Adding Up the Explanations For ACTA's "Shameful Secret" 165
Several sources are reporting on a Google event this week that attempted to bring some transparency to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that has so far been treated like a "shameful secret." Unfortunately, not many concrete details were uncovered, so Ars tried to lay out why there has been so much secrecy, especially from an administration that has been preaching transparency. "The reason for that was obvious: there's little of substance that's known about the treaty, and those lawyers in the room and on the panel who had seen one small part of it were under a nondisclosure agreement. In most contexts, the lack of any hard information might lead to a discussion of mind-numbing generality and irrelevance, but this transparency talk was quite fascinating—in large part because one of the most influential copyright lobbyists in Washington was on the panel attempting to make his case. [...] [MPAA/RIAA Champion Steven] Metalitz took on three other panelists and a moderator, all of whom were less than sympathetic to his positions, and he made the lengthiest case for both ACTA and its secrecy that we have ever heard. It was also surprisingly unconvincing."
Interesting Bits for those that won't RTFA (Score:5, Interesting)
"Steve's embarrassed by the content of the negotiation or he would be more supportive of transparency," said Love, not one to hold back in his rhetoric. Keeping negotiations secret is how "you get big fees to be a lobbyist," since only the "insiders" have access to the process.
That came from one of the panel members calling for more transparency to the ACTA negotiations.
However, I must say that this next part struck me as extremely interesting:
But he also made the fair point that he's not the one doing the negotiating. The US Trade Representative, which handles ACTA, is ultimately responsible. Though it has repeatedly pledged transparency, none has been forthcoming
The he referred to is the MPAA/RIAA lobbyist: Steven Metalitz. Now, it's important to remember that he is just a lobbyist, so shifting blame away from those he represents is his job. That being said, I figure we should all still cheerfully hate on the IP MAFIAA's. However, he did bring up the fact that the USTR [wikipedia.org] is the one handling the negotiations. Currently, that position is held by Ron Kirk [wikipedia.org], a fella from Texas. Looking at his Wikipedia article, he doesn't appear to have anything particularly outstanding, good or bad, in his political record. That being said, perhaps he is playing in a league (international politics) that he is not quite up to snuff on yet. I would wager that people could contact his office en masse (if we could find that info, I haven't found a lot with a few simple Google's) and show him just how important an issue this transparency is. In other words, he may still be new enough at these games that he hasn't completely grown callous to the American Public. Then again, this is all just guess work on my part.
/shrug
One other thing to keep in mind is that he doesn't seem to have been in the national spotlight all that much, at least not that I can find. Maybe if we put him under the heat lamp of mass public disclosure regarding these meetings he will comply with public demands to avoid a serious burn.
Re:I disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
Every frikkin page of Questionable Content and Girl Genius is on the web.
The QC recently bought a house, travels to conventions, and has a pretty damn good life. People buy tons of merchandise which they could make free themselves for a couple bucks less!
Phil and Kaja seem to be doing okay as well. (For some reason people keep buying the damn books which they could get perfectly free from the Foglio's web site).
Why do these seemingly intelligent people keep giving their work away for free???
Re:I disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't be a very successful band without some form of digital media, whether you're signed or produce it yourself.
Bands earn money by performing and touring.
99.9% of the world gets by on getting money for continuing to work, not by forcing everyone to pay them for something they did 20 years ago. The entertainment industry will soon realize their draconian "get rich quick!" schemes are dead. Their creativity-killing "sell-a-single-never-work-again" methods are finally dying. It's tragic that if someone actually releases 3 albums in a year, they are viewed as a hack. That's how bad it's gotten, and it can and will change -- soon.
"But that will kill the creative industry and entertainment industry!" you might say. Hooty tooty. If I ask you to name the most brilliant English writer of all time, and then the greatest, most creative influence on music of all time, and you are over the age of 12, you will name two people who did not operate under a "publish today without having to perform tomorrow, and you will still eat" creed. They will be people who starved if they tried to sit back and watch money roll in for Romeo and Juliet or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
Copyright is ruined. It was ruined by those who thought they could get away by expanding it to infinity. Their greed has turned on them, and when the camel realized he doesn't have the carry the straw anymore, he won't sit and wait for one more to break his back.
Does this mean that small development houses are going to have to change the way they operate? Most likely. They'll still have many years until the laws change -- but those who change earlier will be the ones who make insane amounts of money on lifeboats while the great ships are all sinking.
Re:I disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
The great thing about those works is that they were DIFFICULT TO DUPLICATE.
You might think so, but you'd be wrong.
The editor of the Oxford University Press' complete works of Christopher Marlowe (a contemporary of Shakespeare's and author of Doctor Faustus, among other works) once told me that people in Elizabethan times had vastly better verbal recall than we have today. It was not at all unusual, she said, for someone to go and see MacBeth, for example, then to go home and repeat entire speeches verbatim to others.
The Folios, by the way, were all copies, partly from memory, unauthorised by Shakespeare's estate.
Economic reality (Score:3, Interesting)
Such a large part of the US and Western Europe economy is today based on sales of intagible goods that it should be obvious that some sort of international agreement would be nice to limit the economic loss that is occurring based on piracy and other copyright violations.
