Copyright alert! Orwellian law would aid snoops and, minus legal safeguards, let ‘em seize your e-reader
U.S-promoted laws would reportedly allow border guards in any covered country to seize your iPod, laptop, Sony Reader or Kindle—if the guards believed you’d used your evil gizmo to infringe copyright.
Lawyers to protect you? Fergit. And no appeals.
Just as frighteningly, a global copyright police force without sufficient checks would help pave the way for such intrusions. Hollywood-bought copyright initiatives are America’s gift to snoopy dictators everywhere. I’m fervently pro copyright myself. But I was under the delusion we had a bill of rights and encouraged other countries to adopt equivalents.
BB dream under discussion in July ‘08
The Big Brotherish dream, to be discussed at the G8 summit next month, would be a laugh if not for the fondness of Washington for using "free trade agreements" as leverage to spread copyright thuggery. See why a gobal e-book blog at times has to venture into politics? I’ll let TeleBlog community identify the U.S. presidential candidates they believe would be most vulnerable or resistant to the Hollywood-greed virus.
Look over the candidates’ Web sites and political donations; be objective; don’t be knee-jerkish just because you like such-and-such a candidate. And, yes, I encourage people outside the States to help out.
For more info
Meanwhile the full text of the Orwellian proposal and an independently written intro are on Wikileaks, and you might also read articles by Canadian law professor Michael Geist (photo).
Excerpt from Graeme Philipson’s new piece in the Sydney Morning Herald follows.
"The US (surprise, surprise) has circulated a draft "Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" (ACTA) for the next G8 meeting, in Tokyo in July. The full text of the document has been published on Wikileaks (wikileaks.org).
"The ACTA draft is a scary document. If a treaty based on its provisions were adopted, it would enable any border guard, in any treaty country, to check any electronic device for any content that they suspect infringes copyright laws. They need no proof, only suspicion.
"They would be able to seize any device – laptop, iPod, DVD recorder, mobile phone, etc – and confiscate it or destroy anything on it, merely on suspicion. On the spot, no lawyers, no right of appeal, no nothing…"
Image credit: CC-licensed photo from We Work for Free. I’ve lightened it up to make the border guard more visible.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
>>>”They would be able to seize any device – laptop, iPod, DVD recorder, mobile phone, etc – and confiscate it or destroy anything on it, merely on suspicion. On the spot, no lawyers, no right of appeal, no nothing…”
Just the thing the CopyNazis want: REAL Nazis to do their bidding.
Talk about abuse of power.
Fuel that upcoming revolution, baby!