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Originally Posted by pholy
All this discussion of authors rights has been interesting, but I haven't seen much mention of ACTA in the last couple hundred posts. What about ACTA? Do it's goals enhance creativity? How do you know? Is a secret trade agreement the way to rewrite copyright law all over the world, or should each country or common market use the traditional open legislative fora?
Oh darn, I think I just gave away my bias!
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Try James Boyle's
The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. It's a nice book.
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What about the rest of us? What can we do to make more people aware of the importance of balanced copyright law? The "new Canadian government" (almost as partisan as American politics, for those unfamiliar) has promised to bring in new copyright legislation this year, so the question is kind of urgent here in Canada. We could sleepwalk our way to a made-in-Hollywood-DMCA - and I think that would be a tragedy. Of course, that could spark 'the revolution' - and that would be another tragedy.
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The most foolproof way to prevent is to become insanely rich (at least $40 Billion), then "fund" most of the senatorial reelection campaigns, and then demand they stop. Sadly, I don't really know of any other way. Grass-roots campaigns over these
ephemeral issues are very hard to organize, as people don't see how much it will affect them, whereas the companies have every reason to push for extensions. So if you can get lots of people to write their representatives, it might do something (US policymakers seem to be the main force pushing the treaty), but then again, it might not.
It's really very hard. In a way we might need ACTA to get people to actually care about these issues, as the more draconian the law, the more likely it will be repealed 10-15 years down the road, but OTOH, nobody's even touched the DMCA yet, so it might take a bit longer too.
Something that has me wondering, though, is why there is no way to test the constitutionality of a law in the US. For instance, HADOPI-1 was rejected because it was deemed unconstitutional before it was made into law, but in the US there seems to be no such check/appeal possible (apart from a test case that takes years to wind its way through the courts before it gets to SCOTUS).
Anyway, sorry I can't be of more help.