NationStates Jolt Archive

ACTA—the misleadingly named "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement"—is the worldwide copyright treaty that's being negotiated behind closed doors, and that will create a sort of global DMCA if continues in its current state. Now Wikileaks has posted a draft of the treaty, and Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow gives his take:

Among other things, ACTA will outlaw P2P (even when used to share works that are legally available, like my books), and crack down on things like region-free DVD players. All of this is taking place out of the public eye, presumably with the intention of presenting it as a fait accompli just as the ink is drying on the treaty.

Wikileaks points out that the U.S. politician behind ACTA is Howard Berman from California, a Democrat whose top four campaign contributors for 2006 were Time Warner ($21,000), News Corp ($15,000), Sony Corp of America ($14,000), and Walt Disney Co ($13,550).

http://consumerist.com/tag/copyright/?i=5014035&t=leaked-acta-treaty-will-outlaw-p2p

This sounds like the kind of thing that would be making news, that people would be coming out in opposition against, or in support of. Yet I have never heard of it. I sense shenanigans and I am not pleased.

Pissflaps if it does turn out to be true.

http://consumerist.com/tag/copyright/?i=5014035&t=leaked-acta-treaty-will-outlaw-p2p

This sounds like the kind of thing that would be making news, that people would be coming out in opposition against, or in support of. Yet I have never heard of it. I sense shenanigans and I am not pleased.
You know, I'm not normally one for emoticons, especially angry ones. However, I feel this would sum up my opinion on this matter:

:upyours:

Pissflaps if it does turn out to be true.

*stocks up on region-free DVD players*

I wasn't under the impression that they can outlaw P2P, anymore than you can outlaw using the internet. Which is to say, you can outlaw these things, but not under most Western constitutions.

In any case, I doubt it would stop it. P2P'ing illegal files is illegal, but that doesn't stop it. Something tells me that making P2P'ing illegal altogether will just mean people won't talk about it quite as much.

In related news, I've heard that Japan is cracking down on people seeding anime to P2P networks based outside of Japan.

you can outlaw these things, but not under most Western constitutions.
IIRC, the only constitution which actually guarantees the freedom of its population to use the Internet is Estonia.

IIRC, the only constitution which actually guarantees the freedom of its population to use the Internet is Estonia.

Interesting. Still, on what grounds could any nation refuse to allow someone to access the internet?

I've been following this since the ars technica (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080602-the-real-acta-threat-its-not-ipod-scanning-border-guards.html) story earlier this week and I just don't see it ending up with outlawing P2P. I'm also not convinced that it's even technically possible to bar P2P applications from the Internet, without breaking the Internet altogether.

The intellectual property holders are still flailing away, tryng to uphold their outdated ideals of who should be allowed to do what, and are still seemingly unable to accept that it's just not possible given the technologies that exist today. They'll continue to make noises about how P2P applications are being used to facilitate violations of their copyrights but I just seem to be hearing the same schtick that I've heard from them for decades.

Photocopiers didn't kill the printed word, home taping didn't kill music and VCRs didn't kill TV or the movie industry. They should just get over it.

Interesting. Still, on what grounds could any nation refuse to allow someone to access the internet?

The grounds that they're the government and do whatever the fuck they like.

Interesting.
Not really.
Still, on what grounds could any nation refuse to allow someone to access the internet?
"You loves the kiddie porns, so no."
"You'll talk to yer baddie mates, we do not want this"
"Chuck Norris jokes are no longer funny, no internets for you!"

Not really.

"You loves the kiddie porns, so no."
"You'll talk to yer baddie mates, we do not want this"
"Chuck Norris jokes are no longer funny, no internets for you!"

That's all fine and dandy for a small number of people, but is it really enforceable on the entire population, especially given how distributed the various methods of connecting to the internet are and how much everyone relies upon it?

That's all fine and dandy for a small number of people, but is it really enforceable on the entire population, especially given how distributed the various methods of connecting to the internet are and how much everyone relies upon it?
OK, well for the whole population, the kind of government which would try to ban the internet would just give some bullshit answer about moral values or whatever which would play well with the crowd which doesn't use the internet, and everyone else, after so many years of simply complaining about things on the internet, would be sorta lost, I'd guess.

arr shit this sucks

OK, well for the whole population, the kind of government which would try to ban the internet would just give some bullshit answer about moral values or whatever which would play well with the crowd which doesn't use the internet, and everyone else, after so many years of simply complaining about things on the internet, would be sorta lost, I'd guess.

