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Leaked ACTA Treaty to Outlaw P2P?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri Jun 06, 2008 05:37 PM
from the coming-at-you-from-every-side dept.
Communications Networking
miowpurr writes to tell us that a draft of the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) has been posted on Wikileaks. Among others, Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow has weighed in on the possible ramifications of this treaty. "Among other things, ACTA will outlaw P2P (even when used to share works that are legally available, like my books), and crack down on things like region-free DVD players. All of this is taking place out of the public eye, presumably with the intention of presenting it as a fait accompli just as the ink is drying on the treaty."

Related Stories

[+] Your Rights Online: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 390 comments
SpaceAdmiral writes "The Canadian government is secretly negotiating to join the US and the EU in an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The agreement would give border guards the power to search iPods and cellphones for illegal downloads, as well as to force ISPs to hand over customer information without a warrant. David Fewer, staff counsel at the University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, characterizes ACTA this way: 'If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas what would they look like? This is pretty close.'"
Firehose:Leaked ACTA Treaty Will Outlaw P2P by miowpurr (1004277)
[+] Your Rights Online: A Look At ACTA Wish Lists For RIAA, BSA, Others 69 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property brings us an analysis of several organizations' goals for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which we've discussed previously. In particular, he points out the anti-privacy views of the Business Software Alliance: "While the ACTA itself is not public, the US Trade Representative has at least released the ACTA comments. While many of them are to be expected, such as the RIAA & co. wanting copyright filters, one item on the BSA's wish list really stands out: 'In a number of European countries one of the biggest impediments to efforts by rights holder to enforce their IP rights on the Internet is the overbroad interpretation of privacy laws by some European authorities.' They want ACTA to 'fix' that by neutering the privacy laws. Given the BSA's other questionable activities, it couldn't hurt to tell their member companies what you think of their participation. After all, organizations like the BSA exist in part to shield their members from bad PR." Full documents of comments from the various organizations are available at Public Knowledge.
[+] News: Wikileaks Releases ACTA Negotiations As "0-Day" 66 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks has released a new document about the ACTA negotiations occurring in Washington over the next three days. This might be the shortest time between authorship of a document and its publication on Wikileaks so far. The brief 3-page memo, dated today, could add quite a bit of oil to the fire of the ACTA debate. It is titled Business Perspectives on Border Measures and Civil Enforcement and it contains a set of proposals to the 'ACTA negotiators' issued by 'Concerned business groups operating in ACTA nations.' Among many highly invasive methods and approaches proposed in this memorandum, the reader can find detailed demands for: full disclosure of relevant information by Customs to trademark holders so that they can mount private investigations; disclosure of identities and other information about copyright infringers; and increased inspection of goods. This document is especially important to raise public awareness on these negotiations and their implications for the future." We've been watching ACTA develop for a few months now.
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  • Guess they don't play WoW... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Deathdonut (604275) on Friday June 06, @05:39PM (#23687913)
    Considering it uses p2p for patches.

    • Re:Guess they don't play WoW... (Score:5, Funny)

      by oahazmatt (868057) on Friday June 06, @05:43PM (#23687993)

      Considering it uses p2p for patches.
      Millions of gamers in wizard robes, facepaint, wearing viking helmets on horseback storming the Capital in 3...2...

    • Re:Guess they don't play WoW... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by snl2587 (1177409) on Friday June 06, @05:44PM (#23688015)

      Or that, if you really want to get technical, everything that takes place over the internet exchanges information between two or more parties. How does one quantify p2p as opposed to simply transfer of information between two people, two servers, etc?

      • Re:Guess they don't play WoW... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nurb432 (527695) on Friday June 06, @05:49PM (#23688065) Homepage Journal
        And you don't think that is the ultimate goal, to kill off the internet as we know it ( and most digital media devices ) and return to the old form of 'media distribution' where they had pretty much total control?

        • Re:Guess they don't play WoW... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ScrewMaster (602015) on Friday June 06, @05:51PM (#23688087)
          Fundamentally, the problem is that virtually every society on Earth is ruled by sociopaths (or in the case of my country right now, perhaps psychopath is more accurate.)

        • When I was in school (Score:5, Interesting)

          by gerf (532474) <edtgerf@gmail.com> on Friday June 06, @07:01PM (#23688899) Journal

          When I was in school, we were taught about Francis Cabot Lowell, who heroically copied machine plans in England to use in the US for textile mills.

          England was so worried that their monopoly on their mill technology would be taken that they would search ships, cargo and passenger for hidden plans.

