Secret ACTA Internet chapter leaked: Global DMCA and 'three strikes'

[p2p rules]

The highly secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which has been drafted under non-disclosure agreements and given to different nations with watermarks in case they choose to "leak" it, has had parts of its Internet chapter leaked this week, and is already facing massive criticism from mostly everyone who has read its scary bylines.

Under the new ACTA, the United States and the world should be prepared for the following:

-ISPs as watchdogs: The ISPs will be forced to "proactively" police all user-contributed materials for copyrights. At that point, many of the world's most popular sites won't be able to exist as they do now, such as YouTube or Photobucket or Flickr which will be impossible to regulate given that thousands upon thousands of videos and pictures are uploaded every hour.

-Three Strikes: As in the UK and France, the "three strikes" piracy laws will be in effect, forcing ISPs to cut off multiple time offenders from the Internet after two warnings. If you are accused, you do not receive counsel or a trial.

-Worldwide DMCA: "Notice-and-takedown" letters must be adopted worldwide, requiring ISPs to take down any "infringing" material. There needs to be no evidence or trial, if the material gets flagged, it must be taken down.

-DRM: Full prohibitions on breaking DRM, no more "fair use." Archival presentation (backups) will be a thing of the past.

afterdawn.com

[DaBees-Knees]

They can dream. It sounds as if they haven't heard of democracy. Someone should inform them that they don't rule the world.  

[Bluey_412]

no wonder Capitalism cops so much criticism...

What are these guys on?

[Cobra]

What? No "free speech will no longer be allowed on the Internet" clause?

This is going way over the line.  I aid in running a site where files have to be monitored for a number of guidelines set down by the owner several years ago. Our rules are nothing extreme and we do allow for plenty based on fair use. Only one in every 5,000 to 10,000 files ever has to be dealt with in a negative way, but it is doubtful that our traffic and uploading in a month compares to any of the sites like YouTube in only one day and yet the monitoring that we do is still difficult.

"Many of the world's most popular sites won't be able to exist as they do now, such as YouTube or Photobucket or Flickr"?  They wouldn't exist at all! they would be shut down completely under the basis that they take too much manpower to maintain and therefore aren't worthy of the time and effort.