It's such a great treaty for everyone that you're not even allowed to know what's in it. That really inspires confidence.
The question is, what can we do to fight this band of scummy bastards who are trying to take our online freedom of speech and thought away from us to save the livelihoods a bunch of coke-addled record company executives? Anyone know?
you'd be asking people to give up something they biologically can't.
This seems a bit melodramatic... surely buying those particular bits of content that are churned out by the big media producers isn't really a biological need.
I certainly agree that a boycott won't work, but I say for no other reason than good old human laziness combined with an unwillingness to forgo creature comforts.
The only effective alternative to a boycott is mass civil disobedience, which is likely to be even more uncomfortable than a boycott for the average person.
The copyright lobby has long since surrendered the moral high ground to the "pirates". Personally I've taken the "boycott" route, but to my mind someone pirating copyrighted content is more ethical than someone paying the copyright cartels for it.
The constitution, in Article II Section 2, gives the president the power to make treaties, but two-thirds of the Senate has to approve the treaty. I don't see how they can vote on it if they can't see it. (Even if they don't tend to read what they vote on, they have to be _able_ to read it.)
I suppose the entire Senate could be sworn to secrecy, along with their aides who do most of their reading for them, but I'm sure a bunch of them will object to that and vote no. And even if they don't, sooner or later the law has to be made public so it can be enforced, so any senators who vote for it will be held accountable. (To the extent they're ever held accountable for their votes.)
So this may be classified now, but I don't see how it can remain that way if it's going to become a treaty. It'd have to become a classified executive order that's not subject to congressional approval. That may not satisfy whoever is pushing for a full-fledged treaty, though.
I assume that the final treaty would have to be public, which raises the obvious question of why the drafts should be secret. Perhaps the media industry lobbyists don't want to be embarrassed by any proposed copyfascist terms that end up getting dropped from the final version. Or perhaps the negotiations are secret to prevent people from linking each treaty provision back to the company that proposed it (collective deniability).
If you have forewarning you can prepare a defence. If they spring it on you it can be voted in before people have managed to be informed about the content and repercussions.
I'm going to guess the normal news sources aren't exactly going to go out their way to tell us how their parent companies want to steal from the public domain that which should already have been released and to worsen the copyright deal still further for new works that are created.
They will eventually make it public (probably right before it gets voted on). However, at that point the treaty will already be negotiated and it will be presented as done deal. There will be a lot of pressure on senators to vote on it and there will not be enough time for an opposition to coalesce, people that are affected will not have enough time to realize they are affected and to organize an opposition.
This is the way our governments are going. The business of government is so sensitive and delicate that it must be done quietly, by experts who understand all the issues, and can be trusted to do the job right. We must give them the privacy they need to do that job. Scrutiny from the public, ignorant and clamouring, can only be detrimental to that lofty goal. We know what is best for you. Don't worry, we'll take care of it for you. Just turn the TV on and soothe yourself with the latest episode of X Idol. Everything will be fine.
If this doesn't worry you, you should read this book:
The description of the treaty based on the supposedly leaked documents makes it sound absolutely horrible.
I'd be tempted to say that it must be a nasty rumor but if that was the case, the logical course of action by the government would be to make portions of the treaty public to lay to rest the concerns.
They haven't, which leads me to wonder if it really is as bad as the rumors indicate.
"Big Media" has actually a wishlist for what they want in ACTA [0]. With no response from ACTA negotiators, there's no telling how much pull they actually have.
Copyright is serious. Think of this as a Hannah Montana Album Non-Proliferation Treaty. These are many weapons of mass (cultural) destruction. They must be controlled.
The question is, what can we do to fight this band of scummy bastards who are trying to take our online freedom of speech and thought away from us to save the livelihoods a bunch of coke-addled record company executives? Anyone know?