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If this report is accurate, this treaty would be the biggest threat to the startup business that I've seen. How can we tell if it's accurate?

by pg 17y ago

CapitalistCartr 17y ago
The involved governments have refused to disclose to their own citizenry the contents of the treaty they're negotiating "for us". That leaves us with only leaks to work with. This is all the accuracy you get, as long as our governments can get away with such gross abuses.
- jrockway 17y ago
  It doesn't matter what they negotiate, treaties do not become US law. See, for example, Medellen v. Texas: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Medellin.html http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Mede... "We conclude that neither Avena nor the President’s Memorandum constitutes directly enforceable federal law that pre-empts state limitations on the filing of successive habeas petitions." If they want this to become law in the US, they will have to follow the usual process. If they want criminal sanctions without trials, as the treaty proposes, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. (The fact that enforcing these laws will be technically impossible is another annoying issue.)
  - btilly 17y ago
    It doesn't matter what they negotiate, treaties do not become US law. Your link does not support that claim. What the link says is that some treaties are self-executing. Those are automatically US law. Others are not self-executing, and require legislation to be passed. The ruling is that the Vienna convention is not self-executing, and therefore needs legislation to come into effect. Whether this particular copyright treaty would be self-executing depends on a court ruling on the details of the treaty. Given that lawyers are involved in drawing it up, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them design it to be self-executing in the USA. As for the Constitution, I'm so used to seeing attempted and actual end runs around it that I wouldn't be confident that it will stop them from enacting the copyright rules they want.
  - krakensden 17y ago
    You're wrong- treaties are not only law, but they trump the constitution. Your link involves a technicality in a particular treaty, not treaties in general. "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land" is the usual money quote.
    - philwelch 17y ago
      They don't "trump" the constitution so much as they are co-equal with it.
      - joe_the_user 17y ago
        "Trump" usually has the meaning of supersede. I think the GP quote makes it clear ratified treaties supersede other provisions of the constitution - "shall be the supreme Law of the Land" seems pretty clear.
        philwelch 17y ago
        No, that's my point--ratified treaties don't supersede the Constitution, and a careful reading of the Constitution doesn't allow for them to.
    - lucumo 17y ago
      Most countries require ratification of treaties by the representatives of the people. Is this not so in the US?
      - Dobbs 17y ago
        Yes I think it is 2/3rds of the senate.
        sscheper 17y ago
        Really, the only way I know how to make a living is online. This would definitely change things. But the more I think of it, I believe we'll be alright. Those in the web space have a certain scrappiness to them. I've always disliked rules and bureaucracy. That's why I'm here, and not in a Fortune 500 or jerking off politicians. I find a way to scoot around bullshit rules now, and I'll scoot around them if this is passed. Most people I know and work with have one thing in common: their job is to make disruptive technology that people love. Rules or no rules, nothing can stop them, as long as they have the best interest of the user in mind. Nothing can change that.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    If they want this to become law in the US, they will have to follow the usual process. If they want criminal sanctions without trials, as the treaty proposes, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. Anyone with a 6th grade reading level can see this is true. However, the courts apparently don't have this degree of understanding. See, for example, the SCOTUS decision in US v Emerson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Emerson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Emerson ). This case involved the so-called "Lautenberg Amendment", which forever denies access to firearms to anyone who has been the target of a restraining order in a domestic dispute. You'll note that such a restraining order does not involve any sort of due process. Nonetheless, the Court ruled that Dr. Emerson was not deprived of his 2nd Amendment rights.
