lobbying by the big boys!

-Rich

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by Richard Odell

It could also be abused by competitors and larger corporations hell bent on dominating the Internet.

Another example of lobbying by the big boys!

-Rich

Not really - it's illegal to file a false takedown report...anyone doing it will find themselves in a jam in a hurry.

That's assuming of course that you're not actually using copyrighted material illegally.

[DogScout]

" In other words, whether or not a piece of content or media violates copyright would be arbitrary; the content would be removed by the ISP as soon as a takedown notice was issued. The takedown would be enforced regardless of considerations such as fair use."

is in essence, this is a part of the current treaty. Current rules say an ISP or 'other owner' has to remove any contested DMCA material until the dispute is settled.
('Other Owner' refers to a forum or other user input platform owner such as FaceBook, Twitter, or any individual that has a forum on their site or blog that accepts comments.)

Your agreement to do that (if you have a blog or forum) SHOULD be stated in your privacy policy, disclaimer or copyright infringement policy that should be on a public, linked to page on every site.

Public privacy policies are a matter of law, your agreement to abide by current DMCA may not be, but is a good idea to keep the powers that be off your back.

Fair use is still a hotly debated subject, for instance, unless you are an accredited school that qualifies for an .edu, the section of fair use dealing with educating would not be looked as a way around use of a copyrighted item.

I have had massive dealings with Disney and Warner Bros, to name just two large groups of lawyers. I 'won' the Disney fiasco (they closely monitored, but never filed any action or asked my ISP to take any action), and backed off the WB one. I have read the treaties from front to back, as well as the US laws. (which are sometimes contrary to each other). I am not a lawyer, but IMers in general have very few real copyright issues. It is unusual for a copywriter to not be flattered when someone steals and deploys their copy, re-written for another niche. Even Dan Kennedy LIKES to see his material 'swiped'. Bill Glazer practically begs you to swipe his stuff. Lol.

The hard part comes when a MRR piece is re-written just enough to tell it was re-written, or entire articles are 'scraped' and the new article ranks higher in Google, AND has no credit back or the author doesn't have a share agreement in their RSS. It gets stranger.

It is OK to use a newspaper site's RSS feed (usually, if they have permissions in place) but if you obtain the exact same copy by copy/pasting the article, it is a copyright violation!. Lol.

I could go on all day!
Mark

[sanjid112]

The treaty need some revision, and more detail explanation what is mentioned on each chapter, so it won't be any ambiguous meaning about what is written in there.

I agree we would need this treaty to fight against piracy, but with no further regulation and good supervision, it can be abused people. So, this treaty is need further reviews and evaluation, I think.

[Paul Schlegel]

Wow, it's stunning that people are missing the bigger implications of this. I'm suspicious of the claim that this is about piracy and filesharing.

As TechDirt said:

"This is not about free trade at all. This is an entertainment industry-written bill designed to recreate the internet in its image -- as a broadcasting platform, rather than one used for user-generated content and communication. "
More ACTA Details Leak: It's An Entertainment Industry Wishlist | Techdirt

It's not "political". It's about major directions in the future of the internet.

BigMike, I will post your observations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and some of the other sites with major legal minds behind them, as it is odd that they don't bring up what you've mentioned and I'd love to see what they have to say about it.

[James_Harkin]

Originally Posted by Richard Odell

It could also be abused by competitors and larger corporations hell bent on dominating the Internet.

Another example of lobbying by the big boys!

-Rich

Unfortunately I agree with you, the ultimate goal of World Government is to have everyone working for the government. One way of doing this is squeezing small businesses with red tape. The current DMCA rules are adequate, however they love to tinker to allow big business more power. Ultimately, the end game is that big corporations cannot sustain themselves so they either get bailed out, or they get split up. You will see a lot of large corporations be split up into smaller companies in the next two years, this is a good thing. The only problem is that the major shareholder will probably be government, see GM and many large retail banks, because there will be very little money around. Corporations are bad, but government run corporations are worse.

