And thus, our true colours reveal. Since Obama was the young newcomer, technically savvy, many of us were hoping that he might support patent and/or copyright reform. In case our story earlier on this subject didn’t already tip you off, this certainly will: Obama has sided squarely with the RIAA/MPAA lobby, and backs ACTA. No copyright and/or patent reform for you, American citizens!
Obama made the remarks in a speech at the Export-Import Bank’s annual conference in Washington.
“We’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,” Obama said in his speech, “Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people […] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it’s only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can’t just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.”
“There’s nothing wrong with other people using our technologies, we welcome it,” Obama continued, “We just want to make sure that it’s licensed and that American businesses are getting paid appropriately. That’s why the [US Trade Representative] is using the full arsenal of tools available to crack down on practices that blatantly harm our businesses, and that includes negotiating proper protections and enforcing our existing agreements, and moving forward on new agreements, including the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.”
It seems that the RIAA, MPAA, and similar organisations have been successful in lobbying the US administration into supporting their cause. This means that the US government will continue to (financially) support an industry that is simply outdated, and has failed to adapt to the changing market – which seems remarkably anti-capitalistic and anti-free market, even for a Democratic president.
Luckily for at least us Europeans, the European Parliament has already shot the ACTA agreement down in an overwhelming 633-to-13 vote, while also forcing total openness – something the US does not want. This means that despite Obama siding with the content providers, ACTA will most likely not come to fruition.
Sadly, all this also means that American consumers will continue to see their rights eroded, as corporations and content providers further gain influence within the government. This means that devices you buy will not actually be yours, that uploading a video of your daughter dancing to a song on the radio could cost you thousands of dollars in damages, and it will also most likely mean that three strikes laws will be enacted.
Good times.
When Obama started appointing “ex” RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft lawyers to the Justice Department, the handwriting was on the wall. I’d estimate the chances of meaningful reform on patents and copywrite to be somewhere between zero and null… at least in the U.S. for the forseeable future. Democrats = Republicans. Puke.
I was kind of hoping Obama would be a force for progress in the US but it seems the guy still hasn’t actually done anything. The signs started to appear during his Nobel peace prize acceptance speech in which he stated that he fully supported justified war. Doesn’t he see the irony in that statement?
It’s a shame for the US public. One thing that these politicians seem to miss is that too much copyright abuse ends up stifling innovation, there by moving what could be America’s future IP off shore in favor of the short term gains. I understand the need to protect current investments but if the measures enacted to do so end up driving innovation away, you end up losing the top spot to countries that do foster innovation.
When will they see they’re building a house of cards on quick sand?
Irony is supporting a justified war? no, I don’t see the irony.
I see it just fine — anyone supporting war, justified or no, should be even getting nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes, let alone winning them!
I don’t think there are too many Nobel Peace Prize winners that would agree there are no justifiable wars.
If that were a criteria, I think you’d have to remove 80% of the laureates. Certainly every American from Roosevelt to Carter, Nelson Mandela, nearly all the Israeli and Palestinian winners…
You’re missing the point. The irony is in the timing when he said that, he spoke of war while receiving the peace prise.
Does anyone know why he received it? What, exactly, has he done? Or did someone just pull out the race card?
I don’t see where StychoKiller said that, which was the comment I was responding to. And at least 3 people modded it up, so it seemed worthwhile to correct.
Is there any irony in a comment replying directly to me being oblivious to threaded comments?
Irony would be you complaining about people not reading through the thread while yourself, not reading back through the thread and realizing that StychoKiller’s comment related to the original comment by SReilly who clearly pointed out the “ra ra war” comment during the peace prize presentation.
Neither the first level response nor StychoKiller’s response did that, only other second-level responses (including your postdated one) that I did not respond to. I also do not complain about “people,” just darknexus.
Additionally, SReilly’s first comment is not clear that he means the timing of the statement is ironic, instead of its content — “the irony in that statement.”
StychoKiller’s comment also makes no sense if you believe he’s talking about the “timing” of supporting wars.
But I guess I’m wrong because my comments don’t fit in with the tone and “larger point” of the comments in total, which are receiving high marks no matter their factual content or originally. Jesus.
Edited 2010-03-13 15:01 UTC
Guys, guys, we get it, you guys misunderstood one another. The world didn’t end.
Move on, please
.
Does the comment system explode after we get to RE[14]? I’d like to see that.
I personally welcome a difference of opinion. There wouldn’t be much of a discussion without one. If I’m miss-understanding the comments then I can accept that. Here’s what I interpreted though:
“The signs started to appear during his Nobel peace prize acceptance speech in which he stated that he fully supported justified war. Doesn’t he see the irony in that statement?”
Fully supported war; expressed during an acceptance speech for a peace prize. That’s about as ironic as having an AA meeting in the back room of the local liquor store or watching Alice in Wonderland at an AAA meeting.
“anyone supporting war, justified or no, should be even getting nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes”
Referring back to the original comment pretty directly and further highlighting the absurdity of “I support war” in a peace prize acceptance speech.