Yeah, that can't work on a practical basis. Far too many businesses rely upon the internet, for one, as do a significant portion of the populace for their personal affairs.

Really at this point there aren't that many who don't use the internet anymore. There are many who don't use it that OFTEN, but they still use it for one thing or another.

The time to ban people from the internet was when it was first developing back in the eighties. It's far too late to stop it now.

Yeah, that can't work on a practical basis. Far too many businesses rely upon the internet, for one, as do a significant portion of the populace for their personal affairs.

Really at this point there aren't that many who don't use the internet anymore. There are many who don't use it that OFTEN, but they still use it for one thing or another.

The time to ban people from the internet was when it was first developing back in the eighties. It's far too late to stop it now.
... I didn't claim it was particularly plausible.

The grounds that they're the government and do whatever the fuck they like.

Western government is specifically designed around the idea that the government in fact can not do whatever the fuck they like. Which is my point: any law prohibiting the use of the internet would get shot down damn quick.

*briefly considers downloading 50G of music from mininova just to spite the bureaucrats, then deleting it because most popular music is too crappy to even bother pirating*

I got some interesting independantly-produced music off Mininova. The band officially released their music through that medium. There's no better way for an indie band to get recognition.

Of course, with so many laws restricting other legal things because some people are using them for evil, or just stuff someone doesn't like, it's no surprise to see this.

Bureaucracy. :headbang:

Western government is specifically designed around the idea that the government in fact can not do whatever the fuck they like. Which is my point: any law prohibiting the use of the internet would get shot down damn quick.

I hope so... You know, matters concerning privacy have globally been going downhill quite steadily in recent years, and nobody cares (enough), especially not the governments.

Let's face it, civil rights are dying world wide.

I hope so... You know, matters concerning privacy have globally been going downhill quite steadily in recent years, and nobody cares (enough), especially not the governments.

Let's face it, civil rights are dying world wide.

And they will continue to do so as long as people are willing to trade freedom for the illusion of security and liberty for servitude.

I hope so... You know, matters concerning privacy have globally been going downhill quite steadily in recent years, and nobody cares (enough), especially not the governments.

Let's face it, civil rights are dying world wide.And they will continue to do so as long as people are willing to trade freedom for the illusion of security and liberty for servitude.

It's one of the downsides of Democracy. People tend to forget what it was like "before". thus in several generations, you'll have a swing in policies that will relax on the 'securities' and more emphasis on 'civil rights'.

Western government is specifically designed around the idea that the government in fact can not do whatever the fuck they like. Which is my point: any law prohibiting the use of the internet would get shot down damn quick.

Shot down by who? Congress? Those are the same guys who have essentially failed to rein in executive powers in any meaningful way despite a Democratic majority. They lack the guts to accomplish anything. The president? He's the one who would probably introduce the legislation, if he didn't just issue an executive order, or tell his lawyers to find an existing law and create a spurious legal justification to apply it in a way unconnected to its original purpose. I'm surprised a law restricting internet use in some way doesn't already exist. However Western government was designed, it seems to have broken down in recent years, at least in the US, and probably Britain as well.

As someone that lives in a country where DVD and game makers charge outrageously high prices, because they can and because people will accept it. Someone threatening to crack down on region-free DVD players really pisses me off.

... I didn't claim it was particularly plausible.

I know. I was just saying that so people who might think it was plausible would be corrected.

It's one of the downsides of Democracy. People tend to forget what it was like "before". thus in several generations, you'll have a swing in policies that will relax on the 'securities' and more emphasis on 'civil rights'.

Several generations? Be fucked with that.

Several years. Those aren't diametrically opposed options. In fact, our security (as individuals) depends on our civil rights ... as it always has.

Several generations? Be fucked with that.

Several years. Those aren't diametrically opposed options. In fact, our security (as individuals) depends on our civil rights ... as it always has.

Realize that among the voters you have several Generations. Thus each new Generation that enters the voting arena affects some change. some can be seen immediately, others only after a long period of time. That's why I said Generation.

and yes, while they are not diametrically opposed options, but it is a balancing act. How much of one vs how much of the other.

