I made it and it's copyleft. So stay out of my blog you copyrighting police. ~sap
Here at http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/acta/Final-ACTA-text-following-legal-verification.pdf you will find the text of ACTA--
at least until it is taken down or someone hacks it down.
Richard Stallman, one of my heros, has done an excellent interview here at http://rt.com/usa/news/us-copyright-law-is-far-too-strict-gnu-founder/ For sure, the interview was done in 2009. Chilling how that interview could have easily been done today rather than back then.
Remember folks, as Richard Stallman says, "Piracy is attacking ships... but sharing with your neighbour is good." Rock on Richard Stallman.
And rock on Anonymous for calling this issue to our collective attention.
Some Anonymous folks hacked into the CIA website last Friday
and found six servers full of porn. Here is the video from R.T.
http://rt.com/usa/news/anonymous-attack-video-cia-219/
purported made by one member identifying as an Anonymous
[at least until if/when I am forced to take it down]:
Sounds like the kiddie porn was an incidental finding.
Here is the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) 2012 report named special 301: http://www.iipa.com/2012_SPEC301_TOC.htm . The countries named for their varying watchlists are bad m'kay because they are not respectful of copyrighted stuff on the internet. Even some of the land-locked countries have been called havens for pirates. From that link, one gets to a page where one can click on older reports or on the cover of this year's report.
If one clicks on an offending country in this year's report, one may find such gems of wisdom as:
(paraphrased) Since the government in 2011 did not revise the laws to reflect what we want them to do regarding the problem of unlicensed sharing, we will create with them an unlicensed sharing task force...
We will also get some State IP cells going, create some IP attorneys, get the militia to do more seizures, and help the government to see the wisdom in giving tax breaks to those companies going along with our program...
And furthermore, we want the militia to want to do more seizures and arrests and stuff like that. Because unauthorized sharing is bad.
Or: (paraphrased) The bad stores with the knock-offs of stuff for sale can still be found near the airport. This country is a U.S.A. trade beneficiary and must be stopped. Because unauthorized sharing is bad.
Clicking on a link toward the bottom right of the International Intellectual Property Alliance http://www.iipa.com/ homepage for their comment on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement on November 10, 2010 will bring you to this:
http://www.iipa.com/pdf/IIPAWrittenStatementonProposedTransPacFTA012510.pdf
[because the IIPA just had to get their copyright policing teeth into that also, i.m.o.]. On the first page of that document, Michael Schlesinger explains that the following organizations are members of the IIPA:
Association of American Publishers (AAP),
Business Software Alliance (BSA),
Entertainment Software Association (ESA),
Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA),
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA),
National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA),
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).One thing that caught my eye was the first "I" in the IIPA name. The first "I" allegedly stands for "International." In this context, the word "International" denotes the organization's interest in copyright matters all over the globe and not that they are an international organization with members who are world-wide.
Under the "About IIPA" tab on their homepage, again we are confronted with the seven member organizations of the IIPA and then we are fed a juicy tidbit. The IIPA claims those seven member organizations represent over 1,900 United Statesian companies involved in all the things that the IIPA does not want unauthorized sharing to happen in.
From what I read, only the Independent Film &aTelevision Alliance has member companies not based in the United States. Approximately forty of their one hundred sixty member companies are based in countries other than the United States.
Further investigation under the About IIPA home tab reveals a current list of IIPA attorneys include only these four: Michael Schlesinger,
Eric J. Schwartz,
Steve Metalitz,
Amanda Wilson Denton
Their contact info is listed under About IIPA, subtab Contact IIPA.
Their e-mails are also listed on their pdf bios which can be reached under About IIPA subtab IIPA Personnel.
Under the News & Resources tab, I found a nifty little chart with very small print noting some percentage of the files and comments that the IIPA has submitted to various official bodies, along with the note that April 23, 2011 was "World IP Day." Om January 9, 2012, [the top of the chart as the list is in reverse chronological order] the IIPA provides an interesting document which quotes Eric Schwartz as an IIPA attorney speaking against Ukraine continuing to have GSP eligibility (Generalized System of Preference in reference to free trade-- http://www.ustr.gov/trade-topics/trade-development/preference-programs/generalized-system-preference-gsp ). The aforementioned Michael Schlesinger says the same about Indonesia. (Michael Schlesinger is also identified as an IIPA attorney). In other words, unless the Ukraine and Indonesia do what the IIPA wants them to do, they may lose their GSP status and benefits inherent in that status. Also under the News & Resources tab, under the subtab of Resources, one finds a list of a whole bunch of websites which have more information and which the dedicated researcher will investigate. I will leave that undone here in this blog for now, although I may come back to that at a future time if necessary.
The Copyright & Trade Issues tab: http://www.iipa.com/copyrighttrade_issues.html reveals that Special 301 was created by Congress in 1988. Special 301 allows countries to be placed on either a Watch List or a Priority Watch List. Presence on the list does not denote immediate trade sanctions against those countries for not protecting Intellectual Property Copyright (i.e. for allowing Unauthorized Sharing). Special 301 also allows for placement on the list of "Priority Foreign Countries." Those countries can face trade sanctions immediately after an investigation is completed. There are seven subtabs listed under the Copyright & Trade Issues tab.
Bypassing those to the interested investigator, we continue on to the next tab titled Country Reports at http://www.iipa.com/countryreports.html . Here is another nifty chart with very small print which lists a whole bunch of countries and what the IIPA has done back through 1997.
Back at the homepage, clicking on the second box in the second column labeled "An overview of IIPA's 27 years (1984-2011)
http://www.iipa.com/pdf/2011IIPAAboutUs.PDF
gives a sampling of what the IIPA has done.
Searching further into the IIPA using a search engine revealed that Eric A. Smith co-founded the IIPA. Here is a press release noting the addition of a senior attorney and two other attorneys to the Washington D.C. office of Greenberg Traurig, a truly international law firm that specializes in international copyright things: http://www.gtlaw.com/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressReleases?find=83555&printver=true
Dr Mihály Ficsor lives in Budapest, Hungary according to an older IIPA pdf file on him at http://www.iipa.com/pdf/IIPA_MF_bio_080204.pdf
is a world-renown expert on copyright stuff and serves as a consultant to the IIPA (or did at the time that the pdf was written). A buddy of his is against excessive copyrighting and the blog post which mentions the Doctor is at: http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2010/11/dont-touch-my-digital-junk-tpms-bill-c.html
radical sapphoq says: The spokespeople for the IIPA come in the form of four very powerful expert attorneys. The IIPA is not some pansy fly-by-night whiners about copyright law. The IIPA has clout as given to them by Congress in 1984. Folks actively engaged in fighting the IIPA and the seven organizations under the IIPA umbrella (which include the MPAA and RIAA) have some very tough, tough work ahead of them. This is precisely why I support Anonymous and I love Anonymous for fighting SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and the forthcoming PICPA.
A battle must be fought on all levels. Now that I know a bit more about the IIPA, I understand the enormity of what's happening with the Internet a bit better.
I don't know know what will happen in the future. I do know that doing nothing does not help the fear. Now is the time to be brave and to act for a free Internet.
It will be a sad day if that battle is lost. But if it does, I plan to help out with building an alternate internet. Even if I have to move out of the country to do it.
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