ACTA Violates Fundamental Human Rights
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 4th Oct 2011 13:31 UTC
Legal A few days ago, several countries signed ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. As you are probably aware, ACTA was drafted up in secret, and is basically Obama/Biden's attempt to impose the US' draconian pro-big business/big content protection laws on the rest of the world ('sign it, or else'). The European Parliament still has to vote on it, and as such, Douwe Korff, professor of international law at the London Metropolitan University, and Ian Brown senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, performed a 90-page study, with a harsh conclusion: ACTA violates fundamental human rights.
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apcoelho
Member since:
2011-10-04

The problem isn't that stealing be or not an human right, cause it isn't. The problem is how they determine that you have steal.
I.E. You have an wifi router that is cracked and someone use your network to steal. They want that you be the responsible for that steal. Without investigate deeper cause is very difficult to determine that abuse.
Another example is that a family can have the Internet access cut-off just because the infringement of one of the elements of the family. Imagine that my daughter make an illegal download and I stay without Internet. This is also abusive and attempt to the freedom of individuals. These examples are human rights abuse.

Reply Parent Score: 3

jabbotts Member since:
2007-09-06

I would add the stipulation of due dilligence in owning and using a wifi router. If your running wide open, with WEP or with a weak password then your neglegence did indeed contribute to the copyright infringement (or at minimum, the neglegence of the company that shipped you a wifi router with weak default settings).

But that might be just me as I don't fuck around when it comes to computer and network security.

Reply Parent Score: 2

Alfman Member since:
2011-01-28

jabbotts,

"I would add the stipulation of due dilligence in owning and using a wifi router. If your running wide open, with WEP or with a weak password then your neglegence did indeed contribute to the copyright infringement"

Do you realize that this is contrary to alot of initiatives for public wifi? For example see fon.com. Open hotspots can sometimes be deliberate, and it's not morally wrong - at worst, it's a violation of your ISP's terms. Many campuses/coffeehouses/hotels/etc have open hotspots.

As for copyright lawsuits, well that is a problem. Unfortunately the courts have no easy way to deal with the fact that IP addresses don't correlate to individuals - so they have to drastically lower the burden of proof, to the point of stabbing in the dark sometimes, in order to try some of these cases. Since the burden of proof is so low, it's quite likely that many innocent people are caught up in the dragnet. Even if a case is completely bogus, it can still be cheaper to settle than to hire defense lawyers and fight it.

If you have any solutions to these problems, I would like to hear them.

Reply Parent Score: 3