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)
This is truly scary.
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3 comments:
subtle federalized totalitarianism in disguise rather than reasonable regulation? shoot, i'm afraid so. this could really bring death to internet economy.
Orwellian for sure. I don't know how to wrap my mind around that...
guess its time for me to get a netbook. that way i can turn off the wireless on my computer and only browse the web with the netbook. better safe than sorry. no jail time for me, thank you very much.
my problem is what this entails for small startup companies (bands and musical artists included) who rely on the internet to spread and gain footing in the industry. guess we'll have to wait and see what results from these secret meetings. =(
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