As someone else pointed out, war is always justified one way or the other by those who start it. “justified war” is in itself a blatantly absurd oxymoron. History being re-written by the side that lost less during the conflict doesn’t suddenly make the violence justified. When was the last time a war was waged that wasn’t clearly over the acquisition of another nations natural resources?
oops.
/me should read nearby comments
Edited 2010-03-14 22:08 UTC
Given the list of assholes and mass murderers that won the nobel peace prize, I’d refuse it.
Hell, even Adolf Hitler is a nobel laureate. Glad to know that Obama does “it” better and won.
Hitler was nominated as a protest of another nomination
and the nomination was retracted a few days later. It wasn’t serious.
Well, think about it. Supporting a justified war I can understand, though personally I don’t condone it. It’s timing that I find ironic. Talking about supporting a justified war during his acceptance speech for a Nobel peace prize, that for me is the hight of irony.
Come on!!! Justified war??
Tell me a single war that did not have justification, for at least one of it’s initiators. If they didn’t find justification, then why would they have started it?. Talking about justified war is an irony in itself.
Justified war is just war.
Lol! You’ll find no complaints here, I agree whole heartedly.
Edited 2010-03-13 12:16 UTC
well, war our of religious reasons is never justified.
it would be just plain stupid zombie skirmish. but innocents get hurt in the process.
“I support justified war” included in the acceptance speach for a nobel *peace prize*.
seriously.. you don’t see the irony in that situation?
No, I don’t.
If I held an AA meeting in the back room of the local liquor store, would you see the irony in that situation? Including pro-war comments in an acceptance speech for a peace prize seems similarly contradictory.
Excuse me, but citing the fact that there are justified wars is not “Pro-War”.
The line given was “I support justified war”. Since all war is “justified” by some rationalization on one side or the other, we can toss out “justified” so the line becomes “I support war”.. sounds pretty pro-war to me. It wasn’t “I support defending our nation” or “we are obligated to defend those without the means to defend themselves” after all.
Besides, can you point to a “justified war” in recent history? Something that didn’t boil down to invading a nation to obtain control of it’s natural resources?
(edit) I meant also to include – Even if there is “justified” warfare; is the acceptance speech for a peace prize the appropriate place for such comments?
But, I also don’t include “the war on” various crime themes as real war. In those cases, the word is simply a marketing spin term to sell a political campaign. (policies proving to be complete failures only increasing the target problem no less)
Edited 2010-03-16 13:25 UTC
It was unfortunately expected.
Our only hope is that one day a lawsuit so devastating will bring everything crumbling down showing the folly of the status quo.
anyone be surprised when he and his cronies don’t care about what the American public wants anyway. Just another liar in office
Edited 2010-03-13 00:01 UTC
The american public want a lot of contradicting things that can not be satisfied simultaneously.
The american public want the government to balance its budget and lower taxes and at the same time want government programs that creates and maintains jobs, social security benefits, military superiority and the list goes on.
But, those aren’t all the same people – the elections often show that there is often a ~50/50 split on these things.
Me, I hate both parties, and I usually try to vote for the lesser of the two evils. In this case, I didn’t vote Obama, but I have plenty of family/friends who did…
thats my point ..saying “this is what the american people want and those politicians dont care about what the american people want because they arent doing A, B or C” is too general to not mean much.
This is what “liberals/conservatives/conservative christians/libertarians/fiscal conservatives/” want is a bit more informative. Generalities are at best meaningless and at worst disingenuous.
dont mean to be political but, anybody who advocate on one thing must also specify how they would compensate for the opposing positions.Any mention of lowering taxes must for example be accompanied with willingness to run a deficit or a proposal to what government program to be cut.
Not if you are a Neo-Con. They just borrow and spend. (See the last 8 years of the US Government)
Obama is a puppet of the globalists and the central bankers just as Bush was. Sure there are some rather minor differences. Obama lied profusely during the campaign. “Yes we can” meant nothing and intentionally said nothing. That’s not a policy.
The media backed Obama because the higher-ups knew he was not for real change, otherwise you probably wounldn’t have heard about him.
The establishment isn’t going to let anyone go in there and disassemble what has been brewing for decades, including things like ACTA. The media backed Obama during the campaign because they and their partners in the warfare/welfare system in the US, stood to gain a lot. Real change can’t happen in the current system. The nationalist delusion will end, but sooner is better.
What is sad is that people vacillate between Democrat and Republican based on what the one in power is doing… forgetting that when either are in power, they do the same damn thing… Democrats just act like it makes them sick to have to do these things and Republicans are excited about doing them. In the end, the same corporate crap happens.
For real change people have to dump both the Republicans and the Democrats. Vote Libertarian or Vote Green. Both parties are anti-corporatism and pro local economies (one way or the other).
“Obama lied profusely during the campaign.”
Why specify Obama? “They-all” liked profusely. Sadly, it’s not been about voting for the better representative for a long time. It’s all about voting for the lesser of two unwanted choices.
I once thought this was just a joke, but this article proves it’s truth.
What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?
NOTHING.
The flavor of hype and fear mongering?
Episode 119 of South Park says it all.
One word. JOE BIDEN. He is the influence behind all this. He is the one that recommended RIAA/MPAA Lawyers in justice department. Stick a fork in them they are done. 1 term only.
That’s interesting (not sarcastic). Got any further reading?
I highly doubt that this will be of any significance for us Europeans. The European Parliament has clearly showed we can and will not be bullied or threatened into ever accepting such a ridiculous ‘treaty’, which severely undermines many civil liberties. I always find it to be extremely ironic that a nation that prides itself on freedom and civil liberties goes to such great lengths to blow those liberties and rights apart.
It would be hard enough to accept the kind of measures layed out by ACTA (e.g. seize & search without probable cause, disproportional fines, etc) in order to combat terrorism, let alone for the financial benefit of several privately owned companies.
Edited 2010-03-13 00:38 UTC
Yes, but can’t you pity us?
If Europe does not ratify ACTA, then I hope it means that the treaty is dead.
I betcha they’ll just change the Acronym and try again in the future!
Now we do see the true colors. I don’t like politics or any politician.
America is gonna be run into the ground.
I didn’t vote for Obama, but I didn’t vote McCain either. There was no lesser of the two evils for me. We need other parties to win and take office. At least one that is for the people LIKE IT SHOULD BE and not for big business that can throw money around and lobby.
We need to get all the lobbyists out of DC. Permanently, and make the government work for us as it is supposed to.
I’m actually sickened that I’m an American and this is the nation that my forefathers died to create and protect.
They have taken the American dream and run it so far into the ground that our children’s children won’t be able to recover from it.
I doubt we’ll still be a nation in another 100 – 200 years. If we are, we’ll be lucky. Hell, probably every baby born will be stamped ‘Property of China’ since that’s who we owe the most now.
There were two candidates who MIGHT have been a force for some decent change, Paul and Kucinich (sp?). But neither of them are “pretty” so they were not chosen as the party candidates. Shame.
You think McCain and Obama are any more attractive than either of those two?! Seriously… the 2008 campaign was the influenced by “good looks” less than any campaign since Grover Cleveland.
That and money.
If Paul had won the Republican primary, the Republicans would have won in a landslide.
At least the people would have had a better choice to counter Obama — instead of someone that was just going to stay the collision course set by Bush! (Don’t even get me started on Sarah Palin)
When you compare Bush and Palin, at least Bush went to an Ivy League schools, graduated on his first attempt and took received.
Palin is a freaking moron compared to Bush… which tells me she can barley put her cloths on correctly with out help.
Why would you want her to have her clothes on?
This comment is off-topic, I know, and lacking in class – but darn tootin’ pick-up truck, she’s hot.
Edited 2010-03-13 14:21 UTC
Drinking early this saturday?
Actually, what we need is: NO parties. The second you get a party, or even a candidate who “represents” you, the issues not only become segregated into bins, but likely biased towards the representatives own needs.
With the digital age we could finally have democracy truly have an affect on government, but this will probably not happen.
you want other parties to win? vote for them!
I do! Now maybe more Decepticrats and Republicons will do so this November!
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Any party in power will act irresponsibly unless there is some sort of check and balance to keep them accountable.
As an outsider, I would say that the biggest problem with American politics is the two-party system. You either give one party power, or the other. There’s no balance.
In Canada, our government is determined by the party that obtains the most number of seats in Parliament. The interesting thing is that we can have a minority government, where the ruling government doesn’t actually have enough seats in parliament to arbitrarily force policy through, and has to rely on votes from opposition parties to pass legislation. Our Prime Minister is simply the party leader of whichever party has the most seats. I suppose the concept of the super majority in the Senate is similar in that it requires a party with less than 60 seats to find votes from opposing members, but the Canadian system generally has MPs voting the party line and not breaking rank, there’s little backroom negotiating one-on-one at the individual politico level. Legislation in a minority government requires blocks of parties to support, rather than individuals. There’s certainly pros and cons to that approach, but it works reasonably well.
Our current government is a minority government. There are four other parties represented in Parliament, plus an independent or two. It represents an interesting dynamic; the governing party can’t ramrod policy through, but the opposition parties don’t necessarily want to bring the government down and force an election by blocking major confidence issues, because Canadians as a general rule hate elections and will punish any party that forces one.
Certainly our current government isn’t perfect, but it is quite probably the most functional one we’ve had in quite some time, as opposed to the last couple of decades where we were under rule from majority governments of one party or another that both ruled with an iron fist and were ripe with corruption.
As someone who has had lived with both a de facto two-party government and a multi-party government requiring concession, I’ll take the latter. Non-partisanship is an interesting but untenable concept in a two-party system, but it’s a necessity when no single party holds the balance of power.
I think the US needs a couple of credible parties, on both sides of the political spectrum, to split the vote and keep things interesting and accountable, otherwise it will always generally return to “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” style governing.
Absolutely. Holds true for any democratic country.
Just my two Canadian pennies from a friendly neighbour to the north…
I agree with you, but I will have to make clear that the American system is not bi-partisan. There *are* other parties that are electable, but two parties seem the most popular. To an outsider, it looks like there are only two parties, but there are more. The dems and the reps just get all the airplay, nobody hears about the other parties.
Great post, but I just had to correct that little oversight. Doesn’t make you less wrong though.
It’s still, in effect, a two-party system. The other parties may as well not even be there, and voting for them is just throwing your vote away in the current situation. The two big ones have the money and the clout to force themselves to be the only parties the majority of the citizens here see, and most never bother to look beyond their TV.
I believe the Canadian parties also have a limit to how much they can spend on campaigning or some such policy that balances that out between the richly and poorly sponsored candidates. It may be worth the people pushing for something similar south of the border so that it’s not just two pro-corp marketing departments on TV.
I know there is also a limit to how long before the vote parties can start campaigning so you don’t have the well funded groups starting to campaign a month after the last vote.
pennies well spent
While everyone here is so quick to judge Obama over this. I’m curious to know…
Has Obama actually been informed/made aware of *our* side on the matter of patents and their incompatibility with innovation in software? Obama may be younger than McCain or past presidents, but I would argue that most Americans—young and old—who are outside of the /., OSNews, FOSS communities haven’t really taken the time to empower themselves with critical thought or even heard our perspective at all!
Perhaps we’ve just been too passive in getting the message out…? I mean, really…do we actually have any organizations known to the layperson that actively promote the awareness over the true harm that software patents create?
The RIAA/MPAA/etc. organizations make their presence and perspectives well-known with truckloads of cash, legal threats, and propaganda. What do we do? Have a ‘town hall’ hosted by some professor at Harvard? Is that it?
We don’t even have a formal grass roots campaign organized to GET THE WORD out… so maybe it’s partly our fault. We speak strongly in these obscure threads, but we take no message to capital hill; no organizing; no strategizing.
There’s too many people fighting/grousing about the Govt. bailouts, lack of jobs, etc., to worry about such an esoteric bunch of legislation
The fear propaganda is a winner. Keep the little people scared and distracted so they don’t notice really important issues moving forward. Make the people fear illigal imigration so they don’t realize that the loss of jobs is caused by internal forces. Make the people fear nebulous outsiders so they don’t realize the loss of freedom as government imposes wet-dream laws they’ve been wishing for but could never put in place in the past.
Sadly, this is a frequent and powerful tool for manipulating a populace; it’s not unique to US governance.
Comment deleted, as I misread the above comment.
Edited 2010-03-13 07:41 UTC
Excellent suggesction actually. There needs to be a way to get our collective voices heard. I don’t know a petition mayby?
You are absolutely right! We don’t really have an impact (nor a campaign, etc.). WE NEED ONE! We have got to get over this ‘plateau’ we’ve been at for 10 or more years and educate the public. We especially need to educate the folks that ‘supposedly’ represent us in Washington, D.C. I suspect that our political leadership is just as ignorant on this subject as most of my peers that I discuss it with.
Obama started selling out us progressives even before he got elected by supporting the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. This was the surveillance bill that gave retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that assisted the Bush administration in its warrantless wiretapping program.
I was hoping that was just a fluke, but it was only the beginning. I’ve watched how Obama has handed out literally trillions of dollars to corporate criminals in the form of bailouts. In pure dollar amounts, in less than one year Obama has already outdone Bush in terms of corporate welfare.
Everyone with an interest in this should read Matt Taibbi’s excellent article in Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sell…
Let’s just start calling Obama what he really is, Bush III.
One poster above thought that the USA might not exist 100-200 years from now. I don’t even give it 10-20. The nation is bankrupt, both morally and financially, and on the verge of civil war. And the whole reason for this can be summed up in two words, “corporate greed.”
And as a US citizen (now an expat), all the above pains me. I watch in amazement a nation that was once the most powerful in the world self-destruct. Now I understand what happened to the Roman Empire.
Edited 2010-03-13 01:24 UTC
It’s a repeat of the “Bread and Circuses” syndrome, only this time it’s Medicare/Medicaid (and all of the other entitlement programs!), and wasting money on the Olympics, among other boondoggles! Why are Countries spending money on the Olympics when a percentage of their citizens are in poverty and in need of assistance?
I’m sure that there are even better analogies to the “Circuses” part of the equation — someone please supply them!
I think your 100-200 years is overstated twentyfold. It may not sustain itself 5-10 years from now the way the people have sat on their hands. You cannot sustain a republic without the majority of the political capital working towards sustaining its momentum. Republics are fragile by nature and need constant nurturing. It doesn’t take a genius to look around and see a lack of harmony amongst the voters.
Until people dump the two party system in America there is no way to steer around the proverbial iceberg. The money supply exploded last year and inflation barely budged; who us kidding who? The real financial crunch is still on the horizon. When the piper comes a calling the nation we know it will change or die.
Either you live in a country where only large corporations can afford copyrights, or nobody is allowed to have rights to their works at all… guess we know which type the US is going to stay for this century.
Obama will be remembered as the biggest lie in history. I expect the word “lie” and “obama” to be used interchangeably.
“Did you just tell an obama?”
I fee so bad for the poor kids that got named after him.
is this really a surprise? All the love he got during the campaign, especially from everyone who wasn’t American, really bothered me. Why fawn over someone who’s bare degrees removed from the guy before him?