The problem is that since around 1980 or so people have grown up with the idea that if you physically can transfer information digitally it ought to be free. Whether it is by trading floppies or using BitTorrent, anyone that has go to school since 1980 or so has had access to free digital stuff that someone else thought you should be paying for. At it height, the BBS movement pretty much doomed Apple ][ games with common knowledge that any game produced would sell two copies - one on the west coast and one on the east. And that was around 1984.
One huge problem for governments is that if I buy a DVD in a store they get tax revenue on it. If I buy it in Europe, they get tax revenue from it several times over through VAT. However, if it download it nobody get anything. Now you can argue all you want about pirates not ever paying so these aren't really "lost sales", but the government is certainly looking at this as "lost tax revenue". And it is certainly millions, if not billions of dollars in the US today.
iTunes is maybe 1% of the music download market. If the government was collecting their 10% cut on the remaining 99% of the music download market there might not be such a concern about paying for executive bonuses and shifting union health plan costs.
So really, can you blame them?
Of course, from where I sit nobody is ever going to actually be able to enforce any restrictions. Piracy is here to stay and nobody that has gone to school since 1980 or so is exactly in the dark about how to download stuff for free. And they aren't going to be paying anytime in the future. It is free for the taking today and likely to be free forever. Tax consequences or not.
But given the staggering amounts of money the governments of the world think are being left on the table, can you really blame them for not trying to collect "their fair share"? Just be glad nobody has actually proposed a policeman stationed at every Internet connection just to make sure that the taxes are being paid.
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Well then you can say goodbye to alot of creative endeavors. Why write a book when it will only sell a single copy before being copied all over the internet?
I've bought hundreds of books where I could as easily have borrowed them from a friend or a library, I also prefer to read from paper then a screen. Also you can't copy a performance so comedians, musicians and actors would all have their place (as would cinema's).
Think of it this way, you download and read a book from a current author (films and albums are just the same) and enjoy it, you can just hope they keep producing works or maybe you'll think that you'd like to encourage them so you send then a contribution in thanks (or buy some product they sell). Crowd-patronage for those who can inspire their audience to show their appreciation for them. Yes it changes the balance of power, but I think it's clear that the current system is horribly broken with corporations owning "moral rights", buying their legal perpetual extension and now trying to force extra legal protections in via secret treaties.
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
No, none of their works were difficult to duplicate. For example, there were plenty of pirated copies and unauthorized performances of Shakespeare during his career. And given that Shakespeare based most of his plays on preexisting works (he would've had a hard time if he had to live with our rules) and, as an actor, probably performed other people's plays without paying them, it was fair enough.
Further, while works have generally become easier to duplicate over time -- in Shakespeare's day, writing was laboriously done with quill and ink, printing with lead type -- pirates have never had the advantage over authors. At most, authors and pirates were able to duplicate works equally easily. More usually, authors and authorized publishers have had the advantage; working from better copies, working openly, being the first mover, working in bulk, etc.
Even today, authors have the advantage. A DVD factory can make discs that cost less to produce per unit than if individuals were to rip and burn their own at home. A press can make higher quality books, with good bindings, for a far lower price than you or I could by printing them out at home (especially given how overpriced ink and toner are). And even for electronic distribution, it isn't as though an author cannot distribute a pdf of a book, or mp3s of music, or an avi of a movie. He can even spare himself much of the cost by using P2P networks, where his audience distributes the work at their own expense. There's no pirate-only technology, no issue of difficulty.
And anyway, why should we stop the progress of reproduction technologies just for authors? Painters suffered greatly from the invention of photography; do you think we should've suppressed it, just to protect their livelihood? The live theater (particularly vaudeville) is a mere shadow of what it used to be, to the extent it isn't dead, due to movies and television.
Personally, I think I have more faith in authors than you do. I think they'll find a way to adapt. And to the extent that they don't, we may nevertheless be better off with fewer new works, but more freedom as to what we can do with them.
I was at the event (Score:2, Interesting)
There are some points that were brought up in the meeting that I thought were pretty important. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken on any points, IANAL or too politically savvy. Many of the people who had seen pieces of the draft kept coming back to several points:
- Some speculated that this has more to do with future trade agreements with countries NOT involved in ACTA talks than those in it.The idea was that this would be used to strong arm developing countries into agreeing to the terms to enter into future trade agreements with any ACTA countries in the future.
- Patents are also in ACTA, and could potentially impact international trade of pharmaceuticals. Many public health organizations such as Doctors Without Borders are worried about the impact on getting generic drugs to 3rd world countries.
- While this supposedly won't change any US laws, it will impact future court decisions on infringement cases, which will in effect change the law by setting precedence.
We need to slander ACTA (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's start making stuff up about it, saying that it will require that every human being on the planet register on a global network and that it gives copyright protection organizations the right to install kill switches in everyone's brain.
They will be so afraid of the pitchforks and torches generated from this that they'll be forced to do what they should have done in the first place: tell us what it actually contains.
Re:I disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
You're full of shit.
People will just go back to publishing their novels and books in serial format in monthly publications. This is how many of the classic books of the last 300 years were published.
You joke, but... (Score:3, Interesting)