ACTA - Say goodbye to the internet
This topic is locked from further discussion.
My country will never sign something like that :Pmhh91
But this is international...so it doesn't really matter.
I actually think this is really one of the least likely things to happen soon. I'd say nuclear war, global destruction by asteroid, the US basically going bankrupt, and WoW losing all it's subs to be more likely scenarios than this.
[QUOTE="jetpower3"]
[QUOTE="guynamedbilly"]I'd wager the individual countries to follow any joint agreement as well as they have followed other agreements in the past, which is to say, barely at all.bogaty
I was waiting for someone to say this. The key here is enforcement. If any of you know anything about law, it is the enforcement of laws, agreements, and rulings that makes the difference. There are probably hundreds of thousands of laws in this world, in every country big or small, that are on the books, but aren't enforced, either out of a lack of feasibility or just a general rejection of what is written down. It's even worse for international agreements, which are at best very ineffective. That is why I am hardly surprised there is still so much strife on the international level, when nearly every country is a member of the United Nations. Every country is going to do whatever they want or can. We can see with all of this Iran nuclear program business how difficult it is just to negotiate with one country and solve a potentially dangerous international conflict through purely negotiation and economic threats. Why do you think something of this magnitude is going to come anywhere close to being enforced as it was intended?
The problem is, once a government's signed onto this treaty, they have the legal right to selectively enforce it. It's not too hard to imagine them using the law to quell speech which they deem to be a threat. Further, international treaties supercede domestic laws. Even if your government doesn't strictly enforce the legislation in the treaty, a foreign corporation has the legal right to step in and sue you right into the poorhouse. A simple look into what Monsanto has done to farmers in Canada and Mexico under the guise of NAFTA regulations is all the cautionary tale you need.
Even so, enforcement will still be spotty at the very best, and will be severely curtailed by the technology and other laws and regulations allowing it. How many people for instance have not been caught in the act of illegally downloading music for free off the Internet, or uploading to the Internet (YouTube comes to mind) after all of these years of major record corporations trying to stop it? Or the fact that even in the time of a comprehensive "War on Drugs", regular, unsophisticated people can still easily get access to cannabis and other drugs? Governments have been using laws to quell speech which they deem a threat for many, many years, and this is nothing new. Fortunately, the Internet is so sprawling in most developed countries that trying to censor it will not go down so easily, and it could very well mean political suicide for anyone who tries to attempt it, or at least the election of individuals that will ignore ACTA. It's also a bit naive to think that international agreements supersede domestic laws and decisions so easily in practice. How many countries are members of the United Nations, and still have atrocious human rights records? Who at the U.N. was able to stop the U.S.'s decision to invade Iraq back in 2003, and did the U.S. consider all the international laws they were breaking in the process? Don't forget all of the ways countries find loopholes around international regulations and treatises. Like I said, every country is going to do whatever they want to do in their national and international environment. Finally, I'm not well versed on the NAFTA farmer issue, but it appears that this trend was not necessarily facilitated by NAFTA, as it had been in existence long before it. And as always in economics, even in hindsight, it is still very difficult to find causation, much less while it is happening or in foresight.
All in all, I liken this thread to either fear mongering, especially how it gives the time old argument of "taking away 4th Amendment rights", or a poor understanding of how this things can and will end up being enforced, which most of the time isn't to a very high or significant degree.
[QUOTE="bogaty"]
[QUOTE="jetpower3"]
I was waiting for someone to say this. The key here is enforcement. If any of you know anything about law, it is the enforcement of laws, agreements, and rulings that makes the difference. There are probably hundreds of thousands of laws in this world, in every country big or small, that are on the books, but aren't enforced, either out of a lack of feasibility or just a general rejection of what is written down. It's even worse for international agreements, which are at best very ineffective. That is why I am hardly surprised there is still so much strife on the international level, when nearly every country is a member of the United Nations. Every country is going to do whatever they want or can. We can see with all of this Iran nuclear program business how difficult it is just to negotiate with one country and solve a potentially dangerous international conflict through purely negotiation and economic threats. Why do you think something of this magnitude is going to come anywhere close to being enforced as it was intended?jetpower3
The problem is, once a government's signed onto this treaty, they have the legal right to selectively enforce it. It's not too hard to imagine them using the law to quell speech which they deem to be a threat. Further, international treaties supercede domestic laws. Even if your government doesn't strictly enforce the legislation in the treaty, a foreign corporation has the legal right to step in and sue you right into the poorhouse. A simple look into what Monsanto has done to farmers in Canada and Mexico under the guise of NAFTA regulations is all the cautionary tale you need.
