More underhand and secret deals are going on folks in the usual anti democratic way with commercial interest groups seeking to place themselves in charge of the Internet.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080630-inside-the-riaas-acta-wishlist.htmlYou can't see the text of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) because it's being drafted in secret, but it's not so secret that the RIAA doesn't get to submit its own wishlist to the government. Knowledge Ecology International, an NGO that works on trade and public knowledge, published the alleged list late last week.
ACTA architect, USTR Susan Schwab William Patry, Google's top copyright lawyer, wrote recently about news from several sources that indicated such ISP filtering language was making its way into the text of the treaty. The RIAA certainly hopes so, asking the government to require "Internet service providers and other intermediaries to employ readily available measures to inhibit infringement in instances where both legitimate and illegitimate uses were facilitated by their services.
The real rightsholder concerns here are to crack down on big pirate stamping operations on the one hand, and Internet P2P use on the other. Unfortunately, while rightsholders appear to have access to government treaty-makers, the public has been largely excluded from the process so far.
That might be less important when trade deals are really of concern only to specific industries, but the Internet, it's fair to say, has broader applications than swapping copyrighted songs. Is it really too much ask that the billions of users this might affect get a say in the treaty before it emerges full-grown into the light of day?
These trade groups are only concerned with the creation of an artificial monopoly, anything affecting their big dollar return on a few cents of plastic is a mortal enemy to them and must be exterminated at all all costs, that includes your rights as well folks, sitting around waiting for some sort of fair deal from these media groups who have over the years employed criminals to attack their online enemies is a waste of time.
P2p isn't merely a method of obtaining copyright files, it has a serious usage as a distribution chain for those not wishing to sell their artistic content and rights to a cartel for chump change, help protect that chain and take part in protecting the right to share your own creative content.
If you want to help yourself ensure you keep a steady flow of emails to your political representative and ensure the topic of fair play and the protection of democratic and open mechanisms for change in fresh in their minds, back door deals only favour those who push for them, at the expense of the rest of us.