Shot down by who? Congress? Those are the same guys who have essentially failed to rein in executive powers in any meaningful way despite a Democratic majority. They lack the guts to accomplish anything. The president? He's the one who would probably introduce the legislation, if he didn't just issue an executive order, or tell his lawyers to find an existing law and create a spurious legal justification to apply it in a way unconnected to its original purpose. I'm surprised a law restricting internet use in some way doesn't already exist. However Western government was designed, it seems to have broken down in recent years, at least in the US, and probably Britain as well.

It's really rather irritating to see people talk like this. The democrats in congress cannot push their legislation because to get a bill passed through the Senate and the House, they need more than 50% of the vote (I think it's 2/3, correct me if I'm wrong). Because of this, the Republicans in Senate can effectively block any legislation they don't like because the slim Democratic majority.

It's really rather irritating to see people talk like this. The democrats in congress cannot push their legislation because to get a bill passed through the Senate and the House, they need more than 50% of the vote (I think it's 2/3, correct me if I'm wrong). Because of this, the Republicans in Senate can effectively block any legislation they don't like because the slim Democratic majority.

They need greater than 50% of the vote to pass something (1 vote suffices as "greater than"). However, if the president Vetos, then they need greater than 2/3 in order to override the presidential veto.

I've been following this since the ars technica (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080602-the-real-acta-threat-its-not-ipod-scanning-border-guards.html) story earlier this week and I just don't see it ending up with outlawing P2P. I'm also not convinced that it's even technically possible to bar P2P applications from the Internet, without breaking the Internet altogether.

The intellectual property holders are still flailing away, tryng to uphold their outdated ideals of who should be allowed to do what, and are still seemingly unable to accept that it's just not possible given the technologies that exist today. They'll continue to make noises about how P2P applications are being used to facilitate violations of their copyrights but I just seem to be hearing the same schtick that I've heard from them for decades.

Photocopiers didn't kill the printed word, home taping didn't kill music and VCRs didn't kill TV or the movie industry. They should just get over it.

This guy speaks the truth!

If this DOES go through, and P2P DOES get banned, it won't stop it. Just like the war on drugs hasn't stopped drugs, it just sends it underground.

If this DOES go through, and P2P DOES get banned, it won't stop it. Just like the war on drugs hasn't stopped drugs, it just sends it underground.

Yeah, except drugs aren't trafficked through an ISP that knows (or can know) who you are, where you are, and what you did...

And anonymous surfing (and I mean anon, not just pseudonymous) still has a long way to go.

Of course we could all go back to disc swapping, but the image of a pimpled guy in a trenchcoat dealing with data in a backalley is just too laughable to consider. Yet.

If you liked the War on Drugs, you'll love the war on filesharing.


My two cents: Let's just break out the guns already and have ourselves a 21st-century Boston Tea Party. But with DVDs and CDs in place of tea.

:sniper:

They need greater than 50% of the vote to pass something (1 vote suffices as "greater than"). However, if the president Vetos, then they need greater than 2/3 in order to override the presidential veto.

Oops.

You're right, I did remember a 2/3 somewhere though.

If you liked the War on Drugs, you'll love the war on filesharing.


My two cents: Let's just break out the guns already and have ourselves a 21st-century Boston Tea Party. But with DVDs and CDs in place of tea.

:sniper:

Would dumping them in a harbor really make them all that ineffective?

Would dumping them in a harbor really make them all that ineffective?

Let's place them on the harbor ground WITHOUT A CASE! :eek::p

Let's place them on the harbor ground WITHOUT A CASE! :eek::p

*gasp* That, sir, is a vicious and gross destruction of property!

Yeah, except drugs aren't trafficked through an ISP that knows (or can know) who you are, where you are, and what you did...

And anonymous surfing (and I mean anon, not just pseudonymous) still has a long way to go.

Of course we could all go back to disc swapping, but the image of a pimpled guy in a trenchcoat dealing with data in a backalley is just too laughable to consider. Yet.
The "ISPs as police" approach is the one way of controlling P2P applications that might be doable, from a technical point of view, but it's simply not practical.

For an ISP to identify that a data packet that it was routing contained copyrighted material it would be need to be able to do a great many things, including:

i) being able to read the contents of the packet (which will only ever be a fragment of what is being sent, and which may be encrypted anyway),
ii) being able to identify the content of the packet as being copyrighted material (this would require them being able to compare it to some kind of database containing every copyrighted work in existence, in every conceivable file format).

Whilst theoretically possible (barring the need for real-time encryption breaking), this would create a gigantic additional workload on ISPs, and would slow down data transfer of all kinds to the point that the Internet would be unable to function in the way that we have come to expect. In any case, I don't see any ISP being in a hurry to inconvenience their customers in this way without some kind of global legislation forcing them to (and we all know how good we are at globally binding legislation).