  - ZachPruckowski 17y ago
    Yes, but it's a lot easier to pass the "WTO 2009 Compliance Act" than the "Copyright Act of 2009". For starters, they'd bundle the copyright stuff with a pile of other trade stuff, and it'd be cast as "fulfilling our trade obligations", not "giving crazy rights to Disney and friends".
- ensignavenger 17y ago
  Gross abuses? Because its being written in secret? The US Constitution itself was written in secret! That fact alone does not make this a bad thing- but it is certainly something to be concerned about- and I'm certainly very concerned about the alleged contents of this treaty. We can only hope that once it becomes public, Congress will be convinced by public outcry not to ratify it.
  - jamesbritt 17y ago
    "Gross abuses? Because its being written in secret? The US Constitution itself was written in secret! " Why do you think that was? Do you think those reasons apply now?
    - ensignavenger 17y ago
      Because the Founders were concerned that if early drafts were circulated they would be shut down before they got very far- and they wanted to be able to change their minds freely without looking like they were flip flopping. Yes- those same circumstances clearly apply to politics today!
      - joe_the_user 17y ago
        Uh, The situation that applies today is the treaty is being negotiated in secret in order to ratified in as much secrecy as possible and with the hope that once that's done, it can enforced as quietly as possible and the repressive parts of it may be used to make that silence mandatory as well. -- Contrast this to the US constitution, which involved long and difficult demand before ratification.
  - danek 17y ago
    starting a new country is in a completely different category. i'd agree with "gross abuses" since this is a treaty being crafted in secret, with special "access" given to certain interested parties... basically the government isn't working for the good of the people, but for the good of a few large companies and the detriment of the people. these are the people that thought the CD would destroy their business. then they thought the DVD would destroy their business. these are the people that want you to pay every single time you watch a movie that you own. they fill the airwaves with Creed and Linkin Park. they don't understand technology in the least. fire probably scares them. and they will be the ones "updating" our copyright law.
- omouse 17y ago
  The government no longer works for its citizens. It is a completely separate organization from whatever the citizens create. Their laws do not apply unless they use force. Simple as that. I'm going to just install FreeNet now and setup some encryption software now...
amichail 17y ago
It's hard to justify the right for people to break copyright law. At the same time, I can see how startups that are depending on the safe harbor clause to host copyrighted material to attract users would be upset with the rules of the game changing.
- CamperBob 17y ago
  It's hard to justify the right for people to break copyright law. Considering that copyright isn't a natural right in the first place, I don't see the problem.
  - amichail 17y ago
    Obviously getting rid of copyright would have a devastating effect on innovation and creativity.
    - fizx 17y ago
      Obviously?
      - amichail 17y ago
        Actually no... sorry. I forgot my own blog post on this topic. In particular, not much may change on the web if we get rid of patents and copyright: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=920911 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=920911
    - Retric 17y ago