Even so, enforcement will still be spotty at the very best, and will be severely curtailed by the technology and other laws and regulations allowing it. How many people for instance have not been caught in the act of illegally downloading music for free off the Internet, or uploading to the Internet (YouTube comes to mind) after all of these years of major record corporations trying to stop it? Or the fact that even in the time of a comprehensive "War on Drugs", regular, unsophisticated people can still easily get access to cannabis and other drugs? Governments have been using laws to quell speech which they deem a threat for many, many years, and this is nothing new. Fortunately, the Internet is so sprawling in most developed countries that trying to censor it will not go down so easily, and it could very well mean political suicide for anyone who tries to attempt it, or at least the election of individuals that will ignore ACTA. It's also a bit naive to think that international agreements supersede domestic laws and decisions so easily in practice. How many countries are members of the United Nations, and still have atrocious human rights records? Who at the U.N. was able to stop the U.S.'s decision to invade Iraq back in 2003, and did the U.S. consider all the international laws they were breaking in the process? Don't forget all of the ways countries find loopholes around international regulations and treatises. Like I said, every country is going to do whatever they want to do in their national and international environment. Finally, I'm not well versed on the NAFTA farmer issue, but it appears that this trend was not necessarily facilitated by NAFTA, as it had been in existence long before it. And as always in economics, even in hindsight, it is still very difficult to find causation, much less while it is happening or in foresight.
All in all, I liken this thread to either fear mongering, especially how it gives the time old argument of "taking away 4th Amendment rights", or a poor understanding of how this things can and will end up being enforced, which most of the time isn't to a very high or significant degree.
Again, the DCMA was much like this treaty, people said back then "it won't happen" and look at us now. Same thing here. Again, the whole reason why most people get away with piracy right now is because of privacy rights and the fact that even after finding the person responsible a company still has to fight a lengthy and expensive legal battle to finally get them booted off or pay damages. ACTA changes all of that by removing the need for warrants and court proceedings. Now an ISP doesn't need to know who you are to take action. They just find your IP address (extremely easy), email your ISP (extremely easy), and request that action be taken against you. Since ACTA requires that your ISP oblige all of these requests, action will be taken as a direct result of those emails.
You're naive to think that a company couldn't just monitor P2P networks and torrent traffic like they already do, collect the IP addresses of every downloader and uploader, and then fire off a mass of emails every month to get those people kicked off. Again, the only reason that doesn't happen now is because the process is so difficult and lengthy that it's only worth going after the really big offenders. ACTA makes the processes so short and easy though that there's no reason to not go after the small offenders as well.
Furthermore, ACTA is proactive. It lays down liability on sites like youtube. Youtube already gets a ton of DMCA takedown notices from copyright holders every week. Companies have, in fact, already tried to sue youtube and get them shut down claiming that they're liable. Right now they aren't, hence why those cases got thrown out, but ACTA changes that. Thus, if ACTA gets passed youtube would have to shut down since they do become liable under ACTA. Furthermore, shutting them down forcibly would be easy since all that would need to be done is issue an ACTA infringement notice to youtube's domain host. Even The Pirate Bay would require no more than a simple email to get taken down after ACTA is passed.
ACTA changes the game. Right now it's prohibitively difficult to go after pirates, and websites like youtube and The Pirate Bay can exploit all sorts of legal loopholes to keep themselves safe. If ACTA is passed though, everything stops being so difficult.
[QUOTE="gameguy6700"]
[QUOTE="Lilyanne46"]
Hell, they can't even catch individuals, no way they can catch entire counties. There are well over 100 to monitor. :|
Lilyanne46
This wouldn't set up an international censorship body. Rather it modifies all countries' laws so that it becomes ridiculously easy to police the internet. Really, the government isn't even needed in all of this. As we've seen with the DMCA, all the work gets done by organizations like the RIAA. Since your ISP will be required to obide with their requests (whether they have proof or not) nothing more is required than an email. Furthermore, you lose all privacy rights. Anyone will be able to get a hold of your personal information just by emailing your ISP, claiming you violated copyright law, and requesting your information.