He definitely lost my vote for the 2012 election now…
Change you can believe in!
“commentary” is absurd.
Extolling the virtues of Kucinich and Paul? Equating Obama to Bush? Equating the Democratic and Republican parties? Talk of globalist puppets? It’s nonsense, in my opinion.
Anyway, rather than turning this into yet another lame political blog, maybe the comments should get back to the original issue. What “reforms” to copyright and patent law are you guys seeking?
I don’t have much problem with current copyright law (I don’t like piracy), but I’d like to hear what reforms you have in mind. I went to a talk by Lessig five years ago. He was a bit too cavalier wrt the rights of creators, IMO, but one thing I agreed with was his suggestion of allowing “mixing” of copyrighted materials to create new works. (I still wouldn’t mind seeing the original creators get some royalties, if that created “mix” is used in a profit-making veture.)
As for patent law, I would like to see:
A. the timeline of patents shortened from 20 years to N years.
B. I’d like to have holders of patents REQUIRED to license the patents to others, including competitors, for a reasonable fee. “Reasonable” can be determined by negotiations, and if that fails, then by an arbiter.
C. In order to be given a patent, you must present a working product, and make a good faith effort to market that product.
Well, I do have a problem with current copyright law as I can see that ramping up restrictions is not only theft, in as much that the copyrighted work in the end belongs to all humanity, but that it is actually counter productive in that measured like DRM and un-skip-able (is that even a word?) copyright notices take away from the consumer experience and make the pirated versions that much more attractive. Mind you, I’m saying all this as a musician who has spoken with many fellow artists and the vast majority of us feel the same way.
Somebody else before me has put all this in better terms so I’ll just post his argument here:
“Don Munsil — February 3, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Copyright violation is not theft, neither morally or legally. Most copyright violation isn’t even a crime – it’s a civil issue, providing a justification for a lawsuit.
This whole “piracy is theft†crap is a framing device created by content industries to try to paint their opponents as crime-loving communists.
I, personally, do want to make sure artists and creators have a robust market for their work so they can get compensation for their creations, but I recognize that the reason we as a society provide them with the limited copyright is so that that market will exist and thrive. It’s not because of some moral commitment. It’s entirely about incentives to produce.
Right now, I am in complete agreement that it’s so easy to copy content that there is a risk of the market for content becoming either non-viable or at least less attractive, reducing considerably the incentives for production, and I’m actually very interesting in trying to fix that situation. I’m just realistic enough to see that ratcheting up the restrictions on copying is going to be ineffective, and possibly counterproductive, in achieving that goal.
Something similar happened with songwriting back in the early 20th century, and many people proposed fixes that included stronger laws and more criminal penalties for unauthorized song performance. Luckily for all concerned, people realized that was going to be unwieldy and ineffective and a system of compulsory payments was implemented instead, leading to the formation of ASCAP. And now (with limits) anyone can perform any song they like without having to get permission first as long as they pay the statutory royalty.
The result: the songwriting market still exists, there are still plenty of songs written, and songwriters get paid whenever their songs are performed or reproduced. The level of un-paid commercial performance is relatively small, because it’s easier to police commercial usage.
The point is that there are lots of ways of incentivizing production of works. Strong monopoly copyright is one. A less strong copyright with a compulsory payment system is another. There are other ideas that are interesting, and at bottom I just want us to pick a workable, efficient system with minimum government intervention.
And there’s always a possibility that non-commercial file sharing isn’t really what’s hurting the content industries. Every content industry is hurting, largely because there’s so much legitimate free stuff to see/read/hear on the internet. If we could somehow stamp out the filesharers, it’s not obvious that this would result in a significantly more robust market for content. And a robust market for content is the goal, not some kind of moral purity of artist’s rights.”
As for patent reform, I feel that software patents don’t really fit the mold although copyright doesn’t always fit with software either. Obviously the patent system is very good when it comes to things like an improved process for creating alloys in that it encourages the creator to share his/her process with everyone yet still gets the recoup and profit from the invention. For such an invention, 20 years does not sound like too long a time to me. On the other hand, I’ve only seen one good recent example of software patents actually doing what the patent system was originally set out to do and that’s the i4i vs. Microsoft case.
So yeah, I think your ideas on patent law reform have a lot of merit but I’m more inclined to advocate the segregation of patents on the basis of type, i.e. have different rules apply to software patents as apposed to manufacturing patents. Obviously the small inventor needs some kind of protection from predatory big business but in the software world, 20 years is a very long time. Two to three years sounds much more reasonable to me.
It’s you who’s missing the point. ACTA will not be redefining copyright law. It will just make it easier for authorities to repress copyright violations at the expense of civil rights and freedom. That’s what this is about.
It’s about how the ends do not justify the means. It’s about how in a murder investigation the police is not allowed to do a search without probable cause or a signed warrant, while ACTA would grant them this right. And for what? For copyright infringement?
Define “authority”.
The problem with DMCA, ACTA and its ilk is that they aim to allow copyright holders, with little effort, to impose their will on the citizenry without due process. The RIAA/MPAA are not law enforcement, and even real law enforcement can’t legally do that (“antiterrorism” activities notwithstanding, though I’m leaving that one alone for now).
