Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

[S1lentOp]

While it certainly hasn't been a very public negotiation process, this trade agreement has been known about for years now. The ACTA can basically be summed up as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for the rest of the world. Most of the provisions in it have already been law in the United States for twelve years. It doesn't force ISPs to comb through your internet activity and report copyright infringement, and it doesn't give the government any new powers to look around your hard drive for pirated films. The agreement will have a larger effect on the rest of the world than the United States, so Americans don't have many new things to fear. While ACTA will further enshrine the DMCA, the bigger problem in the United States is the DMCA itself which actually is law.

Customs agents will not be going through your MP3 players and laptops and make you justify each song or film you have on it, and ISPs won't be micromanaging what it is you're downloading. The fact of the matter is that content providers already hire companies such as Media Sentry to track illegal downloads over P2P networks. Content providers then decide whether to take legal action against you be it in the form of an extortion letter or a full-fledged trial. While the RIAA has been pushing for ISP-filtering and the MPAA wants a three-strikes rule, both provisions are absent from the current ACTA draft.

Here's a copy of the consolidated text of ACTA: LINK

[Riouki_Myssaki]

where the hell am i going to get all my songs now? i'm sure as hell not going to buy it, having the ability of hearing shouldn't have a price, neither should sight.

tl;dr
f*ck the police

[Erranty]

I still don't see how they can force this when you look at the way computers work.

In order to stream movies or music over the internet, companies have to store a copy of whatever it is on your computer in your temporary internet files. Which means it's on YOUR computer, and you have the right to move it anywhere you like within YOUR PROPERTY.

Filesharing, torrenting, and such can basically be seen as the long distance borrowing of a CD or DVD. It's cheaper and faster than just sending it through the mail like a Christmas package, and in the end, its basically the same result as people having a DVD with a chain letter on it. That's why people who use such methods don't consider what they're doing to be wrong, and it really isn't when you think about it like that.

[grave robbing adept rogue]

Wow this is stupid, so what the police will walk door to door to fine you? And then all of the officers who also download illegal music also get a fine? As if people aren't paying enough.

I still don't see how they can force this when you look at the way computers work.

In order to stream movies or music over the internet, companies have to store a copy of whatever it is on your computer in your temporary internet files. Which means it's on YOUR computer, and you have the right to move it anywhere you like within YOUR PROPERTY.

Filesharing, torrenting, and such can basically be seen as the long distance borrowing of a CD or DVD. It's cheaper and faster than just sending it through the mail like a Christmas package, and in the end, its basically the same result as people having a DVD with a chain letter on it. That's why people who use such methods don't consider what they're doing to be wrong, and it really isn't when you think about it like that.

They will see it as stealing.

[S1lentOp]

In order to stream movies or music over the internet, companies have to store a copy of whatever it is on your computer in your temporary internet files. Which means it's on YOUR computer, and you have the right to move it anywhere you like within YOUR PROPERTY.

The RIAA and MPAA consider this stealing. Each time you stream a copyrighted video or song, it technically constitutes copyright infringement under the DMCA. It's one of the most popular examples of how broken copyright law is in the United States and what a horrible piece of legislation the DMCA is.

People use P2P for a lot of reasons, but a lot of it is illegal. Whether or not it should be illegal is an entirely different question. However, because so much of it is illegal, the content providers just want outlaw it altogether. They're pushing for it in ACTA, they've been lobbying for it for years, and now they're urging the IP Czar to make it a top priority.

Like I said, though, the ACTA doesn't really suggest anything that hasn't already been law in the United States for years.

[LegendaryDarkKnight]

Like I said, though, the ACTA doesn't really suggest anything that hasn't already been law in the United States for years.

"You wouldn't download a car would you?"

I would really hate for this act to pass though. Although I wouldn't be to worried because law enforcement will only know when ISP's report you. So if you stop everything you have currently will be fine.