Willravel

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

Now would be a good time to start creating data stashes. I've been on KeepVid since this article appeared, downloading as many of my favorite videos off youtube as possible onto my external 1TB just in case this thing kills youtube. If you've got any favorite videos, now may be a good time to back them up just in case.

While I've never really supported piracy on principle, copyright laws are a damned mess in the US and are heavily stacked in favor of the corporate holders against everyone else. Until copyright law in the US (and elsewhere) is fixed, I'm siding with the pirates simply because it's the lesser of two unethical parties. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is, like seemingly every other anti-piracy measure taken recently, a massive overstep and instead of effectively curbing piracy will only drive more people to it and further damage copyright. It's following in the footsteps of the MPAA and RIAA (the MPAA recently has started pushing for control over your A/V outputs on your cable/satellite box, for example).

This is big news for anyone that likes the internet, so I figure you should know. This really does put everything from Youtube to Blogger to Flickr at serious risk. No hyperbole.

dksuddeth

No offense will, but this is about more than just preventing piracy. This is purely about control of the internet and what information gets distributed where. Piracy is just a red herring.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Willravel

I agree, and I'm actually chatting with some friends right now about tunneling and encryption to bypass this garbage. Unfortunately, there's simply no way to replace the existing "series of tubes", so the best way to maintain the liberated internet is to burrow our way around like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

This legislation, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a big deal. I'm seriously concerned about the future of the internet.

dksuddeth

This is not really true. You can replace the current set of tubes but it takes a medium to large group of people in many areas to do. I've talked to my surrounding neighbors about the idea of getting off of cable internet and getting our own T1 line that we'd split off. House the router and switch in my home (IT Guru) and run cable or wireless to each neighbors home. Then team up with other groups across the country and make your IP tunnels.
viola, private networks all run together.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Willravel

Um, but people are really lazy and cheap. It'd be a lot easier to simply have tunneling and encryption software that we can give to people we trust. I can email you an encoded copy of Willsoft, my encryption software, and then you can access the same data hidden online that I can. That's a lot easier than setting up, for example, WAP. A darknet is simply easier and with existing encryption tech it'd be basically impossible for law enforcement to crack.

Not that I endorse breaking the law (CYA).

dksuddeth

k, yes. people are lazy and cheap. But would it be easier to do all that you suggest if it were breaking the law? for instance, these ISPs could have terms of use that specify no private tunnels or encryption, or the government itself could criminalize the use of encryption software on internet services. what would you do then?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Willravel

You're breaking the law regardless. It's still copyright infringement if you've got copyrighted music on an independent network.

The thing with encryption and tunneling is that you can disguise one thing as another. I could send a locked and well encrypted .rar that says "Original Manuscript" that's actually, I dunno, the Iron Man movie or something, and no one on the network could really tell. They'd have to criminalize the entire internet, and that'd be a hell of a lot tougher than this "it's fur teh piracy" bullshit.

dippin

the whole DRM protection bit is nothing but a roundabout way of prohibiting the used market. Copyright laws as they exist currently only give copyright owners the right of first sale. You can resell any copyrighted item you want. With DRM, the producers of the copyright material can introduce draconian restrictions, such as restricting the number of installations or requiring registration, that kills that second hand market.

Theoretically, a company could sell all "used" copies of whatever software they are replacing, but they can't because of these DRM measures. So instead of amending the copyright act in a controversial manner, they do this crap to kill the used market.

Derwood

On the one hand, there is a SERIOUS piracy problem on the internet.

On the other, the RIAA/MPAA/etc. continue to go about solving it in the most backwards, overly complicated ways. YouTube is not the problem.

The problem is Bit Torrents. I know most people use them (I do not) for a variety of reasons, but I find it strange that the RIAA (for example) will target kids and grandmas with a few dozen illegal mp3's on their laptop, yet they don't go after arguably the largest pipeline of pirated software, music and movies on the internet

SecretMethod70

Derwood: the problem with that is bittorrent, as a protocol, has a TON of useful and legal applications. One need only look to the free software moment. Bittorrent sites that specialize in pirated material, on the other hand, are targeted with some frequency.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Plan9

Holding in MGM v. Grokster says it all.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Ace_O_Spades

Yes, because one United States Surpeme Court decision should be used as the basis for an international agreement.

__________________
Feh.

Martian

Tangent: I don't really see what you're getting at here.

The modern day internet exists as an amalgamation of hundreds of privately owned networks. It's evolved into it's current form over two decades with billions of dollars invested. You can't simply replace that by having a couple of subdivisions set up their own intranets.

Also, T carriers for trunk lines are obsolete. If you were going to go through with this monumentally stupid idea, you might as well run some fibre.

ACTA is a monstrosity, plain and simple. It uses the 'OMG Piracy!' trope to further tip the balance in the favour of corporate interests. In case anyone's forgotten who we're dealing with here, these are the same people who sued a shop assistant for singing while she worked.

Everyone should be writing their congressperson/member of parliament/appropriate elected official on this issue. It is definitely a Big Deal.

Regarding bittorrent, you really can't go after it. First of all, it's a protocol. You can't sue a protocol, since it's merely a description of how to do something. You could hypothetically try to sue the people who designed the protocol, but the damage has already been done. Aside from that, legislating how people can use the internet is a dangerous precedent.

Bittorrent does have a number of legitimate applications. The protocol itself is used to distribute free software, videos and music, and copycats are used for things like patch distribution (as any WoW user can tell you).

You can use a hammer to kill a man. The solution is to go after the people who do the killing, not ban the hammers.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame