Canada’s Copyright Crackdown
The money men have always had their voices raised in a chorus of whinny indignation at how regulations, public ownership and sensible policy interfere with their God given right to make more money. They always will too, but unfortunately right now Canada and many other countries have in place governments that are receptive to their self involved bellyaching. So in order that obsolete commercial systems can squeeze more money out of a marketplace they have mercilessly milked for centuries, our governments are ready to sell out the privacy and civil rights of their citizens.
The money men are taking every advantage of that fact. They have begun to push to have Copyright and Trade Mark infringement be viewed of not as a commercial issue that can be settled through fines, penalties, lawsuits and other commercial legal tools but as a criminal issue that can, nay SHOULD result in hard time.
This is most elegantly seen in the creepy and secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which the G-8 is now negotiating super-villain like, behind closed doors while they stroke hairless cats and admire the lasers shooting from the heads of the sharks swimming in their large symbolically shaped pools, most likely resembling a Dollar (Yen, Euro, Peso) sign or perhaps a sexy naked woman armed with a harpoon gun.
This mysterious agreement deals with the electronic information sector and seeks to officially criminalize Copyright Infringement. In order to carry out this diabolical mission an organization shall be formed. They shell be self-governing and work outside the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations (UN). Thus they shall embody the mission of ACTA and serve the interests of those who have forged it: The League of Evil and Money Mongering International Neofeudalist Goobers or (L.E.M.M.I.N.G.s) MwaAHahAhaHAAAaaaaaa…ahem.
ACTA would give border guards the power (and probably the expectation to) search people arbitrarily, going through laptops, MP3 players, cell phones, etc., for any evidence that you have a copy of something. Besides having your privacy violated, fines and confiscations are proscribed to follow, and if they keep pushing the issue I’m sure jail time and unreasonable fines are not far behind.
To help them in this quest for profi…I mean justice, ACTA will also forc…I mean facilitate Internet Service Providers (ISP) to provide not just internet service but also information about those who use those services, and all without all the muss and fuss of a warrant. You know, that piece of paper that a Judge gives law enforcement as a proof that they have a pretty good reason to be invading your privacy and violating your rights. Apparently they don’t need a good reason for that sort of thing anymore. Post 9-11 you know.
Yes, I know its post 9-11 bitch! Yet somehow your squeezing money from the peasants is more important then actual border and security issues. You want to bog down and distract guards away from finding bombs or weapons or maybe even invasive plants, or contaminated livestock or maybe helping a lost and confused visitor from another country find his family before the RCMP comes, assaults him with multiple taser blasts, piles onto his convulsing body, kneels on his neck and kills him. Maybe those things should be on the minds of guards and security personnel. Just a suggestion.
The other thing you do not want to do is give more arbitrary power to border guards. They can be hard enough to deal with as it is, all we need is them being able to search our electronics on a whim and then confiscate it if it catches their fancy.
And in the realm of pushing the criminalization aspect we have a move from another front. Motivated by the gold rush cry of Olympian profit in Vancouver, money men are calling for a crack down on counterfeit merchandise.
They are putting it this way, “…Let me put it this way, there has yet to be someone to due hard time for Trademark or Copyright infringement.”
The way they are putting it is making me think that by noticing so casually that nobody goes to jail for Copyright and Trademark infringements they are suggesting that perhaps people should go to jail for Copyright and Trademark infringements. (Is that enough keywords yet? God I hope so.)
Most of this has to due with the cheap Chinese knockoffs that are flooding the market as apparently over 60% of the world counterfeit comes from China. Vancouver’s port has strong trade ties with China, thus we have a lot of Chinese knock offs floating around. The Greater Vancouver Area has already had several sweeps through night markets, China Town and other, often Chinese related market places.
In fact they are taking it so far as to sue a small business named Olympic Pizza to remove the Olympic rings it has on its awning even though they have been there for over thirty years, which I believe is slightly before Vancouver had won the Olympic bid. I understand trying to stop everything in the city from becoming Olympic themed but come on guys.
Ironically, the money men whining about all the counterfeit are the same bastards who sold out our domestic manufacturing and national industrial capacity to the Chinese in the first place. The official stuff is all made in China, perhaps in the same factories as the knock offs, or at least next door since China likes to arrange everything into districts. (Maybe there is even an officially designated Olympic Counterfeit Factory District. Could be.)
This is how the “China as the world’s factory’ model of the world economy works guys. The Chinese have always been the bootleg kings and have a very different cultural perception of intellectual property, you really shouldn’t be surprised.
Oddly China’s attitude has both ancient and cutting edge aspects, ones that are slow to develop in the G-8 world where the internet’s information revolution is being fought tooth and nail by the corrupt old goliaths of rigid ownership.
South East Asia has long embraced the Accessible Copy Promotion Model, especially when it comes to pop music. Spread as many free copies of your music around and make your money on sponsorships, official tour merchandise and massive spectacle concerts. Work with the fans and their urge to share their love for you. Everybody wins. Yay!
Here in the G-8 we cling to the old models, by force if necessary. Between ACTA and criminalization we should have our jails full of Chinese merchandise importers, casual computer users as well as your cousin Sam all at the tax payers expense. Meanwhile our cops will be busting up the notorious sewing machine rings of designer counterfeiters as security guards browse through the porn, financial records, love letters and family video of your laptop just in case you have a copy of Britney’s Slave For You on your hard drive and don’t have a signed and notarized certificate of ‘I sure did pay for this officer, I swear.’
The new information economy hasn’t worked itself out quite yet but these recent policies and trade negotiations only hinder a process to create a new and flexible way to both enrich creators as well as make ideas and material accessible to all, including those that do not have massive studio budgets or a vast money reserve to buy catalogues from a shady industrialized system that has left countless creators broken and penniless.
The time has come for change. Do or die buddy.
Last 5 posts by JohnEdgar
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