You're right about anonymous surfing - it does have a long way to go. However, it's worth bearing in mind that simply making encrypted requests through a proxy located elsewhere in the world immediately makes it impossible for your ISP to know what it is that you are requesting. Without perfect cooperation between all the ISPs on the planet, tracing a single user's traffic becomes a major undertaking. Once again, in the absence of a recognised controlling authority, it's just not going to happen. (Bounce all your requests through several proxies, as some of the 'net's more paranoid users do, and tracing becomes even less likely, but let's not go there).

I stand by my earlier assertion that 'banning P2P from the Internet' is not feasible.

I'm sure the copyright holders will continue to chase down centralised file sharing information, such as that available on ThePirateBay and similar sites, but they'll continue to run into the same old problems. It's become a cliché, I know, but the Internet really doesn't take a whole lot of notice of national borders and so it remains essentially unpoliceable.

Let's place them on the harbor ground WITHOUT A CASE! :eek::p

Don't. Even. Think. About. It.

Think of the 10 dollars profit they could have made from it. Oh dear-what are you thinking!

Your thinking is causing this global recession.

Ruining 500 good CDs and DVDs...

:D

Let's place them on the harbor ground WITHOUT A CASE! :eek::p
... I'll take the cases!

*gasp* That, sir, is a vicious and gross destruction of property!
... well, it's better than my idea of supergluing the discs to every billboard in the country.

http://consumerist.com/tag/copyright/?i=5014035&t=leaked-acta-treaty-will-outlaw-p2p

This sounds like the kind of thing that would be making news, that people would be coming out in opposition against, or in support of. Yet I have never heard of it. I sense shenanigans and I am not pleased.

You realize I just bittorrented a shitload of porno vids on one computer and a couple of 80s metal albums on another after seeing your thread title?


...

I'm not kidding. Thanks for getting me to do something.

It won't work, all that will happen is there'll be more anonymizing proxy servers being installed and even more pirating.

The "ISPs as police" approach is the one way of controlling P2P applications that might be doable, from a technical point of view, but it's simply not practical.

For an ISP to identify that a data packet that it was routing contained copyrighted material it would be need to be able to do a great many things, including:

i) being able to read the contents of the packet (which will only ever be a fragment of what is being sent, and which may be encrypted anyway),
ii) being able to identify the content of the packet as being copyrighted material (this would require them being able to compare it to some kind of database containing every copyrighted work in existence, in every conceivable file format).

Whilst theoretically possible (barring the need for real-time encryption breaking), this would create a gigantic additional workload on ISPs, and would slow down data transfer of all kinds to the point that the Internet would be unable to function in the way that we have come to expect. In any case, I don't see any ISP being in a hurry to inconvenience their customers in this way without some kind of global legislation forcing them to (and we all know how good we are at globally binding legislation).

You're right about anonymous surfing - it does have a long way to go. However, it's worth bearing in mind that simply making encrypted requests through a proxy located elsewhere in the world immediately makes it impossible for your ISP to know what it is that you are requesting. Without perfect cooperation between all the ISPs on the planet, tracing a single user's traffic becomes a major undertaking. Once again, in the absence of a recognised controlling authority, it's just not going to happen. (Bounce all your requests through several proxies, as some of the 'net's more paranoid users do, and tracing becomes even less likely, but let's not go there).

I stand by my earlier assertion that 'banning P2P from the Internet' is not feasible.

I'm sure the copyright holders will continue to chase down centralised file sharing information, such as that available on ThePirateBay and similar sites, but they'll continue to run into the same old problems. It's become a cliché, I know, but the Internet really doesn't take a whole lot of notice of national borders and so it remains essentially unpoliceable.

