Official Ares Free Download

p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- “If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas, what would they look like?” – asked David Fewer, acting director of the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

“This is pretty close,”he said, referring to ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement agreement, a dirty secret until a version was posted by Wikileaks in May this year.

Now, “ISPs around the world may be forced to snoop on their subscribers and cut them off if they are found to have shared copyright-protected music on the Internet, under an international agreement being promoted by the U.S.,” says the IDG News Service.

Promoted by America, Yes — but on behalf of the entertainment industry. Because as p2pnet has stressed repeatedly, the Three Strikes and you’re Off The Net ‘initiative’ being touted around the world as individual government plans is nothing but a part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to turn governments into copyright agencies  funded by local taxpayers, and ISPs into  copyright police, acting against their own customs.

42 Washington ‘insiders’

In the middle of last month, “ACTA remains shrouded — at least as far as the people it will affect, are concerned,” said p2pnet, going on, “ACTA remains shrouded — at least as far as the people it will affect, are concerned.

“But in the US, the Obama administration has shared it with 42 Washington ‘insiders,’ says Knowledge Ecology International (KEI). Among them are:

• Three people from Google
• Three eBay reps
• An Intel lawyer
• The entertainment cartel’s International Intellectual Property Alliance
• Sony Pictures
• Rupert Murdoch’s News Corpse, and
• Two Business Software Alliance staffers.

Says IDG:

“Countries including Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as the European Union and U.S. have been negotiating an anticounterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) over the past two years to combat the growing problem of counterfeit products ranging from designer clothes to downloadable music.”

That’s the window dressing, anyway.

‘Under enormous secrecy’

“The governments have posted the meeting agenda, which unsurprisingly focuses on the issue of Internet enforcement,” Ottawa law professor and internet expert Michael Geist.

The Obama administration drafted the chapter “under enormous secrecy, with selected groups granted access under strict non-disclosure agreements and other countries (including Canada) given physical, watermarked copies designed to guard against leaks,” he says.

‘Selected groups’ including, of course, eBay, Sony Pictures, the RIAA and Google, among other deeply vested interests.

“Despite the efforts to combat leaks, information on the Internet chapter has begun to emerge (just as they did with the other elements of the treaty),” says Geist, continung »»»

Despite the efforts to combat leaks, information on the Internet chapter has begun to emerge (just as they did with the other elements of the treaty).

Sources say that the draft text, modeled on the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, focuses on following five issues:

1.   Baseline obligations inspired by Article 41 of the TRIPs which focuses on the enforcement of intellectual property.

2.   A requirement to establish third-party liability for copyright infringement.

3.   Restrictions on limitations to 3rd party liability (ie. limited safe harbour rules for ISPs).  For example, in order for ISPs to qualify for a safe harbour, they would be required establish policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content.  Provisions are modeled under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, namely Article 18.10.30.  They include policies to terminate subscribers in appropriate circumstances.  Notice-and-takedown, which is not currently the law in Canada nor a requirement under WIPO, would also be an ACTA requirement.

4.   Anti-circumvention legislation that establishes a WIPO+ model by adopting both the WIPO Internet Treaties and the language currently found in U.S. free trade agreements that go beyond the WIPO treaty requirements.  For example, the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement specifies the permitted exceptions to anti-circumvention rules.  These follow the DMCA model (reverse engineering, computer testing, privacy, etc.) and do not include a fair use/fair dealing exception.  Moreover, the free trade agreement clauses also include a requirement to ban the distribution of circumvention devices.  The current draft does not include any obligation to ensure interoperability of DRM.

5.   Rights Management provisions, also modeled on U.S. free trade treaty language.

If accurate (and these provisions are consistent with the U.S. approach for the past few years in bilateral trade negotations) the combined effect of these provisions would to be to dramatically reshape Canadian copyright law and to eliminate sovereign choice on domestic copyright policy.  Having just concluded a national copyright consultation, these issues were at the heart of thousands of submissions.  If Canada agrees to these ACTA terms, flexibility in WIPO implementation (as envisioned by the treaty) would be lost and Canada would be forced to implement a host of new reforms (this is precisely what U.S. lobbyists have said they would like to see happen).  In other words, the very notion of a made-in-Canada approach to copyright would be gone.

The Internet chapter raises two additional issues.  On the international front, it provides firm confirmation that the treaty is not a counterfeiting trade, but a copyright treaty.  These provisions involve copyright policy as no reasonable definition of counterfeiting would include these kinds of provisions.  On the domestic front, it raises serious questions about the Canadian negotiation mandate.  Negotations from Foreign Affairs are typically constrained by either domestic law, a bill before the House of Commons, or the negotiation mandate letter.  Since these provisions dramatically exceed current Canadian law and are not found in any bill presently before the House, Canadians should be asking whether the negotiation mandate letter has envisioned such dramatic changes to domestic copyright law.  When combined with the other chapters that include statutory damages, search and seizure powers for border guards, anti-camcording rules, and mandatory disclosure of personal information requirements, it is clear that there is no bigger IP issue today than the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated behind closed doors this week in Korea.

Geist notes New Zealand has issued a press release “expressing alarm,” the EFF says the leaks “confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations” and, “Electronic Frontiers Australia provides an Australian perspective on the ACTA dangers.”

Stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

pretty close – ACTA, the Hollywood dream: CIPPIC, May 27, 2009
KEI – White House shares the ACTA Internet text with 42 Washington insiders, under non disclosure agreements, October 13, 2009
IDG News Service – Trade Talks Hone in on Internet Abuse and ISP Liability, November 3, 2009
p2pnet – US shares ACTA secrets with RIAA, Sony Pictures,  October 16, 2009

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