          Fortunately for the US, Lowell memorized the plans and was able to build his own plants in the New World. His business was the beginning of the industrialization of the New World. Without which, the United States would have continued to be merely agrarian in nature. Does anyone know if they still teach this lesson in gradeschools, or was it killed when they started teaching kids to respect copyrights more?

      • p2p == !DNS (Score:5, Informative)

        by swm (171547) * <swmcd@world.std.com> on Friday June 06, @06:18PM (#23688433) Homepage
        Yes, all IP packets are sent from one peer to another.

        The defining characteristic of what people call peer-to-peer systems is that the peers find each other without relying on the Domain Name System. A service that relies on the DNS--like a web server--can be shut down by removing its address from the DNS. Wikileaks had a problem like that recently. If you can force everyone to go through the DNS, then the DNS become a single point of control for the entire internet, and you can easily shut down anyone you don't like.

        The tricky part is establishing the legal principle that forces everyone to go through the DNS. You have to make it illegal to send a packet to an IP address unless you have obtained that IP address through a DNS lookup. Or something like that...

    • Bad summary. (Score:5, Informative)

      by kesuki (321456) on Friday June 06, @06:07PM (#23688285) Journal
      I went to wikileaks, read their summary, dled the PDF and read as much of it as i understood, and this document does nothing to 'criminalize' p2p activity. What it does criminalize is...

      "For example page three, paragraph one is a "Pirate Bay killer" clause designed to criminalize the non-profit facilitation of unauthorized information exchange on the internet. This clause would also negatively affect transparency and primary source journalism sites such as Wikileaks. "

      Basically, not just a pirate bay killer, but a wikileaks killer all rolled in one. Legitimate P2P is completely unaffected. except that there will never be 'open' trackers after this law goes through, in member nations. it's really easy to have a closed tracker, as WOW uses for distributing patches... now if WOW or say, SC2 uses P2P for 'user created content' (custom maps, sprites etc) then they might have to 'kill' those features in a patch, after all you can easily infringe on copyright (especially with custom sprites)

  • Typical (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Friday June 06, @05:41PM (#23687965) Homepage Journal
    Sneak it in the back door via treaties that trump sovereign laws.

    Im glad our collective governments have all the real issues of the world solved ( like famine, disease, terrorists , etc ) and can focus on such important things as saving some corporate entity from having to adapt to the future.. ( and make us all criminals in the process )

    Can you say 'one world government by proxy' ?

    • Re:Typical (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06, @05:56PM (#23688147)
      "have all the real issues of the world solved"

      This isn't about music and/or copyrights, thats just a smoke screen for what they are really doing which is controlling the flow of information that they cannot watch. People in power get into power because they seek power over others. They fear the loss of power and so they want to control as much as they can. They fear any spread of information outside of their control as it can undermine their positions of power. This is all about constructing a global information gathering network. They want power over the internet and what flows on it. Most of us who don't seek power don't think like the people who seek power. The power seekers spend decades learning to gain and hold onto power. They are always looking at new ways to control and so far the Internet has grown up largely outside of their control and they dont want that.

            • Re:Typical (Score:5, Interesting)

              by digitrev (989335) <digitrev@hotmail.com> on Friday June 06, @06:33PM (#23688625) Homepage
              Nah. HTTP has too many legitimate uses and has been around for too long. It's much easier to attack the fringe first. After all, most people will agree that the majority of P2P sharing infringes on someone's copyright. Whether or not this is fair use is another argument. So by taking out the things with the most illegal use, they get people accustomed to having protocols be made illegal. So when the big media companies create a new protocol, call it "Guaranteed Information Delivery Protocol", or something equally fuzzy, all other protocols will be slowly phased out, as "illegal things" could happen on them. Of course, with GIDP, you'll never have to deal with something scary and illegal like child pornography. Only our nice and safe news/entertainment will be available to you. And how I wish that someone could prove to me that these are just the paranoid ramblings of a /.er.

    • Re:Typical (Score:5, Funny)

      by ElMiguel (117685) on Friday June 06, @06:35PM (#23688635)

      Can you say 'one world government by proxy' ?

      No. Proxies are now outlawed too.

