The Government Accountability Office has made a study of “efforts to quantify the economic effects of counterfeit and pirated goods” and concluded that “difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts” (h/t Ars Technica) No surprise to those of us who have been calling “bullshit” all along, but what’s really interesting is why they’ve [...]
There have been a bunch of leaks from the ACTA process lately, and this week saw 2 of the biggest – the names of the countries who are opposing transparency and, even more surprisingly, a breakdown of the positions different negotiating teams are taking on aspects of the US proposal, known as the “Internet Chapter”. [...]
We’re talking about major changes that will hobble innovation and tie us to decaying business models that actually only benefit a very few corporations. How do artists, musicians and authors get any benefit out of this, when they’re already struggling with their respective industries to make a buck? It’s not piracy that’s taking your money, people – it’s the contracts you signed with your publishers.
So, what’s hauled me back to the keyboard? ACTA – the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – you may remember that I’ve blogged on this before. Well, it’s just entered its next round, in Korea, that well-known home of freedom and civil liberties (and the first country in the world to pass a 3 strikes law and implement it). Some of the latest draft has been leaked (again) and the Internet is noticing.
The BBC report that the Pirate Bay trial verdict is in and the Bay has lost. 1 year jail time and 30m Kroner (£2.4m) in damages. The appeal should be interesting (Tip o’the hat to Simon Grigg)
You may remember I mentioned the Copyright thread on Public Address System (PAS to its habitués). It got to 37 pages which we thought was quite a lot. There’s another one, starting from a review of Lawrence Lessig’s lecture in Auckland last year by Matthew Poole, which is now at 81 pages and 1600+ postings, [...]
Michael Geist, Canadian law professor and copyright activist, has published an ACTA timeline from a Canadian perspective. He kindly notes my post with regard to the pre-negotiation history, and goes into a fair bit of detail from October 2007 onward, and finishing with “To be continued…”. Michael organised the Facebook protest against C-61 – the [...]
There is a video going around on the Intarwebz. I am not going to link directly to it but you can find it in the blog I link to in this post. It’s a report from Russia Today about ACTA. It has a clip of Richard Stallman sounding off, and a few others, and intimates [...]
I’ve called out Campbell Smith on his creative use of English to make black appear white. Now its APRA’s turn, and specifically Arthur Baysting. This will probably earn me wrath from some sectors of the music community, to whom Baysting has been a battler of the local industry for years, but his latest effort is [...]
ACTA stands for “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” and after a year of negotiations (following a year of “pre-negotiations”), that’s all we really know for certain. Which is just a bit insane for countries that are supposed to be representative democracies. Trade agreements are often negotiated under cover of secrecy, so that industry lobbyists can’t focus on [...]