Posts tagged: copyright
All About ACTA
It’s not over yet. #SOPA and #PIPA are one thing. The international version is #ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The agreement has been signed, while existing mostly in secret, by most of the world, with notable exceptions including the EU.
The act is an attempt to create international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement.
You can look at what is assumed to be the current final form of the agreement, which has been leaked, here. The text has otherwise not been made public; in the US, a Freedom of Information Act request has been denied on the basis of classification for national security. Of course this information was not too classified for those who had a hand in creating the act, a group representing US-based multinational corporations which include International Intellectual Property Alliance (coalition of seven trade associations), The Gorlin Group (Washington “consultancy”), Time Warner Inc. (media company), Eli Lilly and Company (pharmaceutical company), Cisco Systems, Inc. (consumer electronics), The U.S.-China Business Council (nonprofit org), Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. (beer), Merck & Co., Inc. (healthcare), National Foreign Trade Council, Inc. (business organization), Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood LLP (representing the biotechnology industry), Entertainment Software Association (computer and video games), CropLife America (crop protection and pest control products), Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center (consulting service representing gauge-manufacturers Thomas G. Faria Corporation), Recording Industry Association of America (recording industry trade org), IBM Corporation (technology), Intellectual Property Owners Association (trade association for owners of patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets), Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (movies), John Wiley and Sons, Inc. (publishers), General Motors Corporation (automobiles).
And that was just the Industry Trade Advisory Committee On Intellectual Property Rights that was involved. There are three other other committees, totaling 93 other members of the business elite who have access to the “classified” details of the act we as citizens are not allowed to see, for our own security.
This video is a chart.
Lessing lecture at CERN about copyright
Now, those of you who are familiar with the logic behind copyright protection, which is that without ownership, there is no incentive to innovate, might be really surprised by both the critical success of the fashion industry and the economic success of this industry. What I’m going to argue today is that, because there is no copyright protection in the fashion industry, fashion designers have actually been able to elevate utilitarian design, things to cover our naked bodies, into something we consider art. Because there’s no copyright protection in this industry