If a copyright holder thinks someone is infringing, then gather the evidence and take them to court. I really don’t see what is wrong with that approach.
One simple reform would be fine, repeal post-1790 copyright term extensions in the US: go back to 14 years, plus a 14 year non-automatic renewal. This compares reasonably with the patent term.
Apply it retroactively, since the US Government often can’t tell you with certainty whether something published in the 20th century is still covered or not. You can pay them $75 an hour or so to do a search, but it’s not guaranteed to be correct. This problem can be easily solved by zeroing the affected records.
Do that, and I’d say no other action needed. Other countries should do whatever they want.
Patent terms shouldn’t be shortened. They just should stop awarding patents for trivial or existing “inventions”, and ambiguous patents that embrace technology the original “inventors” couldn’t even dream of, and that is most of them, especially in the case of software patents. I have nothing against a company that invents a compression algorithm that gets all the data we care about down to 1% of its original size on average and gets a royalty for each sold copy during 20 years.
Copyright on the other hand is far too long. Once the original author is dead, there can’t be any new book. Once the author sells his copyright to a company, he can starve to death for all Obama and the lobbies care, copyright will not encourage anything other than corporate greed. More money doesn’t even encourage output like in patents.
A fixed and relatively short term, transferable, but renewable indefinitely only by the original author for a fee like (15+5*) is the best solution to have authors that 1- get paid, 2- create more and 3- don’t get killed by the media companies(much more likely to hire a hitman than slashdotters). The author should never lose his authorship moral rights even after his copyright is left to expire and for a fixed time after death(eg. No Harry Potter and the Plumber Union derivative movie clause). People inheriting the author’s state should have no say in either, they get the money and shut up.
In both cases, failure to enforce a monopoly should be grounds for exemption.
If you don’t market your technology instead hoping to become a patent troll(or doing your best eg. publishing a paper while you secretly have a patent), all uses up to the time of surfacing should be unpunished and allowed to continue. Anything *you* release on the technology should mention the patent.
In the case of copyright, there should be an abandonware clause. Many companies will refuse to sell you old software, or out of print books, but will happily sue you for infringement. That doesn’t encourage anything at all, not even greed. It is just hate.
“Since Obama was the young newcomer, technically savvy”
Since when is one technically savvy just because he uses a Blackberry? Jez! give me a brake! Just because I can cook some rice doesnt make a gourmet chef.
Its just another move by their public relations crew to spew garbage to make their man look good. Like kissing babies during the campagn.
Give me a brake!
I see you bought a Toyota car
It is time for all of us to read George Orwell’s 1984 once again.
LOL! I gotta hand it the media back in 1982-83 as “1984” approched, they certainly tried their hardest to scare the krapper out of everyone..
So 1984 came and went … no biggie! It really
didnt turn out that bad after all…
…though speeches arousing strong love it will be.
@andydread: Yes, I don’t doubt that Biden led the way. Both Obama and McCain had VP picks to placate the hawks in their respective parties. Obama’s statement does have a distinctly Democrat loyalty to it.
@elsewhere: I am quite familiar with the hybrid nature of Canadian government, borrowing from the UK on one hand, and the US on the other. I am also fully aware that parlimentary systems are set up for power sharing, and I remember an acquaintance who was a gun-toting GOP loyalist say that was totally unacceptable for our nation. Whatever. I think political debate today is far removed from anything scholarly: the participants refuse to argue both sides.
In practice (at least what I’ve seen from the UK), is that two parties do tend to stay ahead of the others, although, yes, the others do get some say. The downside of this, at least in the UK, is that political parties can be seen as a bit of a joke in some ways as anyone can make a platform– you can be a member of the “Jedi” party.
Anyways, back on topic, I do think it bitterly amusing that so many comments are devoted to professing political belief and much less on how the patent system in America should be overhauled, or a viable interpretation of copyright that works for everyone. I see too many voices that are arguing human dichotomies. Lots of us vs. them statements.
I could write pages and pages about everything I’ve read on the subject for about the past 15 years (starting with Napster, anyways), but I think I’ve just run out my window of opportunity (or attention span) for now. This issue has been kicking around for a good long while now and it’s not going anywhere– might as well hash it out without the political smokescreens, but more on a purely technical level. Not saying politics isn’t a part of the equation– but I don’t see anyone displaying poly sci credentials per se. Might as well stick to the native area of expertise, if you catch my meaning.
The US is chasing global copyright enforcement because content and intellectual property are the only things we have left to sell.
As a country we have made a decision to sell off all of our manufacturing and much of our services to offshore providers that will allow stockholders in our stub corporations to make fatter profits, and our consumers to buy more meaningless crap for less money.
So if we’re not building any goods that anyone wants, and we’re not providing any services that anyone can’t buy for less than they can get it in other countries, the ONLY thing left for us to sell is mp3s and movies.
If the US doesn’t force these draconian treaties on our trading partners while the American consumer still has *some* purchasing power, they sure won’t be able to do it when Americans have no money left to buy internationally produced goods.
