I also find that food and the news are two other things. However, after several weeks, I have now settled down enough to attend to the blog and the news, if not what to eat for dinner.
The first thing I discover, through facebook, twitter, Neil Gaiman's journal and a phone call to my best friend, is this thing called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Having been informed that SOPA is a US domestic implementation of part of an international treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, I set out to investigate.
The results are a little ... concerning? Terrifying?
I read the draft text.
Section 3: Border Measures
ARTICLE 14: SMALL CONSIGNMENTS AND PERSONAL LUGGAGE 1. Each Party shall include in the application of this Section goods of a commercial nature sent in small consignments. 2. A Party may exclude from the application of this Section small quantities of goods of a non-commercial nature contained in travellers’ personal luggage.
What, exactly, is 'small'? Whilst this treaty goes into enough detail to define 'days' as 'calender days', the definition of 'small', which is particularly important here, is absent.
ARTICLE 32: ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DESTRUCTION OF INFRINGING GOODS The destruction of goods infringing intellectual property rights shall be done consistently with the laws and regulations on environmental matters of the Party in which the destruction takes place.
Well. That's nice of them.
ARTICLE 27: ENFORCEMENT IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT
6. In order to provide the adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies referred to in paragraph 5, each Party shall provide protection at least against: (a) to the extent provided by its law: (i) the unauthorized circumvention of an effective technological measure carried out Knowingly or with reasonable grounds to know; and (ii) the offering to the public by marketing of a device or product, including computer programs, or a service, as a means of circumventing an effective technological measure; and (b) the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a device or product, including computer programs, or provision of a service that: (i) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing an effective technological measure; or (ii) has only a limited commercially significant purpose other than circumventing an effective technological measure.
So this means, if this is implemented as law, that a plugin such as DownloadHelper or the program BitTorrent is now illegal. Further concerning is this from the Free Software Foundation (FSF)'s petition against ACTA:
It will make it harder for users of free operating systems to play media: Consumers may no longer be able to buy media without DRM -- and DRMed media cannot be played with free software.
If this is the case, there will be a lot of Linux users, including myself, who will not be pleased.
Free and open source software has been developed legally, by people who are happy to share their knowledge. It is legal.
Buying music from, say, iTunes, rather than ripping it from a public library CD or taking it from Youtube is also legal.
Yet if FSF is right, this means that:
legal thing (software) + legal thing (music) = illegal...?
If I wanted to play music I had legitimately bought on an open source program such as Amarok or Banshee, it would be illegal.
What's the bet that tapes will return as the preferred form of media? After all, tracking recordings on tape is rather difficult...
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On another note, I have been in Canberra for three weeks.
- The fireworks here on Australia Day are better than Sydney's NY fireworks.
- Pan-Asia Street has not gotten any closer to becoming a Chinatown, IMO.
- Kagawa still makes awesome food though.
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And finally, happy Chinese New Year! Gung hei fat choi! Too bad I'm missing the parades in Sydney. But I'll see the dragon boats on Feb 4.
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