The Internet Has Been Effectively Destroyed: SOPA and PIPA was a distraction for ACTA

none of it real....to show concern means you are deluded or believing in something false

reply to post by lonegurkha

Yes. there are most certainly laws against piracy (theft of intellectual property)! Burn yourself a copy of Windows 7 along with your license key and start selling online... see where that gets you.

Actually, no, don't. The legal consequences would not be pretty.

TheRedneck

reply to post by SpeachM1litant



Avaaz have started an online petition. It has nearly a million signatures already... There is a lot of opposition to this and rightly so.

www.avaaz.org...

reply to post by TheRedneck

Someone want to tell me how that is fair?

There is nothing wrong with copying information online. It is not theft. Theft is when I come and rob your car as you sleep. If I copy your car and leave the original there I have not robbed it. The laws that apply to the analogue world should not apply to the digital.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants..

double post...

reply to post by lonegurkha


With all due respect, I understand the frustration as it is mine as well. But while trying to find a clean copy of ACTA to read (no offense Redneck but the marked up version was giving me a headache) I did find an interesting statement that addresses the lack of congressional review on this.

Apparently, if the international treaty or act in question does not require any change of current laws already in place regarding the content of the international treaty or act, the President of the US can infact act on his own and sign the treaty without Congressional review and vote.

The United States signed onto the agreement in October. Ordinarily, treaties need to be submitted to the US Senate for ratification, but the Obama administration has adopted the novel (and, some have argued, constitutionally dubious) approach of declaring ACTA an "executive agreement" that can be adopted unilaterally by the executive branch, as it ostensibly does not alter existing US law.

Source

See also an exerpt from Sen. Wyden's letter to Omaba on this subject dated October 2011:

“It may be possible for the U.S. to implement ACTA or any other trade agreement, once validly entered, without legislation if the agreement requires no change in U.S. law,” Wyden writes. “But regardless of whether the agreement requires changes in U.S. law…the executive branch lacks constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress’ authority, absent congressional approval.”

Wyden goes on to indicate that while the USTR has long asserted its authority to enter ACTA as a “sole executive agreement,” with no congressional authorization or approval needed, it has yet to publicly explain its legal justification for that assertion.

Sourced Letter

This is an overview of the USTR or United States Trade Representative:

USTR has principal responsibility for administering U.S. trade agreements. This involves monitoring our trading partners' implementation of trade agreements with the United States, enforcing America's rights under those agreements, and negotiating and signing trade agreements that advance the President's trade policy.

Source

Now, I am no Constitutional lawyer (obviously) nor am I in the legal profession what so ever. I am just an average Jane Doe with reasonable intelligence, but personally I would love to see the part of the US Constitution that makes this kind of action legal. Is there anyone out there that can answer that for me or point me in the right direction to read it for myself?

reply to post by TheRedneck


Thanks for the marked copy of ACTA, but I had to find a clean copy as the marked up copy was giving me a headache and just confusing the day lights outta me. However, if it had not been for a search on trying to find the clean copy I would not have run into the wealth of interesting information about this particular treaty. I'm trying to digest it as I write... but, I was able to find a clean copy and it is the copy that was signed by the President in October 2011 as well as the 22 nations last week. Here is that clean copy if anyone is interested:

Clean Copy of ACTA - PDF

Thank you to my neighbors to the North, Canada, because trying to find a clean copy of this monstrosity on a US website was near impossible.

reply to post by TheRedneck


Redneck I have great respect for you. I don't download nor do I upload anything That said , It's time for the corporations to stop ripping off the public. If I may offer an example. When we had record albums I purchased a Beatles album. By purchasing that album, I purchased the license to use that music as I saw fit for my listening pleasure. Then 8 track came out and because I love that music now I need to purchase that music again, except now it costs more. Now wait a minute here I already own the license to listen to that music.Hmmmm. Now cassette tapes come out and once again I have to purchase the same music all over again. Except now it costs even more than the 8track did. Now wait just a minute. I already own two licenses to listen to this music.

Ok so now I own three licenses to the same music and now it's twenty years old there are only two members of the group left alive and they are ooooooold. The same music for which I already paid a now huge amount of money to be able to listen to my favorite group by already purchasing the license three times. comes out on CD. Wow the same music I payed 4 dollars for twenty years ago is now 16+ dollars for the same music that I already bought three times.

Please tell me that you see that this state of affairs Is sooooooo wrong.

What's even worse is the movie people are doing the same thing with movies. I have a huge collection of totally legal DVD's. Now , If I were still dumb enough to fall for their baloney, They're all coming out on blueray for.....Trumpet please..........two to three times the price. Once again the same material for more money. Where does it end.

This is why many people pirate movies and music. Oddly the RIAA and the similar oganization for the movie industry are the prime movers behind the laws that will effectivly shut down the internet. Guess why, cause they don't want the gravy train to end. People are tired of being ripped off by these leeches.

reply to post by purplemer

There is nothing wrong with copying information online. It is not theft. Theft is when I come and rob your car as you sleep. If I copy your car and leave the original there I have not robbed it.

Apples and oranges.

In your example, you are not selling cars. But let's say Ford is, and your car happens to be a Ford Taurus. Now I make a perfect copy of that car, call it a Redneck Bull, and start selling those copies. Ford loses sales because they had to pay designers and engineers to design it... I didn't, I stole the design, so I can make them a lot cheaper. Is that fair to Ford?

Your very attitude toward this subject is indicative of a disrespect for those who make your world what it is: actors, singers, writers, programmers, designers, engineers. Do you really expect them to work for nothing? They have as much right to make a profit off their work as you do off yours.

