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Google Pushes Back Against US Copyright Treaty

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday September 23, @06:37PM
from the don't-upset-the-google dept.
Google Government
Hugh Pickens writes "Internet companies led by Google joined groups representing Web users to challenge the Bush administration's bid to toughen international enforcement against copyright pirates. The companies said the US courts and Congress are still working out the correct balance between protecting copyrights and the free exchange of information on the Web and a treaty could be counterproductive. 'There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification,' said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. 'There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google.' The US, Japan, Canada and other nations said last year that they would begin negotiations on an agreement aimed at cracking down on counterfeiting of such goods as watches and pharmaceuticals, and the piracy of copyrighted materials, such as software and music recordings. A leaked draft of the deal showed that the treaty could force Internet service providers to cooperate with copyright holders."
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  • WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23, @06:43PM (#25128689)

    "There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification," said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. "There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google."

    What about what's good for PEOPLE????!!!!

  • That's all the information I need.

    They know it won't get passed if it's done publicly.

    • Re:This treaty is being done behind closed doors.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aeoo (568706) on Tuesday September 23, @09:31PM (#25130129) Journal

      They can pass their little secret treaties, but how long and how seriously do they think people who are not privy to these secret meetings will honor these treaties?

      If our rights as common people are being so openly snubbed, then this means the end of the copyright, because no one is going to respect it.

      This is already happening, but I am surprised these copyright idiots don't see that what they are doing, these secret meetings and taking into consideration only "powerful" interests is destroying what they want to accomplish. They forget that without people getting on board of this train it is going nowhere fast.

  • One of the few bright spots of DMCA... (Score:5, Informative)

    by voss (52565) on Tuesday September 23, @06:49PM (#25128771)

    was the "safe harbor" provision. It basically kept the ISP's and websites for the most part out of the net-cop business.

    btw: When one of the few very profitable American companies in this current economy makes a statement like

    "It really could be used as a way of restricting the growth of U.S. Internet companies overseas"

    perhaps the US government should listen

  • Many countries have happily ignored... (Score:5, Informative)

    by puppetman (131489) on Tuesday September 23, @06:56PM (#25128823) Homepage

    copyrights and patents.

    Germany used to be quite famous for making fakes of machines used in the British textile manufacturing effort (right down to copying the name of the manufacturer). Many European countries didn't bother with patent protection as it interferred with their ability to make cheap knock offs.

    If Einstein had been a chemist, he wouldn't have been working in the Swiss patent office, because at the time, the Swiss believed that you couldn't patent anything chemical. Canada didn't recongize drug patents until the 1960s (if memory serves).

    This rich-country enforcement of patents and copyright is "kicking away the ladder" - most first-world countries conveniently ignored patents during their development, when it was to their economic benefit to be able to rip technology off from more well-to-do nations.

    • Re:Many countries have happily ignored... (Score:5, Informative)

      by schon (31600) on Tuesday September 23, @08:06PM (#25129503) Homepage

      Your examples neglect the most prominent example of this - namely the Hollywood movie industry.

      You know why California is the center of the major studios' world? Because they we getting hammered by enforcement of patents when they were on the east coast.

      Hollywood owes it's existence to it's deliberate evasion of "intellectual property" laws.

        • Some historical links: Hollywood v. Edison (Score:5, Informative)

          by FreeUser (11483) on Wednesday September 24, @05:09AM (#25133045) Homepage

          Well, it's not authoritative (I'm at work and don't have time to dig up primary sources), but here's an overview of what happened:

          Studios flee to Hollywood[1]

          In the early 1900s, filmmakers began moving to the Los Angeles area to get away from the strict rules imposed by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey. Since most of the moviemaking patents were owned by Edison, independent filmmakers were often sued by Edison to stop their productions.

          To escape his control, and because of the ideal weather conditions and varied terrain, moviemakers began to arrive in Los Angeles to make their films. If agents from Edison's company came out west to find and stop these filmmakers, adequate notice allowed for a quick escape to Mexico.

          Working without disturbance from Edison, the Biograph Company moved west with actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others, to make their films. After beginning filming in Los Angeles, the company decided to explore the neighboring area and stumbled across Hollywood.

          Biograph made the first film in Hollywood, entitled In Old California. After hearing of Biograph's praise of the area, other filmmakers headed west to set up shop.

          The first motion picture studio was built in 1919, in nearby Edendale, just east of Hollywood, by Selig Polyscope Company, and the first one built in Hollywood was founded by filmmaker David Horsley's general manager Al Christie in 1911, in an old building on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. Movie studios began to crop up all over Hollywood after Christie's appearance, including ones for Cecil B. DeMille in 1913, the Charlie Chaplin Studio in 1917, and many others.

          [1]: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3871.html [u-s-history.com]
          [2]: http://webpages.dcu.ie/~flynnr/hollywood_history_1891_-_1917.htm [webpages.dcu.ie] (interesting timeline)
          [3]: http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/edison_trust.htm [cobbles.com] (details on Edison's monopoly, which Hollywood broke)

          Primary sources would take longer than I have to dig up, but you get the idea.

      • Re:Many countries have happily ignored... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by puppetman (131489) on Tuesday September 23, @09:28PM (#25130095) Homepage

        The point was that patents benefit rich, developed countries. Ignoring patents and copyright benefits poor countries (who, by the way, rarely have unions, pensions, or all that other first-world stuff you mentioned).

        The World Bank and IMF have made up a fairy tale that the developed countries of the world became rich thanks to free trade and patents, which is crap. They became rich thanks to trade barriers, tariffs and turning a blind eye.

      • Re:Many countries have happily ignored... (Score:5, Informative)

        by puppetman (131489) on Tuesday September 23, @09:52PM (#25130251) Homepage

        The fact that these countries had to copy the British inventions to compete shows how their own (patent less) systems failed to promote innovation within their own societies.

        Right - because it's much harder to innovate than copy.

        From Intellectual Property in Free Trade Agreements, by Sanya Reid Smith:

        "If developing countries broaden and lengthen their intellectual property protection beyond their current treaty obligations while they still have reduced capacity to generate their own intellectual property, they can expect to see their royalty outflow increase. For example, according to the Malaysian Governmentâ(TM)s 9th Malaysia Plan, in 2005 there was already estimated to be a net outflow of royalties of US $1.7 billion."

        Patents cost developing countries (who rarely have much patented) yet benefit countries where a large number of valuable patents reside.

        The Swiss did NOT believe that "you could not patent anything chemical". That is ridiculous

        From Intellectual Property in Free Trade Agreements, by Sanya Reid Smith:

        "Prior to TRIPS, countries were able to tailor their level of IP protection to suit their level of development. Many of todayâ(TM)s industrialised countries such as the USA, Europe,5 Japan, South Korea and Taiwan did not have high levels of IP protection until it suited them. For example Switzerland did not allow patents on chemicals until 1978; Italy, Sweden and Switzerland did not allow patents on medicines until 1978 and Spain did not allow patents on chemicals or medicines until 1992 because it said it could not afford the higher medicine prices as a result of patents."

        I am not sure what planet you live on, but it's not earth, Bizarro Slashdot Poster.

  • Already way off balance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slashqwerty (1099091) on Tuesday September 23, @07:57PM (#25129407)

    The companies said the US courts and Congress are still working out the correct balance between protecting copyrights and the free exchange of information on the Web

    The correct balance would cut copyrights back to 14 years, require disclosure of source code to receive copyright on software, ban business method patents, and ban the use of technologies that prevent a work from entering the public domain. The government is going the opposite direction it should if it's interesting in establishing a proper balance.

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