Is the sky actually falling?
Ars Technica has a new article about the proposed ACTA provisions that prompted some impassioned posts last week at BoingBoing and the EFF. It's short, but a little more informative and an interesting read. Excerpt:
In fact, for US Internet users, the document sounds a whole lot like existing law-specifically, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), rather than a big new power grab.That's not a coincidence; the EU document actually says that the section on "safe harbors" for ISPs is "based on Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), including a preamble about the balance between the interests of Internet service providers (ISPs) and rights-holders."
The DMCA has big problems-most notably, no anticircumvention of DRM even for fair use purposes-but Section 512 actually made sites like Flickr and YouTube possible by shielding them from most lawsuits.
So, not good, but probably not the end of the world as we know it. The people who should be up in arms about this, though, are Canadians, since from what I understand, Canadian law is much more geared towards protecting the rights of consumers and ISPs than US or European law, and this would basically force them to change that to suit the desires of American corporations.
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Ars also has an article up that is not entitled "The Cloud": what the fuck does that actually mean? but could be. Which is handy, because it's become one of those trendy tech terms that people try to attach to everything, whether it's appropriate or not.
In fact, for US Internet users, the document sounds a whole lot like existing law-specifically, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), rather than a big new power grab.That's not a coincidence; the EU document actually says that the section on "safe harbors" for ISPs is "based on Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), including a preamble about the balance between the interests of Internet service providers (ISPs) and rights-holders."
The DMCA has big problems-most notably, no anticircumvention of DRM even for fair use purposes-but Section 512 actually made sites like Flickr and YouTube possible by shielding them from most lawsuits.
So, not good, but probably not the end of the world as we know it. The people who should be up in arms about this, though, are Canadians, since from what I understand, Canadian law is much more geared towards protecting the rights of consumers and ISPs than US or European law, and this would basically force them to change that to suit the desires of American corporations.
---
Ars also has an article up that is not entitled "The Cloud": what the fuck does that actually mean? but could be. Which is handy, because it's become one of those trendy tech terms that people try to attach to everything, whether it's appropriate or not.