ACTA : Internet Censorship Revisited

[arc123]

Now, accept the Internet is insecure and it's easy for your ISP to track you and go and have some toast.

Was anybody actually debating this?

Their proposal, the last I saw it, contained the following :

1. ISPs would be forced to inspect your traffic and report any copyright violations to the owning companies.
2. Companies that would receive the reports from ISPs that some person infringed on their copyrights would be able to impose compensation of loses and (for grave violations) jail the person. That is correct, a private corporation would be allowed to be judge&jury. The compensations would be mostly fixed. If I remember correctly, to the tune of 150k $ / violation. So 10 songs downloaded of the tinternet without copyright permission would get you 1.5mil $ without requiring a judge to see the evidence.
3. Sites that might post copyright infringing materials (including catch phrases or such), such as user generated content sites, would be asked to censor the publishing of that content and upon refusal or inability to do so, would be shut down. This would put great strain on start-ups because this sort of policing takes great effort to enforce, which most start-ups would not be able to pull out.
4. Seeds and medicine copyrights would be imposed in a much stricter manner (relating especially to generalistic products - think aspirin like) in developing countries. This will hamper development of local crop growers and local pharmaceutical companies. This is essentially the internationalisation of patents.

The fact of the matter is that most of this would benefit the large companies focused on content and would be very detrimental to most of the rest. So the laws would only benefit a very small percentage of the ones affected.

What I am not aware of is the current version of the law, but these were the major points. You can watch a video about the law here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlFyoEKV0dE
The video is from September 2011, so it will refer to that version of the agreement. It has evolved since.
This is the latest version I could find : http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/doc...doc_147937.pdf

Originally Posted by andreis

Their proposal, the last I saw it, contained the following :

1. ISPs would be forced to inspect your traffic and report any copyright violations to the owning companies.
I thought this was already the case,

2. Companies that would receive the reports from ISPs that some person infringed on their copyrights would be able to impose compensation of loses and (for grave violations) jail the person. That is correct, a private corporation would be allowed to be judge&jury. The compensations would be mostly fixed. If I remember correctly, to the tune of 150k $ / violation. So 10 songs downloaded of the tinternet without copyright permission would get you 1.5mil $ without requiring a judge to see the evidence.
Thats just dumb,
a) $150,000 per violation is completly unbalanced to the scale of the offence.
b) You couldnt possibly jail the amount of people who commit this office on a daily basis.
Either that missunderstood or miscalculated, either way thats not even pheasable to enforce. The having not seen evidence part is reason enough to see its BS thanks to our civil rights since magna carter

3. Sites that might post copyright infringing materials (including catch phrases or such), such as user generated content sites, would be asked to censor the publishing of that content and upon refusal or inability to do so, would be shut down. This would put great strain on start-ups because this sort of policing takes great effort to enforce, which most start-ups would not be able to pull out.
Like you tube/ebay you couldnt employ the required number of people to enforce this so you'd be relying on tip offs/snitching but then you get turf war style antics where people make false reports in order to supress competition... because of that this too would fail.

4. Seeds and medicine copyrights would be imposed in a much stricter manner (relating especially to generalistic products - think aspirin like) in developing countries. This will hamper development of local crop growers and local pharmaceutical companies. This is essentially the internationalisation of patents.
The principal of uniform medicine doesnt seem a bad idea, at least that would mean asprin in UK is the same in Ghana so you know what you're getting and how you may react to ingesting it.

The fact of the matter is that most of this would benefit the large companies focused on content and would be very detrimental to most of the rest. So the laws would only benefit a very small percentage of the ones affected.
This is the big thing then isnt it, this is what makes blue chip remain blue chip and prevents cometative pricing and a fair market... I thought Bill Gates set a precendent on this when fighting for his right to launch windows as a driver supported system.

Im not educated in the in's/outs and I dont pretend to but the red is my understanding of what those proposals mean to the individual.
No I wouldnt support the proposals being passed but mainly because Im not sure if I'd be directly affected or not. I'd rather say no to agreing with something I dont understand, than to not contest it only to find I now can no longer do the things I enjoy... Pretty sure from what you're saying we'd no longer be allowed to have an SV650.org, it would need renaming to "a forum for the bike made in Japan which has 2 cylinders of 325 capacity in a 10 to 2 formation.org"

Pardon my ignorance but if this goes through, what's to stop someone making a "new" internet that is outside the legislation.

In simple terms, instead of "HTTP://" something like "FOFF://" or "FREE://"

there's always a loop hole

C

You would need a world wide infrastructure to support it

DNS servers and the like

Originally Posted by Berlin

Pardon my ignorance but if this goes through, what's to stop someone making a "new" internet that is outside the legislation.

In simple terms, instead of "HTTP://" something like "FOFF://" or "FREE://"

there's always a loop hole

C

[arc123]

Pardon my ignorance but if this goes through, what's to stop someone making a "new" internet that is outside the legislation.

there already is. Its just not a 'new' internet. In effect, it's the 'old' internet - the internet that existed prior to 'The Eternal September' circa 1993.

Originally Posted by Owenski

1. ISPs would be forced to inspect your traffic and report any copyright violations to the owning companies.
I thought this was already the case,

I believe there's a difference. ISPs currently inform the authorities on your traffic when they are requested to do so by said authorities. This means that the copyright holder has to first file a complaint and then the police would get the authorizations they need to request the logs from the ISP.
Under ACTA, ISPs would inspect your data packages (not just where you're sending and in what amount, as it is now, but also what's inside). They would also be forced to report you to the copyright holder.