  • Wow, this makes great sense. (Score:5, Funny)

    by oahazmatt (868057) on Friday June 06, @05:47PM (#23688047)
    "How can we outlaw P2P? A lot of people use it for legitimately trading legal content."
    "Exactly. We make legally trading content illegal, then we'll catch those copyright infringers."
    "But if you outlaw legal file-sharing you set a dangerous precendent and risk a horrific backlash from the populous."
    "Look, you want this kickback or not?"
  • \begin{comment}
    It might well put a damper on piracy efforts that rely on decentralized distribution to stay afloat, but it will seriously hurt the (few) legitimate uses of peer-to-peer distribution. Imagine the strain on software development if the the good will and bandwidth of end users disappeared from their distribution model. At the end of the day somebody has to pay for the $n$ million downloads at 700MB apiece; I seriously doubt the paid development, marketing, sales, and support staff want to see it reallocated from their budgets.
    \end{comment}

    • Re:Who is going to foot the bandwidth bill? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by johannesg (664142) on Friday June 06, @06:33PM (#23688619)
      Hello, let's have some perspective here. There are plenty of people who would rejoice if 700MB downloads of free operating systems were no longer possible. Those people have billions in the bank and enough political influence to make this happen.

      So don't say that this is a bad side effect. I see it very much as an INTENDED side effect.

  • If your congress critter is on this list (Score:5, Informative)

    by merchant_x (165931) on Friday June 06, @05:51PM (#23688089)
    Tell them to stop selling out their constituents.

    From TFA
    Thank you also to the Members present, who have done so much to advance
        the cause of IP protection, including:
                - Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA)
                - Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
                - Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA)
                - Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)
                - Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

    • Tell them to stop selling out their constituents.

      I don't know any of those names but one: Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA). The only 'constituents' that she gives a rat ass about are those that work for the content industry.

      This is the woman that pushed the Copyright Term Extension Act through Congress. This is a telling quote: (emphasis mine)

      "Actually, Sonny [reference to her late husband, Sonny Bono] wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress."

      WTF is wrong with our elected officials? IANAL but I've read the Constitution enough times (and paid enough attention in civics class) to understand that the power of Congress to grant patents/copyrights is time limited. Let me help you Congresswoman:

      To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

      I also love the bit about what the MPAA President wanted. Care to tell me why his concerns should carry anymore weight then those of any American citizen?

      In short, she's a bitch and I wish I lived in her district so I could vote against her. Since I wouldn't live in California if you paid me a million bucks a minute (sorry to my friends on the west coast!) I'll have to be content with donating money to the campaign of whomever runs against her.

  • I'm a terrorist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Duncan Blackthorne (1095849) on Friday June 06, @06:22PM (#23688477)
    <SOAPBOX>
    If I use P2P of any kind for any reason, legal or not, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
    If I get for free, legally or not, what I could PAY for, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
    If I don't spend every last penny I make on what corporate America tells me to, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
    If I don't purchase a gas-hogging SUV every three years, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
    If I ride a bicycle because gas is so expensive, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
    If I don't consume, consume, consume, and CONSUME, I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
    I object to having to live in a fucking nanny-state, so OBVIOUSLY I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.
    If I don't live exactly like EVERYONE ELSE, then I'm a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer.


    ...

    Know what? The fucking bastards can fucking drop me in an oubliette in Gitmo then, because I guess I'm a fucking terrorist. I don't do everything I'm told to do, believe everything I'm told to believe, and keep my mouth shut because my opinions aren't "politically correct", so that makes me an "undesirable", worthy only of societies' scorn, and I should be treated like a dog.

    Let them sign their fucking little treaty. It's all paperwork bullshit anyway. I say it over and over again like a mantra: You can't stop the signal, goddamnit! Outlaw BitTorrent? Let's see them try, and if they do, someone will re-tool it into something completely different. Make the public internet unusable for anything other than their corporate bullshit? We'll find a way to subvert it into doing what we need it to do, or we'll tell them to go fuck themselves and go back to SneakerNet -- or maybe we'll just start creating a mesh network of our own and SCREW the ISPs!

    ..Said it before, I'll say it again: If this is the shape of things to come, then they can KEEP their fucking fucked-up internet. I'll go back to PRINTED BOOKS and actually TALKING TO LIVE PEOPLE IN PERSON, and these fucking politicians and their ISP lap-dogs won't get a SINGLE PENNY more of mine.
    </SOAPBOX>

    • Re:Just as with anything... (Score:5, Informative)

      by oahazmatt (868057) on Friday June 06, @05:53PM (#23688121)
      It goes further. From the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]:

      The proposed agreement would allow border officials to search laptops, MP3 players, and cellular phones for copyright-infringing content. It would also impose new cooperation requirements upon internet service providers (ISPs), including perfunctory disclosure of customer information, and restrict the use of online privacy tools. The proposal specifies a plan to encourage developing nations to accept the legal regime.

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