      Really? I have read many great books that where never in any way protected by copyright. Honestly, writers are compensated for around 30-40% of the content I read and the only advantage I see is a slightly higher quality of copy editing. On a more serious note, for profit content is less innovative because it's targeting the widest audience possible. Walking around a book store you can find a lot of bland tasteless garbage to fit even the most snobbish pallet. But, there are other approaches. Wikipedia is a perfect example of what happens when you separate the content creation process from direct monetary gain as is Hacker News and a thousand other places that you never really think about. PS: I don't care one way or the other, but suggesting that copyright is vital for innovation and creativity is just silly. Edit: NM, I missed the sarcasm on that one.
fnid 17y ago
I think there are a lot of other big threats to startup businesses. Not all startup businesses depend on user generated content. Startups that make software or other products that aren't used and/or contributed to by essentially anonymous internet users don't have much to fear from this. On the contrary, there are lots of startup businesses on the content creation side of the equation that could benefit from this legislation due to the increased risk and difficulty of pirating and distributing copyrighted works.
- tumult 17y ago
  I create original art. When I have to work on distributing, I'm hampered by copyright law. I don't benefit from it. It harms me. Directly. I've seen artists have their work infringed by others working for large corporations, and their ability to have something done about it quashed by a corporation wielding copyright law (see, for example, Timbaland vs. tempest) Addendum: it looks like someone (someones?) is going around in this thread blanketing it in votes in favor of stricter copyright. Slightly creepy.
  - lupin_sansei 17y ago
    I can't see how it was quashed by a corporation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Timbaland_plagiarism_controversy#Court_proceedings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Timbaland_plagiarism_contr...
    - enqk 17y ago
      Well it required quite a bit of internet support and hostile publicity for the case to move one bit. Which goes on to prove that the copyright laws by themselves weren't providing protection for Tempest.
milkshakes 17y ago
the EFF seems to think so, that's scary enough for me
zouhair 17y ago
If this is real, I'd go further it's the end of the Internet pure and simple.
- borism 17y ago
  Yes, free and open Internet we knew will cease to exist in near future, this is reality we Internet citizens have to face.
  - cabalamat 17y ago
    The free internet will only die if people are too lazy and apathetic to fight for it. The Pirate Party already has two representatives in the European Parliament, and we've only been in existance since 2006. If we continue to fight, and if people who care abt these issues join us, we'll win. I fully expect that by 2020-2025, the Pirate Party's core beliefs will be the received wisdom throughout the developed world.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  It's too bad we can't found a moon colony right now. Count me in as a founding citizen when the time comes.
  - ovi256 17y ago
    This pesky little gravity well ... we just need 8.9 km/s to get out, then a few more to the Moon.
Estragon 17y ago
pg, this is an uncommonly hysterical and poorly thought through response, for you. Has someone hacked your account? You can tell it's accurate for the US because the DMCA has codified those provisions here for the better part of a decade.
moe 17y ago
I have strong doubts this could ever be implemented, simply because reality works against it. Sure, they can try and criminalize half of the internet in one fellow swoop - but that won't change how we do things. There would be a few lawsuits thrown out by sane judges and that's it.
- nym 17y ago
  There are a lot of laws that are selectively enforced. This will give power to easily attack ISPs, and force them to secretly wiretap and censor in order to stay in business.
scscsc 17y ago
Easily. It has already been passed as a law in France. And is under discussion in the entire EU. Therefore we conclude by analogy.
cabalamat 17y ago
> How can we tell if it's accurate? We can't, but the fact that they're keeping it secret strongly suggests to me that there's some very nasty stuff in it. As I usually point out on these occasions, one way to stop these anti-freedom laws is to organise politically -- you can find your national Pirate Party at http://www.pp-international.net/ http://www.pp-international.net/ Don't let them take away our internet.

