Global treaty promises hard times for file sharers

Post by **Anthro** » 05 Jul 2008, 09:31

IT SOUNDS much like any other yawn-inducing cross-border treaty. But the nascent Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that's on the table at this week's G8 meeting in Japan may have far-reaching consequences. If it becomes international law, anyone who offers copyrighted files over the internet or downloads them may be labelled a criminal and forcibly disconnected from the net.

ACTA aims to make it easier to penalise and prosecute people running websites or networks that aid and abet the sharing of copyrighted content, including music, movies, TV shows and books. While copyright infringement is already illegal, policing it across multiple borders has been difficult, especially as fleet-of-foot file-sharers can shift their operations from one jurisdiction to another at the click of a mouse. By enshrining ACTA principles in national laws, the G8 hopes to make flight pointless.

The proposed treaty has progressed with remarkable speed by the standards of international law.

http://technology.newscientist.com

Zana · Post by **Zana** » 05 Jul 2008, 21:01

The start of bigbrother... then if thats is sucessfull, .. more constraints would be added, like art content, political views, human rights etc... scary..
I just read in the national graphic, that the comunist leader image of the country, was altered by an artist, and was banned.. 8O so if this becomes sucessfull... there are going to be alot of banned users... and when policy gets stricter and not only protecting copyright, then people like myself would be banned.

Hex_Rated · Post by **Hex_Rated** » 06 Jul 2008, 00:54

I just read in the national graphic, that the comunist leader image of the country, was altered by an artist, and was banned..

That's more fascist than communist. Communism is more of an economic policy than a social one. In theory you could even have a communist government with completely free speech. The economy behind Star-Trek TNG is arguably communism done right where everyone contributes their part without worrying about self gain and items aren't given prices.

Unfortunately, in the real world, Communism (and socialism to a certain degree) encourages corruption, totalitarianism and fascism and I considere the concept to be too futuristic for mankind's current state of mind and evolution. Some hippies are communist because at it's heart it isn't such a bad idea, and those people are definitely advocates of free speech. Capitalism is a more primitive econosocialistic approach, but it works far better ATM and strengthens a countries economy solely due to the greed factor. Survival of the fittest, even though you may think that's wrong, sometimes it is but looking at the quality of life in capitalist countries, the data is overwhelmingly favourable of the policy.

Hman · Post by **Hman** » 06 Jul 2008, 06:12

RobThePyro · Post by **RobThePyro** » 06 Jul 2008, 08:10

as they say: 'Capitalism is the worst system ever thought up, its just better than any other idea...' or something to that effect...

Your not going to stop file sharing, there are to many clever people invloved(I.E. more than the number of clever ppl fighting it) and they will find a way around it...

PHR33K · Post by **PHR33K** » 06 Jul 2008, 15:01

we'll find ways.

Hex_Rated · Post by **Hex_Rated** » 06 Jul 2008, 16:27

we'll find ways.

Copy protection schemes have existed since the days of tape and floppy storage. They'll never get it right, the only scheme that works is make it affordable and make it good. Most people don't mind paying for something that's actually worth what they're paying for. If a game is hyped to hell and doesn't deliver, an early adopter with prepaid buys the game and tells his friends that it's alright but isn't as good as advertised and the friends either don't buy the game, borrow it from the early adopter when (s)he's done or pirate the game. Then the publisher blames the lacklustre financial performance on piracy, lol.

Look at a game like Gears of War. It was so good that some guys on this forum bought the console version and then even bought the PC version afterwards when it came out just to play through it on PC as well (in a perfect world they should have gotten the PC version for free/discounted IMO seeing as they already paid for the game). There is a vast difference between a game like that and Crysis. And a vast difference in the sales performance as well.

Not condoning piracy, if a game sucks I normally don't acquire it at all.

PureFire · Post by **PureFire** » 06 Jul 2008, 18:33

Hex_Rated wrote: Copy protection schemes have existed since the days of tape and floppy storage. They'll never get it right, the only scheme that works is make it affordable and make it good. Most people don't mind paying for something that's actually worth what they're paying for.

Hex_Rated wrote: Not condoning piracy, if a game sucks I normally don't acquire it at all.

+infinity.
this is the ONLY way you will ever get piracy beaten.
if its as affordable as pirate copies, there wouldnt be a market for them!