Leaked documents reveal draft text of top-secret global copyright deal

montrealgazette.com ^ | April 7, 2010Comments | Vito Pilieci

[day21221]

Leaked documents reveal draft text of secret global copyright deal

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OTTAWA — As negotiators from 37 countries prepare to meet in New Zealand on Monday to discuss a top-secret trade agreement, a draft text of the document has found its way onto the Internet.

While bits and pieces of the agreement, called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), have been leaked in the past, this is the first time a full draft is available to the public.

The agreement, negotiated privately for the better part of two years, aims to create a global organization to oversee worldwide copyright and intellectual property issues, which are now the responsibility of the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations.

The release of the draft text comes at a time when the Canadian government is holding cross-country consultations to collect public input for new Canadian copyright laws. Agreeing to the treaty would require Canada to meet certain legal requirements. Many of the legal requirements mimic laws already in place in the United States.

"To Canada this would require quite a change from domestic laws," said Gwen Hinze, international director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "That's a good question to be asking of the Canadian negotiators: 'Is this going to leave a lasting legacy that effectively moots any domestic consultation process on copyright issues?'"

The draft text of the treaty includes enhanced search powers for border-crossing guards, allowing them to comb through the personal computers and iPods of travellers.

It also prohibits the use of products which could be used to circumvent the digital locks on media, such as DVDs. The practice is not illegal in Canada and is used by many to create backup copies of movies.

The agreement will also place more responsibility on Internet service providers, such as Rogers and Bell, to become content police and prevent users from sharing pirated content over the Internet.

Punishment for repeat offenders includes a ban from the using the Internet for up to 12 months.

A spokeswoman for Industry Canada, which is responsible for Canadian copyright laws, said the federal government is moving ahead with new copyright legislation and the trade agreement would have no impact on the bill. However, she would not comment on changes that would have to be made to legislation if Canada adopts the trade agreement.

Peter Van Loan, minister of international trade, said Wednesday in an e-mail that the Canadian government would not sign on to the agreement unless it "reflects the best interest of Canadians."

"Negotiations are continuing and there is not yet an agreement," he noted.

The agreement is being structured much like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), except it would create rules and regulations regarding private copying and copyright laws. Although federal trade agreements do not require parliamentary approval, large trade agreements such as NAFTA have been brought before Parliament for debate.

The agreement is being pushed forward by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

In early March, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke in favour of the agreement, saying it was necessary to protect American businesses and technologies.

David Fewer, director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, has been following the development of the treaty closely and believes it provides little benefit to anyone but large U.S. content producers such as record labels, software makers and technology companies.

"Early on I described ACTA as a Christmas wish list for rights holders and I'll be damned if that doesn't look like what it is," he said. "It's obviously not made in Canada. This doesn't reflect any kind of domestic agenda."

The leaked text of the trade agreement came from officials in France, who are unhappy with the cloak and dagger techniques being employed to keep the contents of the trade agreement secret.

Earlier this month, parliamentarians in the European Union voted to open the negotiations to the public and allow consultations on its contents. The vote passed with 633 EU parliamentarians voting in favour of opening access, only 13 voted against it.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Leaked+documents+reveal+draft+text+secret+global+copyright+deal/2774774/story.html#ixzz0kXMLcK71

[a fool in paradise]

It’s possible.

100 years ago, many companies used the Mona Lisa in their trademarks and packaging.

Now the image of the Mona Lisa carries a copyright.

DaVinci’s heirs don’t see any money for it.

[RoadTest]

“Would the Bible fall under a copyright protected document? Any way the government could regulate that?”

Interesting question. Psalm 12, Verses 6&7: “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
12:7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”

Get it? They will regulate God’s Word when He is ready for them to regulate it.

The Authorized King James version is not copyrighted; it is in the public domain.

[Drill Thrawl]

Executive Fiat instead of laws - check.
Bills unread before passed - check.
Laws ignored because they are unreasonable - check.
Treaties drafted in secret - check.

The hits just keep coming...

[Palter]

Etc.

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

By Cory Doctorow at 2:13 PM November 3, 2009

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

• * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

• * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

• * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

• * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

Next: More on secret copyright treaty: your kids could go to jail for noncommercial music sharing

Previously:

• New ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and ...
• Obama's transparency commitment makes secret copyright treaty ...
• EFF sues Obama administration for promised access to secret ...
• Petition to Obama government to disclose secret copyright treaty ...
• Anti-counterfeiting treaty turns into maximum copyright free-for ...
• Meet the former Time Warner exec the US govt has put in charge of ...