I think President Obama is faced with trying to find *some kind* of income for the US before we have nothing left to sell.
Personally, I think it’s a futile effort. A treaty that requires the kind of enforcement efforts and penalties that copyright law would require is going to fail. You really can’t make people buy stuff just because you want them to. You have to make them WANT to buy stuff, which is much harder, and something that I don’t think American corporate culture knows how to do anymore (aside from a few exceptions)
Edited 2010-03-13 12:07 UTC
I don’t want any American Intellectual Property at that price.
Fortunately, I can legally install excellent and fully functional desktop and server software, at zero cost, I can purchase all consumer electronics gadgets from places like Japan, Asia and China, Americans don’t play Aussie rules football nor cricket, Americans don’t report Australian news and current affairs, and the entire world is full of actors and singers.
American’s aren’t the only people with saleable products of intellect.
Edited 2010-03-14 06:40 UTC
Many Americans have drawn the same conclusions as you have. That is one of the reasons for our economic decline.
Educated fool. This is so embarrasing to freedom itself.
US administration is totally uninformed and that causes situations like this one. Hopefuly EU will not go the same way.
Wow, I’m surprised. I’m also very bad at conveying sarcasm.
I said it before:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?354690
Obama is the biggest con-artist this side of Nixon.
I for one will be glad when he’s gone.
Well I’m not from the US, so I don’t really have an informed opinion about this, just a theoretical one.
My hypothesis is that it’s not so much the president who’s to blame, but the environment in which a president has to operate. One could say that the political system is being held hostage by lobbyists, making it very hard to keep one’s integrity or to ‘change’ anything at all. The system’s become way too rigid I believe.
But on the the other hand, if there’s someone who might be able to ‘change’ the system it would be the president. So I really don’t know what to think of Obama. Either he’s a man who is really striving for change but is unable to achieve this under the current circumstances, or he is just another politician who just used the word ‘change’ to spin his campaign.
edit: I believe I’m trying to say what Lennie’s saying.
Edited 2010-03-13 20:10 UTC
I don’t know how much either one of them is actually to blame but I’ve heard two possible causes.
The older theory; before they get into office, they promise to balance the budget. After they get into office, they get to actually see the budget and realize they are screwed.
The newer theory; people want change provided they don’t have to be involved. Everyone tells there friend that the health care system is a mess but no one tells the local representative. Because no one is taking there active part in the government; the politicians only hear the opinions of the lobbyists who do take an active part in it. The Off The Wall radio show has had a couple of good rants about this particular issue.
Obama’s ire regarding “rights” and “justice” often knows no bounds but is very selective. Take the way in which he and his diplomatic team are laying into the Israelis at the moment:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8567706.stm
I am not sure that for example there’s a domestic lobbying group expecting a payback in this policy domain, as there is concretely in the case of the large media corporations here, so Obama seems to be ready to play for high stakes on the basis of principles.
Why can’t he do this in regard to copyright? To look closely at the current aspects of the ecosystem regarding rights and come up with something creative?
He’s intellectually weak (yes, we can all see that he is clever, but that’s different from mental depth, stamina and vision) and driven by emotion.
No good will come of him.
Note: I have no interest here per se in the Middle-East conflict – it’s just by way of contrasting example. Please do not jump up and down on me for being ‘pro-Israeli’ or ‘anti-Palestinian’. Thanks.
http://www.fixcongressfirst.com/
The specifics don’t matter anymore, just one thing should be at the top of the list.
Edited 2010-03-13 19:04 UTC
In the end, the President is kind of irrelevant. The people tend to place too much stock in what the President is actually able or even supposed to do. Three branches of government and all that. Congress makes and passes the laws and the Supreme Court decides what is and is not actually allowed.
The party system also dilutes the power further. Any President is pretty much stuck doing what his party tells him to do for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that Congress can stonewall any reforms or bills he supports and that the party can pull funding and campaign support. That in part is why I vote Independent for pretty much any serious contender (which we didn’t have this last election).
My real primary fix if I had some kind of magic fix-shit-ray would be to just limit Congress to have no more than 1/5 of the seats alloted to any party, along with strict rules regarding what a party is defined as (so you don’t get e.g. Democrats spinning off two or three sub-parties that just parrot the Democratic stance). The Libertarians have a teensy tiny piece of the congressional pie, there are about as many independents, and the vast, vast, vast majority is all Demoblican. Doesn’t give a voter a lot of options.
To expect Obama to understand software patents is, frankly, silly. Nobody outside of a very tiny set of the population (non-uber-rich programmers and tech company employees) have any reason to all to even be aware of patents, much less the problems with software patents. If someone goes up to Obama and says, “omg people are stealing our tech and we’re losing money and that hurts the economy,” he simply does not have the knowledge to understand the problem. The smartest thing he could do is delegate the issue to an aide or cabinet member, who himself is probably going to delegate to somebody else familiar with software IP, who only got hired because he made a name for himself which implies big-money business and not “IRC hacker fandom” and that in turn means he’s probably been on the giving end of a devastating patent lawsuit more often than the receiving.
