So what does everyone think of the ACTA draft that leaked this weak? (And has anyone written about this yet? It seems like a pretty big topic in the digital rights/copyright community, but I couldn’t find any other blog posts about it.)
The ACTA draft is a US-driven international treaty that, if adopted, would hold internet service providers responsible for their customers downloading infringing material. This is the first time this policy would be adopted on a global scale. Negotiations have been going on for two years, but this January draft just leaked via a French digital rights group called La Quadrature du Net.
The European Parliament agreed to oppose it if it contained a “three strikes” policy, which sees consumers disconnected after a number of notification letters warning that they are violating copyright. The three strikes/graduated response policy is pretty much the cornerstone of the proposal. The MPAA and the RIAA, on the other hand, are very big fans of these measures. Other negotiating parties are Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland.
The comments on the Wired post vary from “it’s about time!” to “This is akin to shutting down a businesses parking lot because a thief parks his stolen car there.”
To me, it looks like another case of trying to get the most retribution out of the service providers rather than tackling the actual problem – the infringing users.
Thoughts?
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/terminate-copyright-scofflaws/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#ixzz0jURbLQ
This is personally frightening. I suppose that I did not expect content providers or the RIAA to sit idle this whole time and watch their hard work get downloaded for free. It’s an inevitable step to get the Internet providers involved because they are the true gatekeepers to the websites that people rip from. I’m threatened by this treaty, but I understand the necessity for it. I guess the 3 strikes component of the treaty does favor the consumer somewhat, in the sense that you don’t simply get the boot after a minor offense.
It’ll be interesting to see how this treaty plays out, and how different countries, each with their own needs, will respond to it. It’s difficult enough to draft any international treaty because of this and other implications, however, the Internet is such a broad network that certainly unites the global community. Nonetheless, taking away peoples rights on this network can generate some real outrage among users, possibly effecting whether or not each country will accept this treaty.
It’s interesting that you frame the “three strikes” rule as consumer-friendly, because I think it’s all about where you set your baseline.
I think most objections to three strikes are more about what gets called a strike than how many you get, i.e. is it sufficient for the copyright holder to merely allege that you infringed (which is the case in some proposed rules)?. To extend the baseball analogy, that might be like letting the pitcher call the balls and strikes rather than the umpire; all the close calls would only ever go one way.
I agree with Natalie. I think we’ll have to wait and see how the treaty plays out. I’m still confused about the internet provider’s role. The user will be kicked out at first, but then couldn’t he or she just go to the next internet provider? Or use wi-fi at a different location? Just how strick will the treaty be? I guess I just don’t see how it’s going to work out, but it will be something to keep an eye on.