If this report is accurate, this treaty would be the biggest threat to the startup business that I've seen. How can we tell if it's accurate?

by pg 17y ago

If this report is accurate, this treaty would be the biggest threat to the startup business that I've seen. How can we tell if it's accurate?

CapitalistCartr 17y ago

The involved governments have refused to disclose to their own citizenry the contents of the treaty they're negotiating "for us". That leaves us with only leaks to work with. This is all the accuracy you get, as long as our governments can get away with such gross abuses.

jrockway 17y ago
It doesn't matter what they negotiate, treaties do not become US law. See, for example, Medellen v. Texas: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Medellin.html http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Mede... "We conclude that neither Avena nor the President’s Memorandum constitutes directly enforceable federal law that pre-empts state limitations on the filing of successive habeas petitions." If they want this to become law in the US, they will have to follow the usual process. If they want criminal sanctions without trials, as the treaty proposes, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. (The fact that enforcing these laws will be technically impossible is another annoying issue.)
- btilly 17y ago
  It doesn't matter what they negotiate, treaties do not become US law. Your link does not support that claim. What the link says is that some treaties are self-executing. Those are automatically US law. Others are not self-executing, and require legislation to be passed. The ruling is that the Vienna convention is not self-executing, and therefore needs legislation to come into effect. Whether this particular copyright treaty would be self-executing depends on a court ruling on the details of the treaty. Given that lawyers are involved in drawing it up, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them design it to be self-executing in the USA. As for the Constitution, I'm so used to seeing attempted and actual end runs around it that I wouldn't be confident that it will stop them from enacting the copyright rules they want.
- krakensden 17y ago
  You're wrong- treaties are not only law, but they trump the constitution. Your link involves a technicality in a particular treaty, not treaties in general. "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land" is the usual money quote.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    They don't "trump" the constitution so much as they are co-equal with it.
    - joe_the_user 17y ago
      "Trump" usually has the meaning of supersede. I think the GP quote makes it clear ratified treaties supersede other provisions of the constitution - "shall be the supreme Law of the Land" seems pretty clear.
      - philwelch 17y ago
        No, that's my point--ratified treaties don't supersede the Constitution, and a careful reading of the Constitution doesn't allow for them to.
  - lucumo 17y ago
    Most countries require ratification of treaties by the representatives of the people. Is this not so in the US?
    - Dobbs 17y ago
      Yes I think it is 2/3rds of the senate.
      - sscheper 17y ago
        Really, the only way I know how to make a living is online. This would definitely change things. But the more I think of it, I believe we'll be alright. Those in the web space have a certain scrappiness to them. I've always disliked rules and bureaucracy. That's why I'm here, and not in a Fortune 500 or jerking off politicians. I find a way to scoot around bullshit rules now, and I'll scoot around them if this is passed. Most people I know and work with have one thing in common: their job is to make disruptive technology that people love. Rules or no rules, nothing can stop them, as long as they have the best interest of the user in mind. Nothing can change that.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  If they want this to become law in the US, they will have to follow the usual process. If they want criminal sanctions without trials, as the treaty proposes, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. Anyone with a 6th grade reading level can see this is true. However, the courts apparently don't have this degree of understanding. See, for example, the SCOTUS decision in US v Emerson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Emerson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Emerson ). This case involved the so-called "Lautenberg Amendment", which forever denies access to firearms to anyone who has been the target of a restraining order in a domestic dispute. You'll note that such a restraining order does not involve any sort of due process. Nonetheless, the Court ruled that Dr. Emerson was not deprived of his 2nd Amendment rights.
- ZachPruckowski 17y ago
  Yes, but it's a lot easier to pass the "WTO 2009 Compliance Act" than the "Copyright Act of 2009". For starters, they'd bundle the copyright stuff with a pile of other trade stuff, and it'd be cast as "fulfilling our trade obligations", not "giving crazy rights to Disney and friends".
ensignavenger 17y ago
Gross abuses? Because its being written in secret? The US Constitution itself was written in secret! That fact alone does not make this a bad thing- but it is certainly something to be concerned about- and I'm certainly very concerned about the alleged contents of this treaty. We can only hope that once it becomes public, Congress will be convinced by public outcry not to ratify it.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  "Gross abuses? Because its being written in secret? The US Constitution itself was written in secret! " Why do you think that was? Do you think those reasons apply now?
  - ensignavenger 17y ago
    Because the Founders were concerned that if early drafts were circulated they would be shut down before they got very far- and they wanted to be able to change their minds freely without looking like they were flip flopping. Yes- those same circumstances clearly apply to politics today!
    - joe_the_user 17y ago
      Uh, The situation that applies today is the treaty is being negotiated in secret in order to ratified in as much secrecy as possible and with the hope that once that's done, it can enforced as quietly as possible and the repressive parts of it may be used to make that silence mandatory as well. -- Contrast this to the US constitution, which involved long and difficult demand before ratification.
- danek 17y ago
  starting a new country is in a completely different category. i'd agree with "gross abuses" since this is a treaty being crafted in secret, with special "access" given to certain interested parties... basically the government isn't working for the good of the people, but for the good of a few large companies and the detriment of the people. these are the people that thought the CD would destroy their business. then they thought the DVD would destroy their business. these are the people that want you to pay every single time you watch a movie that you own. they fill the airwaves with Creed and Linkin Park. they don't understand technology in the least. fire probably scares them. and they will be the ones "updating" our copyright law.
omouse 17y ago
The government no longer works for its citizens. It is a completely separate organization from whatever the citizens create. Their laws do not apply unless they use force. Simple as that. I'm going to just install FreeNet now and setup some encryption software now...

amichail 17y ago

It's hard to justify the right for people to break copyright law. At the same time, I can see how startups that are depending on the safe harbor clause to host copyrighted material to attract users would be upset with the rules of the game changing.