Well, they might as well take off the amendment of the right of privacy. :?
while there at it they might as well throw out the entire US constitution and bill of rights to save them selves time and hassle the next time they invade our privacy unfairly, or any number of things. impossing criminal penalties with out due process :x
[QUOTE="jetpower3"]
[QUOTE="bogaty"]
The problem is, once a government's signed onto this treaty, they have the legal right to selectively enforce it. It's not too hard to imagine them using the law to quell speech which they deem to be a threat. Further, international treaties supercede domestic laws. Even if your government doesn't strictly enforce the legislation in the treaty, a foreign corporation has the legal right to step in and sue you right into the poorhouse. A simple look into what Monsanto has done to farmers in Canada and Mexico under the guise of NAFTA regulations is all the cautionary tale you need.
gameguy6700
Even so, enforcement will still be spotty at the very best, and will be severely curtailed by the technology and other laws and regulations allowing it. How many people for instance have not been caught in the act of illegally downloading music for free off the Internet, or uploading to the Internet (YouTube comes to mind) after all of these years of major record corporations trying to stop it? Or the fact that even in the time of a comprehensive "War on Drugs", regular, unsophisticated people can still easily get access to cannabis and other drugs? Governments have been using laws to quell speech which they deem a threat for many, many years, and this is nothing new. Fortunately, the Internet is so sprawling in most developed countries that trying to censor it will not go down so easily, and it could very well mean political suicide for anyone who tries to attempt it, or at least the election of individuals that will ignore ACTA. It's also a bit naive to think that international agreements supersede domestic laws and decisions so easily in practice. How many countries are members of the United Nations, and still have atrocious human rights records? Who at the U.N. was able to stop the U.S.'s decision to invade Iraq back in 2003, and did the U.S. consider all the international laws they were breaking in the process? Don't forget all of the ways countries find loopholes around international regulations and treatises. Like I said, every country is going to do whatever they want to do in their national and international environment. Finally, I'm not well versed on the NAFTA farmer issue, but it appears that this trend was not necessarily facilitated by NAFTA, as it had been in existence long before it. And as always in economics, even in hindsight, it is still very difficult to find causation, much less while it is happening or in foresight.
All in all, I liken this thread to either fear mongering, especially how it gives the time old argument of "taking away 4th Amendment rights", or a poor understanding of how this things can and will end up being enforced, which most of the time isn't to a very high or significant degree.
Again, the DCMA was much like this treaty, people said back then "it won't happen" and look at us now. Same thing here. Again, the whole reason why most people get away with piracy right now is because of privacy rights and the fact that even after finding the person responsible a company still has to fight a lengthy and expensive legal battle to finally get them booted off or pay damages. ACTA changes all of that by removing the need for warrants and court proceedings. Now an ISP doesn't need to know who you are to take action. They just find your IP address (extremely easy), email your ISP (extremely easy), and request that action be taken against you. Since ACTA requires that your ISP oblige all of these requests, action will be taken as a direct result of those emails.
You're naive to think that a company couldn't just monitor P2P networks and torrent traffic like they already do, collect the IP addresses of every downloader and uploader, and then fire off a mass of emails every month to get those people kicked off. Again, the only reason that doesn't happen now is because the process is so difficult and lengthy that it's only worth going after the really big offenders. ACTA makes the processes so short and easy though that there's no reason to not go after the small offenders as well.
Furthermore, ACTA is proactive. It lays down liability on sites like youtube. Youtube already gets a ton of DMCA takedown notices from copyright holders every week. Companies have, in fact, already tried to sue youtube and get them shut down claiming that they're liable. Right now they aren't, hence why those cases got thrown out, but ACTA changes that. Thus, if ACTA gets passed youtube would have to shut down since they do become liable under ACTA. Furthermore, shutting them down forcibly would be easy since all that would need to be done is issue an ACTA infringement notice to youtube's domain host. Even The Pirate Bay would require no more than a simple email to get taken down after ACTA is passed.
ACTA changes the game. Right now it's prohibitively difficult to go after pirates, and websites like youtube and The Pirate Bay can exploit all sorts of legal loopholes to keep themselves safe. If ACTA is passed though, everything stops being so difficult.