Originally Posted by Owenski

2. Companies that would receive the reports from ISPs that some person infringed on their copyrights would be able to impose compensation of loses and (for grave violations) jail the person. That is correct, a private corporation would be allowed to be judge&jury. The compensations would be mostly fixed. If I remember correctly, to the tune of 150k $ / violation. So 10 songs downloaded of the tinternet without copyright permission would get you 1.5mil $ without requiring a judge to see the evidence.
Thats just dumb,
a) $150,000 per violation is completly unbalanced to the scale of the offence.
b) You couldnt possibly jail the amount of people who commit this office on a daily basis.
Either that missunderstood or miscalculated, either way thats not even pheasable to enforce. The having not seen evidence part is reason enough to see its BS thanks to our civil rights since magna carter

Regarding point a) : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...e-1765988.html

And quoting from that piece :

Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful

Regarding b) : Yes, yes you could. It probably wouldn't happen, but 99% of the population is quilty of some copyright violation

Regarding your last remark on this point : THAT is exactly what's wrong with the whole idea. Your rights would be circumvented. It's exactly what is so obscene about it. You can, under current legislation, be fined and/or imprisoned for severe copyright violations, but it has to go through the courts. Under ACTA, private corporations would be able to fine you the amount you owe them.

Originally Posted by Owenski

3. Sites that might post copyright infringing materials (including catch phrases or such), such as user generated content sites, would be asked to censor the publishing of that content and upon refusal or inability to do so, would be shut down. This would put great strain on start-ups because this sort of policing takes great effort to enforce, which most start-ups would not be able to pull out.
Like you tube/ebay you couldnt employ the required number of people to enforce this so you'd be relying on tip offs/snitching but then you get turf war style antics where people make false reports in order to supress competition... because of that this too would fail.

That's the problem. Making sites and ISPs responsible for what their users post/traffic is what will lead to automation of censorship.
You can, under current legislation, ask a site to take down offensive material. This is exactly the snitching you talk about. If someone asks youtube "this video contains copyright infringing material" and youtube looks at the video and agrees, they take down the video (or mute the track if it's just the audio that's infringing). This is already in effect today and no one argues with it.

It's the part were they make them liable for those postings that worries people. Because then, as you say later in the post, sites like the org would be under severe threat.

Originally Posted by Owenski

4. Seeds and medicine copyrights would be imposed in a much stricter manner (relating especially to generalistic products - think aspirin like) in developing countries. This will hamper development of local crop growers and local pharmaceutical companies. This is essentially the internationalisation of patents.
The principal of uniform medicine doesnt seem a bad idea, at least that would mean asprin in UK is the same in Ghana so you know what you're getting and how you may react to ingesting it.

I do agree with you on the desired behavior in medicine, but from what I understood, this type of legislation has a negative side in the states (where patent enforcing is aggressive). Farmers have no resources to enforce the seed purity of their crops. If somehow patented seeds mix with theirs, the patent owning company claims their entire crop (or they have to pay punitive damages). Of course, the owning company has no obligation to guard that their crop doesn't spread seeds to other crops... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsant...._v._Schmeiser

Originally Posted by Owenski

The fact of the matter is that most of this would benefit the large companies focused on content and would be very detrimental to most of the rest. So the laws would only benefit a very small percentage of the ones affected.
This is the big thing then isnt it, this is what makes blue chip remain blue chip and prevents cometative pricing and a fair market... I thought Bill Gates set a precendent on this when fighting for his right to launch windows as a driver supported system.

Im not educated in the in's/outs and I dont pretend to but the red is my understanding of what those proposals mean to the individual.
No I wouldnt support the proposals being passed but mainly because Im not sure if I'd be directly affected or not. I'd rather say no to agreing with something I dont understand, than to not contest it only to find I now can no longer do the things I enjoy... Pretty sure from what you're saying we'd no longer be allowed to have an SV650.org, it would need renaming to "a forum for the bike made in Japan which has 2 cylinders of 325 capacity in a 10 to 2 formation.org"

Yep, I'm not that well educated on the matter as well and this is the caveat : I have little knowledge of the way this type of legislation will impact us. I know we will be able to circumvent it, but it will impact us in some ways that we are not aware now. And it certainly won't be in a good way for us. It will probably be good for the content mafia though

Originally Posted by arc123

there already is. Its just not a 'new' internet. In effect, it's the 'old' internet - the internet that existed prior to 'The Eternal September' circa 1993.

Forgive my ignorance, but what was "The Eternal September"? You're beginning to sound a bit Matrix

[arc123]

Forgive my ignorance, but what was "The Eternal September"?

Here's wiki explanation of the Eternal September.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

In essence, this was the grand unveiling of the internet (in the form of 'Usenet' - the precursor to forums like this very one!) to the masses. The internet had previously only been accessible to the limited few prior to the invent of the www (and specifically AOLs release of Usenet in 1993 I think).

without wanting to teach you to suck eggs if your knowledge surpasses this - the Internet and the World Wide Web are not one and the same. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks. In contrast, the Web is one of the services that runs on the Internet.

Other services exist too. It is the www / http (sometimes known as 'surface web' that will fall subject to any proposed legislation). 'Deep web' (which isn't indexed by Google and other web search engines) will remain as it does now.

[timwilky]

Bloody hell a victory for common sense

ACTA is thrown out by the EU parliament