[JustVisiting]

Originally Posted by markquinn

"
A U.S.-drafted chapter on Internet use would require ISPs to police user-generated content, to cut off Internet access for copyright violators, and to remove content that is accused of copyright violation without any proof of actual violation. The chapter also completely prohibits DRM workarounds, even for archiving or retrieving one's own work. Read on for details and implications."

Copyright violation is plainly wrong...Period...B U T ........Remove stuff without any proof of violation?? A 'legal' mind actually drafted this 'big brother 1984 Orwell' rubbish? How the **** do they intend to enforce this...?
Do ISP's have the resources to enforce this?? No.
The genius committee approving this have no concept of how big the internet is and the amount of content published!!!!
Also, once again, this law is US law. Whilst I love you guys the other side of the pond dearly your laws do not have juristriction outside the US.

[Paul Schlegel]

Originally Posted by JustVisiting

Copyright violation is plainly wrong...Period...B U T ........Remove stuff without any proof of violation?? A 'legal' mind actually drafted this 'big brother 1984 Orwell' rubbish? How the F**K do they intend to enforce this...?
Do ISP's have the resources to enforce this?? No.
The genius committee approving this have no concept of how big the internet is and the amount of content published!!!!
Also, once again, this law is US law. Whilst I love you guys the other side of the pond dearly your laws do not have juristriction outside the US.

Another great observation. Of course one scenario - again - as discussed with other recent government moves is to force U.S. companies out of the U.S.

By the way, I'm a musician and composer and take Copyright issues very seriously, so if I thought this was just about "Copyright Issues" I would have never brought this up.

[Dan C. Rinnert]

I think it's difficult to determine whether this would be good or bad just yet. The potential for abuse would appear to be there. But, it would be nice to have more ammo against bona fide piracy.

It is certainly something to keep an eye on. When big corporations get involved, you know they are looking after their own interests, and not the interests of the end user or copyright in general. In the U.S., just look at how the public domain was limited due in large part to Disney wanting to keep their copyrights on their early works, which, in some cases, were themselves derived from public domain works! If not for Disney's lobbying, works from 1923-1934 would now be in the public domain.

[Paul Schlegel]

Hmm, according to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing:

"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."

IF that's true and took effect that would be a significant change.

It's interesting to look at the parties that were included to review the final draft:
White House shares the ACTA Internet text with 42 Washington insiders, under non disclosure agreements | Knowledge Ecology International

"We were told that everyone who needed to see the documents has seen them. Outside of Public Knowledge and CDT, everyone who received the documents was representing a large corporate entity, including several foreign owned publishers. USTR does not think that KEI needs to see the documents. USTR certainly does not think the broader public should see the documents. The handful of people who did see the documents cannot say what they saw."

Looks like this story is starting to get picked up quickly across the net now, btw.

[Elmer Hurlstone]

Originally Posted by JustVisiting

Also, once again, this law is US law. Whilst I love you guys the other side of the pond dearly your laws do not have juristriction[sic] outside the US.

Having not completely read the leaked portions of ACTA I'm not qualified to comment, per se, on the pending agreement.

Please note the agreement, if enacted, will not be "only U.S. Law".

A number of countries are involved in the ongoing ACTA negotiations:

In October 2007 the United States, the European Community, Switzerland and Japan announced that they would negotiate ACTA. Furthermore the following countries have joined the negotiations: Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and the European Union.

Source: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Respectfully,

Elmer Hurlstone

[ildarius]

and to remove content that is accused of copyright violation without any proof of actual violation.

I don't understand how my ISP can remove content from my FTP server, they can definetly cut off the internet connection, but how would they gain access to my servers?

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by ildarius

I don't understand how my ISP can remove content from my FTP server, they can definetly cut off the internet connection, but how would they gain access to my servers?

If they cut off your connection, they've effectively removed the content from being accessed on your servers.