  The real ACTA threat (it's not iPod-scanning border guards)

  The right to peer inside your iPod

[DonaldC]

“The Authorized King James version is not copyrighted; it is in the public domain.”

No, the British crown holds it and enforces it in England as I understand it. The U.S. has always ignored it but who knows, maybe that would change with this agreement.

[luckybogey]

I believe the document has been on the internet since January.

Download the consolidated text of ACTA: http://www.laquadrature.net/files/201001_acta.pdf

ACTA is a multi-lateral agreement aimed at setting a standard for enforcing counterfeiting at the global level. The following document may not reflect the current state of the negotiations but it provides the public with an interesting overview of the whole agreement, background on the positions of the different parties, as well as more details regarding:

* The general scope of ACTA;
* Border measures;
* Criminal enforcement;
* International cooperation;
* Enforcement practices;
* The ACTA oversight committee (institutional arrangements chapter).

http://www.laquadrature.net/en/0118-version-of-acta-consolidated-text-leaks

[antiRepublicrat]

The Copyfraud ping: copyright, patent and trademark law, mainly as applied to the digital age, especially their abuse.
If you want on or off the Copyfraud Ping List, Freepmail me.

[a fool in paradise]

How much of FR’s visual and literary content would be rule “in violation” of nations’ dismisal of any concept such as “fair use”?

[Logophile]

It says nothing about securing exclusive rights to commercial interests who neither wrote nor invented anything . . . .

I have written several books. I signed over my copyright to a "commercial interest" (i.e., a publisher) in exchange for a royalty on the sales of my books. Although the publisher did not write the books, it took care of such things as printing and marketing them.

Do you see anything wrong with such an agreement?

[RoadTest]

““The Authorized King James version is not copyrighted; it is in the public domain.”

No, the British crown holds it and enforces it in England as I understand it. The U.S. has always ignored it but who knows, maybe that would change with this agreement.”

Yeah. My Thomas Nelson Bible (printed in Belgium) is sure enough copyrighted. But if you go here http://ebible.org/kjv/kjv.htm (University Of Virginia) you’ll see it’s public domain. Not sure what Nelson is copyrighting.

[itsahoot]

Republicans should come out strong against this... but I doubt they will...

Anyone besides me think it strange, that the top spokespeople for our party are women?

[antiRepublicrat]

Maybe everything should become public domain after some reasonable length of time.

It's supposed to, but they keep extending it, forever on the installment plan.

[itsahoot]

The perpetual extensions of copyright terms make a mockery of “for limited Times”. And, objectively, the main effects of current patent and copyright law is to impede progress in science and the useful arts by making derivative works nearly impossible within the law, despite the supposed recognition of fair use.

Sadly the Supreme Court has upheld this insanity.

[wolfcreek]

Nice find (for your first thread)

Welcome to FRee Republic!

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Counts what translation, actually....

[The_Reader_David]

I do. Because the publisher is no longer acting as your agent, but on their own behalf.

The thing that is wrong with the current arrangement is brought into sharp focus by the case of Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice”. The goth band Unto Ashes recorded a song with the poem as lyrics, but that track cannot be released in the U.S. because long ago Robert Frost signed the rights to his works over the Henry Holt & Co. As a result, about 35 years after his death, about 75 years after he penned the poem, a commercial interest prevents its use in derivative works of art.

If your publishers are a**holes like Henry Holt & Co., your works will not be able to be used freely by others years after your death. I hope you see something wrong with that.

[The_Reader_David]

Ah, one can copyright a typesetting of a text, and even a font! New printings of old books always retypeset them then copyright the combination of text and font. (I am not kidding.)

[Buckeye McFrog]

HA! The top-secret draft of a global treaty on Copyrights looks like it was stolen with a P2P file sharing program. LOL!

[a fool in paradise]

True but the Supreme Court justices are not gods and have flip flopped decisions in the past.

[OneWingedShark]

>HA! The top-secret draft of a global treaty on Copyrights looks like it was stolen with a P2P file sharing program. LOL!

Now let’s spread it with BitTorrent! ;)