So essentially, our internet rights are nullfied?[QUOTE="bogaty"]
[QUOTE="jetpower3"]
I was waiting for someone to say this. The key here is enforcement. If any of you know anything about law, it is the enforcement of laws, agreements, and rulings that makes the difference. There are probably hundreds of thousands of laws in this world, in every country big or small, that are on the books, but aren't enforced, either out of a lack of feasibility or just a general rejection of what is written down. It's even worse for international agreements, which are at best very ineffective. That is why I am hardly surprised there is still so much strife on the international level, when nearly every country is a member of the United Nations. Every country is going to do whatever they want or can. We can see with all of this Iran nuclear program business how difficult it is just to negotiate with one country and solve a potentially dangerous international conflict through purely negotiation and economic threats. Why do you think something of this magnitude is going to come anywhere close to being enforced as it was intended?jetpower3
The problem is, once a government's signed onto this treaty, they have the legal right to selectively enforce it. It's not too hard to imagine them using the law to quell speech which they deem to be a threat. Further, international treaties supercede domestic laws. Even if your government doesn't strictly enforce the legislation in the treaty, a foreign corporation has the legal right to step in and sue you right into the poorhouse. A simple look into what Monsanto has done to farmers in Canada and Mexico under the guise of NAFTA regulations is all the cautionary tale you need.
Even so, enforcement will still be spotty at the very best, and will be severely curtailed by the technology and other laws and regulations allowing it. How many people for instance have not been caught in the act of illegally downloading music for free off the Internet, or uploading to the Internet (YouTube comes to mind) after all of these years of major record corporations trying to stop it? Or the fact that even in the time of a comprehensive "War on Drugs", regular, unsophisticated people can still easily get access to cannabis and other drugs? Governments have been using laws to quell speech which they deem a threat for many, many years, and this is nothing new. Fortunately, the Internet is so sprawling in most developed countries that trying to censor it will not go down so easily, and it could very well mean political suicide for anyone who tries to attempt it, or at least the election of individuals that will ignore ACTA. It's also a bit naive to think that international agreements supersede domestic laws and decisions so easily in practice. How many countries are members of the United Nations, and still have atrocious human rights records? Who at the U.N. was able to stop the U.S.'s decision to invade Iraq back in 2003, and did the U.S. consider all the international laws they were breaking in the process? Don't forget all of the ways countries find loopholes around international regulations and treatises. Like I said, every country is going to do whatever they want to do in their national and international environment. Finally, I'm not well versed on the NAFTA farmer issue, but it appears that this trend was not necessarily facilitated by NAFTA, as it had been in existence long before it. And as always in economics, even in hindsight, it is still very difficult to find causation, much less while it is happening or in foresight.
All in all, I liken this thread to either fear mongering, especially how it gives the time old argument of "taking away 4th Amendment rights", or a poor understanding of how this things can and will end up being enforced, which most of the time isn't to a very high or significant degree.
You say "spotty". I say "directed". I suspect that what will happen is that large media conglomerates aren't going to go after individuals, they're going to go after ISPs and small, independent websites. They want to basically monopolize internet content and force users to go to their sites for all content which, naturally, will be fee based. I suspect that's the real goal behind this legislation.
[QUOTE="jetpower3"]
[QUOTE="bogaty"]
The problem is, once a government's signed onto this treaty, they have the legal right to selectively enforce it. It's not too hard to imagine them using the law to quell speech which they deem to be a threat. Further, international treaties supercede domestic laws. Even if your government doesn't strictly enforce the legislation in the treaty, a foreign corporation has the legal right to step in and sue you right into the poorhouse. A simple look into what Monsanto has done to farmers in Canada and Mexico under the guise of NAFTA regulations is all the cautionary tale you need.
gameguy6700
Even so, enforcement will still be spotty at the very best, and will be severely curtailed by the technology and other laws and regulations allowing it. How many people for instance have not been caught in the act of illegally downloading music for free off the Internet, or uploading to the Internet (YouTube comes to mind) after all of these years of major record corporations trying to stop it? Or the fact that even in the time of a comprehensive "War on Drugs", regular, unsophisticated people can still easily get access to cannabis and other drugs? Governments have been using laws to quell speech which they deem a threat for many, many years, and this is nothing new. Fortunately, the Internet is so sprawling in most developed countries that trying to censor it will not go down so easily, and it could very well mean political suicide for anyone who tries to attempt it, or at least the election of individuals that will ignore ACTA. It's also a bit naive to think that international agreements supersede domestic laws and decisions so easily in practice. How many countries are members of the United Nations, and still have atrocious human rights records? Who at the U.N. was able to stop the U.S.'s decision to invade Iraq back in 2003, and did the U.S. consider all the international laws they were breaking in the process? Don't forget all of the ways countries find loopholes around international regulations and treatises. Like I said, every country is going to do whatever they want to do in their national and international environment. Finally, I'm not well versed on the NAFTA farmer issue, but it appears that this trend was not necessarily facilitated by NAFTA, as it had been in existence long before it. And as always in economics, even in hindsight, it is still very difficult to find causation, much less while it is happening or in foresight.