The Libertarians have been pushing an ex-programmer as their presidential candidates for years, but to be honest, I would MUCH rather have Obama or McCain or so on than an ex-hacker be our Commander in Chief. The President’s job really isn’t to deal with laws; it’s to enforce them and to lead the military. Obama took enough (rightful!) criticism for lacking real military experience, and an ex-coder with no real political experience _or_ military experience is even worse. I’d gladly vote for the guy in Congress but no way in hell would I want him to be President.
The gist of what I’m saying is that if you REALLY care about patent reform, stop giving a shit what the President is doing and WRITE YOUR CONGRESS REPRESENTATIVES! They’re the ones who are in charge of making these treaties and laws!
Sums it up pretty well for me– petition Congress.
Now, if I could think of an effective way to do that and be heard…
(Sadly, reading the succeeding comments, I wonder if anyone else paid attention to what you just said?)
Shocked.
IANAL, but I see three major problems with ACTA and current laws.
1. Software is based on mathematical expressions and ideas, and shouldn’t be any more “patentable” than 2+2.
2. As far as I know there is no distinction between personal non-commercial use and for-profit commercial use.
3. Copyright keeps being extended and extended, currently we can expect it to become infinite. Copyright should provide an exclusive monopoly for a *limited* amount of time to encourage innovation.
I guess that unfortunately to be a citizen of the US is also to be a criminal.
<a href=”http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/“>www.threefeloniesaday.com<…
Edited 2010-03-13 23:44 UTC
Most of this so-called piracy could be curtailed if the creators of the work would go to the extra effort of disabling key features of the software that would NOT be enabled until the user supplied the fee and the creator supplied a cryptographic key to enable it. More hassle, oh yeah, but anytime someone goes screaming to the Govt. for protection, we get more freedoms taken away than we all bargained for.
Could the User then take their completely functional software and copy/pirate it? Probably, but if the key also had information tying their copy of the software to important personal information, such as THEIR bank acct number(s), they would probably find themselves on the losing end of the piracy! There are solutions, just no one willing to go the extra mile (kilometer) to implement them!
And what if someone accesses your pc and copies the software without you knowing? yeah, you’d be screwed.
There are software that use these kinds of ‘protection’. These software are still pirated or the mechanisms circumvented.
If you tied licensing and copy protection schemes to the user’s bank account, I could assure you nobody would even touch it with a ten foot pole.
The current level of DRM is completely counterproductive let along the degree you are suggesting against copyright infringement (“piracy” has become a marketing term with no real meaning).
Ubisoft has imposed even stricter DRM than you suggest; a game must be connected to the internet at all times. If it looses it’s direct connection to the companies authentication servers, you can’t save and I believe the games actually pause and present a black screen until the connection is available again.
It took 24 hours for the game to be released without the DRM crippling.
Authentication servers have been taken down at least twice showing the clear idiocy of this DRM scheme. (DDoS’d an hour after they where DDoS’d)
Both these above points clarify one thing; it’s only the honest customers who are limited and harmed by DRM. The people who are never going to pay for it in the first place or can’t because of the insane pricing are not effected by limitations.
(With Ubisoft specifically, they seem to believe that an installed and verified game is suddenly going to become unlicensed; maybe through magic?)
Consider also that removing DRM from digital music and pricing the content more reasonably has done more to increase sales and reduce copyright infringement than any of the DRM schemes.
Adding more DRM only increases the problem. This is not something that can be solved by bringing a bigger stick to the fight.
Wow, I jsut lost a whole lotta respect for Obama. What a joke.
Lou
http://www.big-brother-watching.net.tc
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/169254,australia-comes-clean-on-acta-…
Hmmmmmph.
Well, it doesn’t read as all that terrible.
I note however that apart from that one mention of “internet users” as “customers” above, this pronouncement doesn’t otherwise take into account the view of the public at all. Like all other pronouncements on ACTA, it reads as if the public, the ordinary people, are hardly involved at all.
I think authorities the world over will have a big shock when it eventually becomes apparent to them that ordinary people, otherwise know as citizens or as voters or as constituents are in fact involved.
Edited 2010-03-15 10:47 UTC
As a progressive I’m not very happy about this news but at the same time we have so much more to worry about right now. Copyright law is definitely not on the front burner of anyone’s mind in the US right now.
Good article, but I take offence to the equivocation of “consumers” to “citizens” or even “people”. Let’s not define people by their consumption. All Americans’ rights are being eroded, whether or not they choose to “consume”.
Prior to becoming a senator, didn’t the President and his wife both work as IP lawyers?
Biggest reason why I didn’t vote for him.
…and nothing more.
It looks like Obama is doing a payback of the help received by this guys while in elections….
HOPE.
DOPE
Only one letter off.
I think we need to return to the dark ages. No technology, phones, computers, nothing.
It’d solve a bunch of problems. Weight gain for one since there would be no TV or video games. Kids would actually have to go outside and PLAY.
We wouldn’t have to worry about patents and copyrights and such since there would be no players to play anything.
Ok .. who has all the EMPs so we can get this started. Say ‘Aye’ if you’re with me … anyone?
chirp,chirp
well crap.
That’s what you get for confusing “young” with “informed”.