[Paul Schlegel]

Originally Posted by ildarius

I don't understand how my ISP can remove content from my FTP server, they can definetly cut off the internet connection, but how would they gain access to my servers?

It would depend on how "internet service provider". If it's defined the same way that "interactive computer service" is defined under section 230 of the Communications Decency act, it would be a very broad definition that would include your host, certain site owners that allow user generated content (i.e. blogs)...but I haven't seen what the actual definition is that is being used here.

Details about "interactive computer service" under 230 are here:
Immunity for Online Publishers Under the Communications Decency Act | Citizen Media Law Project

[ildarius]

Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert

If they cut off your connection, they've effectively removed the content from being accessed on your servers.

So if I use a different internet connection to access my servers I can still do it?

[LB]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

I don't know about the politics behind it, but I like it

Mark, if you're concerened that anyone could get your content taken down, that's not a problem - there are penalties for filing false DMCA's related to the content takedown.

In fact, this type of agreement could go a long way in the fight against pirates.

Except when those filing the complaints are in China....it's happened to me.

The Chinese government is not going to go to bat for you when a ruthless competitor in China files false DMCA notices against you.

And really...how hard would it be to file DMCA notices under false info using a hacked online fax or something?

While I've spent thousands on lawyers defending my copyrights I also do not like the thought of a world where one cannot face their accuser and rebut the charges against them.

Most ISPs can already terminate service for any, or no reason.

[Paul Schlegel]

Originally Posted by LB

Except when those filing the complaints are in China....it's happened to me.

The Chinese government is not going to go to bat for you when a ruthless competitor in China files false DMCA notices against you.

And really...how hard would it be to file DMCA notices under false info using a hacked online fax or something?

While I've spent thousands on lawyers defending my copyrights I also do not like the thought of a world where one cannot face their accuser and rebut the charges against them.

Most ISPs can already terminate service for any, or no reason.

This is one of my big concerns as well of widespread adoption of this, so I'm glad you brought it up, especially given the lengths you yourself have had to go to defend your own copyrighted works. No doubt we want strong copyright protection, but this just seems like a very bad way to go about it.

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by ildarius

So if I use a different internet connection to access my servers I can still do it?

I think you'd eventually run out of ISPs. I think I read something about a three-strike rule too. So, presumably, once you've gone through three ISPs (or three DMCA notices?), you would no longer be allowed Internet access from anyone.

[Paul Schlegel]

Originally Posted by Profit-smart

I hate to comment on politics here, and I'm sure this opinion will be unpopular; But the whole "New World Order, One world government" thing has absolutely *nothing* to do with the crazy conspiracy theories behind it. At least, in so much as the underlying motive is truly unimportant.

The emerging, global government IS real. Sure. Absolutely. Anyone can see that.

Now go do some research on the state of our natural resources. On how peak oil is going to effect the agricultural industry; On the growing problem of drought (See, global warming).

Were going to be in a real jam in the next few years, and frankly I would rather deal with a tyrannical (hopefully not, of course) one world government than watch WWIII break out while we squabble over what precious few resources we have left.

The heads of countless country's know whats in store-They have more intelligent folks than me crunching numbers. Theirs your motive; Survival or a war which decimates humanity-A war where the even the victors nation will be knocked back into the medieval age within a couple of generations.

While I appreciate a more global perspective and how that gobal perspective could affect our businesses, I'm hoping that we can currently constrain this discussion to this particular copyright treaty.

[JustVisiting]

Originally Posted by Elmer Hurlstone

Please note the agreement, if enacted, will not be "only U.S. Law".

A number of countries are involved in the ongoing ACTA negotiations:

Respectfully,

Elmer Hurlstone

Thanks Elmer for the clarification.
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement...Yes...People that riff-off music, films, illegal download sites...etc are breaking the law. However it appears the agenda is to go much further. The term 'User-Generated content' covers all content on the internet.