ah yes, ACTA.
This started (and similar treaties have been in the past) all about physical piracy/duplication. Everything from knockoff watches, to large scale movie copiers, to any other sort of non-electronic unauthorized duplication/distribution you can think of. This is generally considered to be bad by almost everyone, and no one was bothered that treaties were being signed that affected local law about these things.
A country didn't have to sign up on these previous agreements. But (and here's the big stick) if they didn't there was a very big chance that none of the big publishing houses (movie, music, books, tv, and not just the US ones) would license content for their country. It basically was a way to lay down a standard so that you didn't end up shipping a boatload of content over there, only to have it copied and redistributed. But because of a local legal loophole, you were left with nothing that you could do.
And then somehow (I have no clear idea) the concept that this should apply to electronic content was introduced. And all hell broke lose.
I don't have the motivation to summarize all the nitty gritty details, so I'll just toss a couple of links to people who do.
http://www.eff.org/issues/acta
http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/acta/
http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/acta
Bad news for those of us in the states: The US has positioned ACTA as an executive agreement rather than a treaty (no need for senate approval)
The good news: Executive agreements don't have the power and reach to cover such changes to law, and it would be challenged in court (Lawrence Lessig and Jack Goldsmith have vouched to do so)
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
This started (and similar treaties have been in the past) all about physical piracy/duplication. Everything from knockoff watches, to large scale movie copiers, to any other sort of non-electronic unauthorized duplication/distribution you can think of. This is generally considered to be bad by almost everyone, and no one was bothered that treaties were being signed that affected local law about these things.
A country didn't have to sign up on these previous agreements. But (and here's the big stick) if they didn't there was a very big chance that none of the big publishing houses (movie, music, books, tv, and not just the US ones) would license content for their country. It basically was a way to lay down a standard so that you didn't end up shipping a boatload of content over there, only to have it copied and redistributed. But because of a local legal loophole, you were left with nothing that you could do.
And then somehow (I have no clear idea) the concept that this should apply to electronic content was introduced. And all hell broke lose.
I don't have the motivation to summarize all the nitty gritty details, so I'll just toss a couple of links to people who do.
http://www.eff.org/issues/acta
http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/acta/
http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/acta
Bad news for those of us in the states: The US has positioned ACTA as an executive agreement rather than a treaty (no need for senate approval)
The good news: Executive agreements don't have the power and reach to cover such changes to law, and it would be challenged in court (Lawrence Lessig and Jack Goldsmith have vouched to do so)
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy