NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] The Real Goal Of Regulating Buffer Copies? So Hollywood Can Put A Tollbooth On Innovation
----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:26 -0500 From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] The Real Goal Of Regulating Buffer Copies? So Hollywood Can Put A Tollbooth On Innovation Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@listbox.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Dewayne Hendricks" <dewayne@warpspeed.com> Date: Feb 6, 2012 3:24 PM Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Real Goal Of Regulating Buffer Copies? So Hollywood Can Put A Tollbooth On Innovation To: "Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net" <dewayne-net@warpspeed.com> The Real Goal Of Regulating Buffer Copies? So Hollywood Can Put A Tollbooth On Innovation from the insanity dept By Mike Masnick Feb 6, 2012 < http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120203/02333517646/real-goal-regulating-buffer-copies-so-hollywood-can-put-tollbooth-innovation.shtml > As you hopefully know by now, we've been talking a lot about the Trans-Pacific Parntership agreement (TPP) that's being negotiated. That's because following the SOPA/PIPA debate, there's been renewed interest in ACTA -- which is great -- but with ACTA very far along in the process, we think it's important that people are also paying attention to the next attempt by a few legacy industries to sneak bad laws onto the books via international agreements negotiated in absolute secrecy. It's been almost a year since the first version of TPP leaked, despite attempts by negotiators (especially the USTR) to keep it entirely secret. We noted many problems with it at the time, but with the renewed interest in TPP, people are once again dissecting the leaked document. Cory Doctorow, over at Boingboing recently highlighted how TPP will seek to regulate buffer copies: One jaw-dropping leak is that that the treaty contemplates requiring licenses for ephemeral copies made in a computer's buffer. That means that the buffers in your machine could need a separate, negotiated license for every playback of copyrighted works, and buffer designs that the entertainment industry doesn't like -- core technical architectures -- would become legally fraught because they'd require millions of license negotiations or they'd put users in danger of lawsuits. This isn't the first time that buffer licensing was proposed. Way back in 1995, theLehman white paper, proposed by Clinton's copyright czar to Al Gore's National Information Infrastructure committee, made the same demand. It was roundly rejected then, because the process was transparent and the people who would be adversely affected by it (that is, everyone) could see and object to it. This is about legislating chip designs and software architecture, and the only people allowed in the room are entertainment execs. The future of silicon itself hangs in the balance. This is great background info, and there's a little more history to go into here. First, what does the leaked copy of TPP actually say? It's right here in Article 4, Section 1: Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary (including temporary storage in electronic form). [snip] Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress> ----- End forwarded message ----- _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad