You wouldn't know it from a political debate veering between labor standards in Nicaragua and the evils of protectionism, but one major section of CAFTA will export some of the more controversial sections of U.S. copyright law.
Once it takes effect, CAFTA will require Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to mirror the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's broad prohibition on bypassing copy-protection technology.
This prohibition, of course, has been problematic in the United States. Courts have interpreted it as barring news organizations from linking to DVD-descrambling utilities, and lawyers have invoked it to stifle discussion of security vulnerabilities and even prevent conference presentations from taking place. In an earlier column, I wrote how it prevented me from reading password-protected government documents.
Specifically, CAFTA calls for civil and criminal penalties to punish anyone who "circumvents" copy-protection technology or "provides" such tools to anyone else. Like the DMCA, that could cover everything from DeCSS (which removes copy-protection from DVDs) to products that do the same for e-books.
The Central American nations participating in CAFTA must also:
• Permit software patents
• Extend copyright protection to "70 years after the author's death"
• Ban the "manufacture" or "export" of any hardware or software that could decode encrypted satellite TV signals
• Offer "online public access to a reliable and accurate" WhoIs database of domain name registration details
It's true that these may be ideas beloved by the Bush administration and business lobbyists, but they have far more to do with special-interest lobbying than traditional notions of free trade.
In reality, they're simply the latest in a string of victories that copyright lobbyists have managed to accumulate in the last decade--under both Democratic and Republican presidents--through adept work at influencing the arcane process of treaty drafting.
Negotiating below the radar
"We push for that in trade agreements and treaties and bilateral" agreements, Robert Cresanti, vice president for public policy at the Business Software Alliance, told me last week. Members of his group include Adobe Systems, Cisco Systems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.
That strategy has been remarkably successful. It began in the mid-1990s with a copyright treaty crafted under the umbrella of the World Intellectual Property Organization, a habitually copyright-friendly arm of the United Nations.
The WIPO treaty says that nations must provide "effective legal remedies against the circumvention" of copy-protection technologies. That spurred the United States down the path that led to enacting the DMCA in 1998.
But many sizable nations never signed the WIPO treaty: Canada, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and many others abstained (Click for PDF). And even some participating nations have been less than aggressive, with Japan concluding the treaty permits a less-regulatory approach.
That's why business lobbyists have been pressing to include far more precise rules in subsequent treaties. And the Bush and Clinton administrations have been happy to go along, effectively saying to poorer countries: If you want the United States to open its markets to your products, the price is adopting the most problematic sections of our copyright law.
The result? In the last two years, Australia, Chile, and Singapore have agreed to software patents and DMCA-like prohibitions on bypassing copyright protection.
Those "anti-circumvention" requirements have even popped up in a Council of Europe treaty ostensibly devoted to "cybercrime," which a U.S. Senate panel approved last week.
One reason for the copyright lobby's success is that bending ears and twisting arms at organizations like WIPO and the Council of Europe is expensive. Groups that advocate a more balanced approach to copyright just haven't been able to keep up.
Now that may be changing. "From the mid-90s up until the present day, industry groups have gone to international forums and sought greater IP protections so they could export them as treaties and bring them back home," said Mike Godwin, a lawyer at the Public Knowledge advocacy group.
"Taking a tip from them, civil society groups from the developing nations like Brazil and India have said we can do this too," Godwin said. So are their allies in the United States.
In other words, the easy days of slipping in a few paragraphs into a trade treaty may be over. That's probably a good thing: Free trade can easily take place without the copyright lobby's more far-reaching suggestions.
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
See more CNET content tagged:
treaty,
lobbyist,
DMCA,
copy protection,
nation
In other words, it's illegal to steal. This may seem like the US exporting its laws, but somehow, I think "Thou shalt not steal" may be a good one. After all, it's been "on the books" for 5,000+ years.
Why should it be considered theft to do whatever is necessary to exercise your rights to fair use ?
You will understand this the day you can't read your own documents legally any more because you created them with a DMCA-enabled word processor.
But this type of legislation, is far more reaching then DVD's. it could effect every type of media that you use. Ever borrow a book from someone? How about News papers? How about watching TV? There is one that they keep attaching. I don't have time to watch the show that was just transmitted over the air. So I record it. Am I in violation of the law? I would be if Hollywood had its way. The way things are going that is going to be a problem.
Copyright infringement is not stealing, and is certainly not stealing in the way the ten commandments refer to. There was no copyright protection back then. Copyrights were invented much much later by humans and is not the word of god. They were invented to protect publishers who paid authors for their manuscripts form other printers who paid a bookstore for a printed copy (and then reproduced it and copeted with the first prnter). At some point in the 18th century around the time the US constitution was written ("framed") they were limited to 14 years (and optional 14 year extension) and were further limited to copying whole books. Some time around a 100 years ago the US supreme court ruled that copying recorded music was not copyright infringement. Later congress changed that by adding some very limited protection against copying recorded music. But during the past century, the century that turned the USA from the kand of the free to the land of the incorporated, congress has continually changed the copyright laws in ways that transfered most of the rights that used to belong to the public to the :owners" of copyrights, that happen to be those in the business of distributing (not manufacturing) copyrighted work.
If you say the infringing on copyright is stealing, then what you say is that the verb "to steal" means the same as "to not grant monopoly".
Most of the value the CD and DVD sales is not derived from the value of what's recorded on them, but from the value of public attention that is obtained by manipulating the public using mass media. When you copy a CD instead of paying $15 for it, you are not depriving the "potential seller" of that CD of compensation for their investment on the recorded material. You are depriving them of the right to compensation on their effort in trying to brainwash you and the rest of the public. And it is possible for you to do it because a change in the environment has invalidated some of their assumptions. So they are now manipulating congress to create an environment were they can once again cash on brainwashing people to buy their stuff.
These DMCA provisions HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH STEALING AT ALL. They establish artificial restrictions and protections on creative works. Of COURSE it is (and should be) illegal to decode DVDs and produce and sell bootleg copies. These restrictions go further. It makes it illegal to even make or sell a device or program that could be used to perform this task--EVEN IF THE ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IS NOT THE INTENDED USE. The result is that this treaty forces its signatories to (for example) forbid any company from making DVD players that do not honor the media cartel's "regional encoding" racket and do not cough up a license fee to some useless trade organisation to use their crappy decryption algorithm. Sure, those Chinese bootleg DVDs abhorrent, but if I have spent over $1000 on totally legal movies in North America MY RIGHT TO ENJOY THEM AS I WISH SHOULD BE PRESERVED EVERYWHERE, FOR ALL TIME. Right now, if I move to Europe all those DVDs become instantly useless due to the arbitrary region-code scheme that is nothing more than extortion. Now, not only is is legal, it is PROTECTED.
Furthermore, it forces copyright protection to last for decades longer than is justifiable. What benefit does the creator of a work gather decades after he/she has died? NONE AT ALL. The only beneficiaries are large corporate entities that hold claim to the copyright. Walt Disney has nothing to lose if "Steamboat Willie" becomes public domain--he has been dead for decades. Michael Eisner, Disney board of directors and large shareholders are the ones who might lose a few dollars--but what justification do they have to demand a government-protected revenue stream from crateive works they not only didn't create--they worent even born when they were created!
Lest you think I'm a "commie", it is precisely BECAUSE of my belief in free enterprise that this sickens me. The RIAA/MPAA cartel is NOT free enterprise--it makes obscene amounts of money in large part because it has won so much government protection. Given the rapid decline in the overall quality of mainstream movies, music and television programming it is evident that the ever-growing protections afforded under copyright law have started having the opposite effect of what copyright law was brought in to do--foster creativity and development of culture.
Or non-skipable DVD portions.
The DMCA protects all these indirectly. It is the zenith of free markets for sure.
Luckily there are still countries in America that the US is not strong enough to use this tactics on, like Brazil...
http://jmaximus.blogspot.com
Hmmmm, you might have something there.
- I own these words
-
by R. U. Sirius
August 3, 2005 4:15 PM PDT
- If you are reading this, you are in violation of copyright law. These are my words and I own them. I demand payment from you forthwith. I've worked hard to learn and compose these words, and for you to read them and copy/paste them violates my rights.
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
- your forgot one
-
by cpudrewfl
August 3, 2005 6:53 PM PDT
- ******* association
-
-
- you forgot one
-
by cpudrewfl
August 3, 2005 6:54 PM PDT
- I own these words
-
-
- I fear not
-
by
August 18, 2005 2:07 PM PDT
- you see, my Grandfather (name of Edwin) spoke many of those words to me one damp Tuesday afternoon on Mistley waterfront (for the uninitiated Mistley is on the river Stour which borders Essex and Suffolk in England.)
-
-
(33 Comments)Sincerely,
R. U. Sirius Conglomerate Inc.
Proud Member of the RIAA, MPAA, NRA, and IRS.
Posted by: Ru Sirius
Posted on: August 3, 2005, 4:15 PM PDT
Story: Copyright lobbyists strike again
If you are reading this, you are in violation of copyright law. These are my words and I own them. I demand payment from you forthwith. I've worked hard to learn and compose these words, and for you to read them and copy/paste them violates my rights.
Sincerely,
R. U. Sirius Conglomerate Inc.
Proud Member of the RIAA, MPAA, NRA, and IRS. and a s s hole association you forgot that one
Now, the place where these words were spoken is close to where the Angles and the Saxons first met and so where English was first spoken. Therefore please return those words to me (if you send a stamped, addressed, envelope I will happily cover postage).
ps - like the thought