All in all, I liken this thread to either fear mongering, especially how it gives the time old argument of "taking away 4th Amendment rights", or a poor understanding of how this things can and will end up being enforced, which most of the time isn't to a very high or significant degree.
Again, the DCMA was much like this treaty, people said back then "it won't happen" and look at us now. Same thing here. Again, the whole reason why most people get away with piracy right now is because of privacy rights and the fact that even after finding the person responsible a company still has to fight a lengthy and expensive legal battle to finally get them booted off or pay damages. ACTA changes all of that by removing the need for warrants and court proceedings. Now an ISP doesn't need to know who you are to take action. They just find your IP address (extremely easy), email your ISP (extremely easy), and request that action be taken against you. Since ACTA requires that your ISP oblige all of these requests, action will be taken as a direct result of those emails.
You're naive to think that a company couldn't just monitor P2P networks and torrent traffic like they already do, collect the IP addresses of every downloader and uploader, and then fire off a mass of emails every month to get those people kicked off. Again, the only reason that doesn't happen now is because the process is so difficult and lengthy that it's only worth going after the really big offenders. ACTA makes the processes so short and easy though that there's no reason to not go after the small offenders as well.
Furthermore, ACTA is proactive. It lays down liability on sites like youtube. Youtube already gets a ton of DMCA takedown notices from copyright holders every week. Companies have, in fact, already tried to sue youtube and get them shut down claiming that they're liable. Right now they aren't, hence why those cases got thrown out, but ACTA changes that. Thus, if ACTA gets passed youtube would have to shut down since they do become liable under ACTA. Furthermore, shutting them down forcibly would be easy since all that would need to be done is issue an ACTA infringement notice to youtube's domain host. Even The Pirate Bay would require no more than a simple email to get taken down after ACTA is passed.
ACTA changes the game. Right now it's prohibitively difficult to go after pirates, and websites like youtube and The Pirate Bay can exploit all sorts of legal loopholes to keep themselves safe. If ACTA is passed though, everything stops being so difficult.
If the enforcement of DMCA is any example and precedent, I'm still not expecting much from it. Proliferation of piracy is still going strong after all of these years. AndI'm still extremely skeptical that one law or regulation can make such a multi-dimensional problem so easy to solve.It has never been so easy to do at all, and just the fact that so many people do it, and that everything has grown so complicated in terms of the technological and legal aspects makes me believe that enforcement will be quite difficult if not impossible, as well as the fact there will no doubt be massive opposition to this treaty. I wonder how many ISPs would be willing to go along and follow this regulation, as it could mean legal action against millions of their customers, which could lead to potentially losing plenty of them if the damages held against them are high enough. I also wonder what the case can be against YouTube and other sites being liable, if they already do their best that they can to curb the proliferation of illegally uploaded content. I can't vouch for the entire legal-political environment of the Internet and illegal IP proliferation, but I do know that the technology necessary to pirate IP moves infinitely faster than laws that can regulate it. Of course, there is always a chance that this could be a game changer, but I seriously doubt it, no matter how well things would seem to work on paper and in theory.
Google/Skynet will make sure this never happens. They'll definitely send out hitmen to kill all the key supporters of this treaty if it ever seems like it's going to pass.
[QUOTE="jetpower3"]
bogaty
The problem is, once a government's signed onto this treaty, they have the legal right to selectively enforce it. It's not too hard to imagine them using the law to quell speech which they deem to be a threat. Further, international treaties supercede domestic laws. Even if your government doesn't strictly enforce the legislation in the treaty, a foreign corporation has the legal right to step in and sue you right into the poorhouse. A simple look into what Monsanto has done to farmers in Canada and Mexico under the guise of NAFTA regulations is all the cautionary tale you need.
Wait, what? I'm looking this up. Thanks.
This is going to happend there will be indeed a revolution but the US goverment is already prepared for that, i dont know if you guys remember but awhile back there was a confirmation from a US politician that there is something like the pratiot act but for computers and its just waiting for a internet catastrophie to kick in. Called me crazy but this has been planed all along.Solid_Tango
:lol: kidding, but i completely agree
They would never switch off the internet, it generates too much money to shut down.
They would never switch off the internet, it generates too much money to shut down.
pete_merlin
100% this. The internet generates money and is a place for buisnesses. The internet makes ALOT of money and stimulates the economy which is a very important thing. Some countries may not care but if a country like the US went with this act they better be prepared for legendary levels of unemployment and poverty.
Please Log In to post.
Log in to comment