I really don't know what else to say... the blanket dismissal of others' rights to their own labor astonishes me.

TheRedneck

reply to post by MyMindIsMyOwn

Thank you for the clean copy! That one was giving me fits as well.

So far as an 'executive agreement', such is never mentioned in the US Constitution. This is an agreement between nations and is therefore a treaty, which is mentioned and requires ratification of the Senate before it takes effect. I'm waiting on something like this to go to the Supreme Court; I cannot see how they can not strike this down.

Someone needs to tell Obama he doesn't get to make up the rules as he goes along... but that's another debate...

TheRedneck

Originally posted by TheRedneck

No one is going to spend untold hours of their time and use their talents to create something if there is no benefit to them.

Not necessarily.

Consider Open Source Programming. Software developers often write and make available their creations with no restrictions or expectations of monetary benefit. Why? Because they can and feel it's just the right thing to do. Humankind is better off when creations are shared freely without self-righteous entitlement.

reply to post by lonegurkha

You're preaching to the choir when it comes to movies/music. I refused to buy a CD player for several years, until after DVDs were introduced, because of the way the record companies abandoned the vinyl albums. I still have several hundred discs of that awesome material, along with the equipment to play them on. If memory serves (this is not legal advise!), it has actually been determined by the courts to be legal to reproduce a song or movie you have purchased as long as it is for personal use. The problem comes in when the material is sold or given away (again, usually to make money from advertising) in quantities large enough to affect sales of legitimate copies.

In other words, I can take a recording of Lynyrd Skynyrd White Dove and make all the copies I want for my own personal use; I purchased the song long ago on a perpetual license. If I start giving away copies, selling copies, etc., then I am a music pirate and am breaking the law by stealing someone else's property.

Mind you, there is no love lost between me and the music/movie industries. I despise their attempts to milk more money out of me, and I firmly believe the majority of the problem lies with their treatment of their customers with such contempt. But regardless of that, if I expect them to respect my rights, I must respect theirs. Anything less makes me a hypocrite.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Shadoefax

Are you running Linux?

Linux is a superior operating system to Windows. It is more stable, more flexible, more powerful, and less expensive. It is also open-source, and the GNU license it is distributed under makes it illegal to sell, but legal to give away. It's an awesome idea!

So tell me: why is Windows the de facto standard for operating systems?

Because Microsoft hires programmers to work all the time on developing software and making Windows better. Microsoft spends money on advertising. Microsoft spends untold man-hours keeping up with the latest advances in hardware.

Linux doesn't. Linux catches up as those who support it have free time. I suspect a lot of those who support it do so after they get home from work at Microsoft.

Windows offers support (expensive support) and continually upgrades to correct potential security problems. Linux does not, because there is no money to be made from it and therefore no money to be paid to people to work the support lines or to debug the code.

Again, I find the concept of others' labor as being totally worthless an amazing thing. Tell me: do you really believe that programmers are worthless and should be forced to live on welfare?

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


I understand what you are saying and I agree completely with you. I have taken all my music in all formats and converted them to digital format. I borrowed or purchased the software and equipment to do it. I have an archive of it in lossless format that I can make mp3 copies of for my player. When i did this some of my friends wanted to as well so we pooled our resources and helped each other out now we all have our music in digital format. We keep the originals for backup.

The real fun part was getting that annoying scratch out of a favorite song.

reply to post by SpeachM1litant
I've been telling my friends about ACTA for some time, but of course no one listened until some of the big-boys like Google got on board against Sopa/Pipa. The good thing about treaties (ask any Native American) is that most of them are never upheld, except in the case where the higher courts are involved. No one without vast piles of money will ever get a case through the International courts, as there are so many bribes and other fees, lawyers fees, marketing fees, etc. that only the very wealthy movie and software or big Pharm companies will even attempt to get someone's site shut down. They will have to choose their battles very carefully. And we can repeal our nation's support of any treaty that threatens our nation's freedom...so? We keep fighting! Start spreading the word as you did here. I will too! And remember we do have Anonymous on our side. Universal studios or others could lose all their internet access if they start messing about. This is a war. And we HAVE to win.

Originally posted by TheRedneck

Linux catches up as those who support it have free time.

I can't speak to every *nix distro, but my Ubuntu box seems to update itself every time I boot it up. So apparently those who support it do have a lot of "free time". Or perhaps they just make it a priority?

Again, I find the concept of others' labor as being totally worthless an amazing thing. Tell me: do you really believe that programmers are worthless and should be forced to live on welfare?

No. Of course not. Where did you get that assumption? Programmers who support open-source development do not include it as part of their business model. They do it for altruistic reasons. I would imagine most of them have a "day job" that keeps them off the welfare rolls.

This was signed in Finland too, it was very secret thing, even our government didn't know about it. ACTA means end of Internet. If you have party video, where popular music plays, its illegal content, you have to mute your video to make it legal. And if you record tv-program, its illegal too, even though TV wouldn't be main part of your video, like just film it couple seconds. This makes most of Internet videos being illegal, and leads to closure of YouTube etc. SOPA and PIPA are nothing compared to ACTA.

has internet a lot of free information? is this info with no power, or even sugestion nocive to some weird plan?

None of us deserve the internet simply because none of us are willing to really fight for it.

Even the Twitter has been corrupted.

They have let the corrupt crazy regimes of these tension driven middle east countries intimidate them into denying the people access.

There would have been no "Arab Spring" if the people of those countries didnt have sites like Twitter to communicate and orchestrate protests and revolts.

God help us