CamperBob 17y ago
It's hard to justify the right for people to break copyright law. Considering that copyright isn't a natural right in the first place, I don't see the problem.
- amichail 17y ago
  Obviously getting rid of copyright would have a devastating effect on innovation and creativity.
  - fizx 17y ago
    Obviously?
    - amichail 17y ago
      Actually no... sorry. I forgot my own blog post on this topic. In particular, not much may change on the web if we get rid of patents and copyright: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=920911 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=920911
  - Retric 17y ago
    Really? I have read many great books that where never in any way protected by copyright. Honestly, writers are compensated for around 30-40% of the content I read and the only advantage I see is a slightly higher quality of copy editing. On a more serious note, for profit content is less innovative because it's targeting the widest audience possible. Walking around a book store you can find a lot of bland tasteless garbage to fit even the most snobbish pallet. But, there are other approaches. Wikipedia is a perfect example of what happens when you separate the content creation process from direct monetary gain as is Hacker News and a thousand other places that you never really think about. PS: I don't care one way or the other, but suggesting that copyright is vital for innovation and creativity is just silly. Edit: NM, I missed the sarcasm on that one.

fnid 17y ago

I think there are a lot of other big threats to startup businesses. Not all startup businesses depend on user generated content. Startups that make software or other products that aren't used and/or contributed to by essentially anonymous internet users don't have much to fear from this. On the contrary, there are lots of startup businesses on the content creation side of the equation that could benefit from this legislation due to the increased risk and difficulty of pirating and distributing copyrighted works.

tumult 17y ago
I create original art. When I have to work on distributing, I'm hampered by copyright law. I don't benefit from it. It harms me. Directly. I've seen artists have their work infringed by others working for large corporations, and their ability to have something done about it quashed by a corporation wielding copyright law (see, for example, Timbaland vs. tempest) Addendum: it looks like someone (someones?) is going around in this thread blanketing it in votes in favor of stricter copyright. Slightly creepy.
- lupin_sansei 17y ago
  I can't see how it was quashed by a corporation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Timbaland_plagiarism_controversy#Court_proceedings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Timbaland_plagiarism_contr...
  - enqk 17y ago
    Well it required quite a bit of internet support and hostile publicity for the case to move one bit. Which goes on to prove that the copyright laws by themselves weren't providing protection for Tempest.

milkshakes 17y ago

the EFF seems to think so, that's scary enough for me

zouhair 17y ago

If this is real, I'd go further it's the end of the Internet pure and simple.

borism 17y ago
Yes, free and open Internet we knew will cease to exist in near future, this is reality we Internet citizens have to face.
- cabalamat 17y ago
  The free internet will only die if people are too lazy and apathetic to fight for it. The Pirate Party already has two representatives in the European Parliament, and we've only been in existance since 2006. If we continue to fight, and if people who care abt these issues join us, we'll win. I fully expect that by 2020-2025, the Pirate Party's core beliefs will be the received wisdom throughout the developed world.
rbanffy 17y ago
It's too bad we can't found a moon colony right now. Count me in as a founding citizen when the time comes.
- ovi256 17y ago
  This pesky little gravity well ... we just need 8.9 km/s to get out, then a few more to the Moon.

Estragon 17y ago

pg, this is an uncommonly hysterical and poorly thought through response, for you. Has someone hacked your account? You can tell it's accurate for the US because the DMCA has codified those provisions here for the better part of a decade.

moe 17y ago

I have strong doubts this could ever be implemented, simply because reality works against it. Sure, they can try and criminalize half of the internet in one fellow swoop - but that won't change how we do things. There would be a few lawsuits thrown out by sane judges and that's it.

nym 17y ago
There are a lot of laws that are selectively enforced. This will give power to easily attack ISPs, and force them to secretly wiretap and censor in order to stay in business.

scscsc 17y ago

Easily. It has already been passed as a law in France. And is under discussion in the entire EU. Therefore we conclude by analogy.

cabalamat 17y ago

> How can we tell if it's accurate? We can't, but the fact that they're keeping it secret strongly suggests to me that there's some very nasty stuff in it. As I usually point out on these occasions, one way to stop these anti-freedom laws is to organise politically -- you can find your national Pirate Party at http://www.pp-international.net/ http://www.pp-international.net/ Don't let them take away our internet.