While I agree with your points here there are a few considerations I would make

First the fact that if I understood right they are looking at blocking all p2p type traffic with this treaty not just that of copyrighted material

As such the classification of transfer becomes easier as you are looking sheerly for markings of that type of transfer not necessarily the data contained in the packet so it would get around having to re-assemble the packets (which is relatively easy to do packet shapers do it) ... this like you say is hard without a controlling authority ... while the re-assembly pf packets are easy with routing protocalls as they are not all traffic may pass through a single ISP if they are looking at intermediary filtering (though this becomes easier if it is done by all ISP's as all data has to go through the recipients network)

The second is addressing encrypted traffic as this is a bigger headache for content filtering. It removes many of the markers as only the un-encrypted header is viewable for the most part It is also very prevalent in P2P clients right now to get around packet shaping. In the case of packet shaping rather then hard cutting off they can simply classify the traffic as the lowest priority ... but if they hard block that traffic they are putting a hurt on a tone of legit traffic that is not p2p associated (VPN's both point to point and roaming) as well as other traffic like RDP which has encrypted data and a hundred other technologies

So yeah basically my assessment is about the same just had a few points about the technology (geek)

http://consumerist.com/tag/copyright/?i=5014035&t=leaked-acta-treaty-will-outlaw-p2p

This sounds like the kind of thing that would be making news, that people would be coming out in opposition against, or in support of. Yet I have never heard of it. I sense shenanigans and I am not pleased.

MAN THE CANNONS!

While I agree with your points here there are a few considerations I would make

First the fact that if I understood right they are looking at blocking all p2p type traffic with this treaty not just that of copyrighted material

As such the classification of transfer becomes easier as you are looking sheerly for markings of that type of transfer not necessarily the data contained in the packet so it would get around having to re-assemble the packets (which is relatively easy to do packet shapers do it) ... this like you say is hard without a controlling authority ... while the re-assembly pf packets are easy with routing protocalls as they are not all traffic may pass through a single ISP if they are looking at intermediary filtering (though this becomes easier if it is done by all ISP's as all data has to go through the recipients network)

The second is addressing encrypted traffic as this is a bigger headache for content filtering. It removes many of the markers as only the un-encrypted header is viewable for the most part It is also very prevalent in P2P clients right now to get around packet shaping. In the case of packet shaping rather then hard cutting off they can simply classify the traffic as the lowest priority ... but if they hard block that traffic they are putting a hurt on a tone of legit traffic that is not p2p associated (VPN's both point to point and roaming) as well as other traffic like RDP which has encrypted data and a hundred other technologies

So yeah basically my assessment is about the same just had a few points about the technology (geek)
Yeah, I was trying to keep my post as untechnical as possible (a bad habit of mine (also geek)). :)

The problem I see with blocking "all p2p type traffic" is that it's no different from any other traffic on the Internet - i.e. it's just packets of data being transferred from one machine to another using TCP. Without analysing the actual content of the packets the only way to exercise control is, as you say, via packet shaping, but this only serves to control the volume of data that is being transferred and doesn't discriminate based on what the data actually represents.

Just because they can't completely ban P2P practically, couldn't the ISP implement certain regulation that will block off the majority of the computer illiterate from getting their share of BT? I remember back in college, blocking off the BT default port was enough to reduce BTing. Most people will just give up after clicking on a torrent file and not work. Probably more effective when combine with the ISP sending everyone a letter saying that P2P is now banned federally and would have to pay a ridiculous fine if you break their agreement policy.

Of course there will still be people pirating, but the whole nature of this copyright law is about money to begin with (unlike war on drug which is arguable about racism and class inequality). So they probably won't care enough to crack down on those that quad proxy their traffic anyway.

Just because they can't completely ban P2P practically, couldn't the ISP implement certain regulation that will block off the majority of the computer illiterate from getting their share of BT? I remember back in college, blocking off the BT default port was enough to reduce BTing. Most people will just give up after clicking on a torrent file and not work. Probably more effective when combine with the ISP sending everyone a letter saying that P2P is now banned federally and would have to pay a ridiculous fine if you break their agreement policy.
They could block individual ports, but it's really not all that hard to code the applications so that they use a random port for a data transfer. Alternatively, the applications might just start using ports that simply can't be blocked without bringing down the whole house of cards.

Your comment about getting ISPs to letter people informing them that it's been "banned federally" also presupposes that people really care about what a single government has to say about it, and suggests that you're missing the salient point in all of this - that the phenomenon exists across borders and that there's no mechanism for enacting global legislation.

Your comment about getting ISPs to letter people informing them that it's been "banned federally" also presupposes that people really care about what a single government has to say about it, and suggests that you're missing the salient point in all of this - that the phenomenon exists across borders and that there's no mechanism for enacting global legislation.

Not that the MPAA and RIAA know, or care about, at the very least. I remember them making a lot of fuss about legal action and even sanctions, although I can't confirm the last, against the Swedish government so that they'd start snatching Piratebay servers.