Border Copyright breach searches

[Largest of Als]

I wasnt quite sure what tag to put on this..


OK, so we've already had the news that the TSA, basically the airport rent-a-cops in the US, have been given the power to open and inspect files on your laptop or PDA, confiscating pretty much anything they want for indefinate periods of time.

Next Step: If things go they way the various governments want, then they'll be searching iPods, Laptops and other digital devices for any material which breaches any sort of copyright...

Nations including Canada, the US and various European states (including the UK, which sits on the G8) are secretly agreeing a new pan-global state police deal in which information held on iPods and other devices could be subject to investigation by customs officials tasked with a new role, as copyright police.
Dubbed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), signatory nations will form an international coalition against copyright infringement.
The deal’s up for discussion at the next G8 meeting in Tokyo in July, It creates rules and regulations to govern private copying and copyright laws, and posits the founding of an international regulator, “that would turn border guards and other public security personnel into copyright police,” reports Ottawa Citizen, the National Post and other Canadian media outlets.
These copyright police would be given the job of checking laptops, iPods, iPhones and other personal devices for content that “infringes” on copyright laws, “including ripped CDs and DVDs”. To make this Stalinist proposition even more annoying, front line security staff will be empowered to decide what content infringes on copyright laws. And also makes any content copied from DVD or a digital video recorder open to scrutiny by officials.

Officials will be able to levy fines or seize goods even in the absence of any complaints by rights holders. And searches will be allowed even without a lawyer present.

http://www.9to5mac.com/orwellian_nightmare

This might not seem like a big deal to most some people, but when you travel all the time, with more then your fair share if international, then it's kinda fucked up.

Whats the next step? Random stop and search of iPods in the street?




Al

[Draven]

That's well shite, and extremely open to abuse. How exactly will they prove if the copyrights haven't been infringed? iTunes downloads have some sort of DRM thingy on them identifying them as genuine correct?

[djtoast]

Yes except for iTunes Plus downloads, which don't!

Also perfectly legal MP3s from many other vendors don't.

Although you can usually spot limewired MP3s by looking at the tags; impossible to prove though, I might just like adding RIPPED BY TUNEHACKORZ to the composer field of all my legally acquired Metallica albums...

[endless psych]

Here's what the EU has to say on the matter.
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/issues/sec...s231007_en.htm

[Largest of Als]

See, when you read that it actually make sense, but you know it's a system that'll be abused and will filter right down to the average traveller..

I've heard enough stories about how the TSA are behaving to know that..

I know several large international companies that are telling any staff going to the US to remove all work related information from their computers.. just incase.


Al

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by Largest of Als

See, when you read that it actually make sense, but you know it's a system that'll be abused and will filter right down to the average traveller..

I've heard enough stories about how the TSA are behaving to know that..

I'm not suprised the official government proposals make sense - they have the weight of large international corporations with loadsa money to make sure they do.

In reality the potential threat to future civil liberties having such a law on the statute books would be is mind boggling. From copyright material to anti-terrorist measures perhaps? Then an increasingly widening defnition of anti-terrorist measures.

Soon enough we will all live in Brazil...

[TSR]

i can see the sense in this ("yay for everyone paying what they're meant to be paying" stuff), but i'm actually against it - far too open to abuse even by my standards

[AWESOMEUS MAXIMUS]

This would suck the largest of dongs if it came into place
Spend enough time going through shitty airport security as it is when travelling without this bullshit.

Why don't they implant chips in our brain incase we think illegal thoughts, already?
Where will it stop? There's got to be a line surely.

[metallideth]

Originally Posted by The EU

The proliferation of intellectual property rights (IPR) infringements poses an ever-increasing threat to the sustainable development of the world economy

Translated - "oh noes, our rich pals are running out of money!"

[monkey star]

Lars Ulrich for President.

[nevali]

Impossible to prove one way or another unless there's corroborating evidence of a wide-scale infringement operation.

Anything I've ripped from CDs myself will look identical to something downloaded from BitTorrent or LimeWire or somesuch.

Unless there's evidence that I'm distributing material illegally (not sure how they'd find that on an iPod), the whole thing is a very very expensive negative PR exercise and an inconvenience to paying travellers.

[GoddamnElectric]

I can't see this actually happening, in any way. Our airports are privately owned, and the owners have zero interest in clogging up their queues and pissing off their customers with this nonsense, not when they're already facing unprecedented levels of customer dissatisfaction. Facing delays and complaints over airport security and terrorism is one thing, but risking potentially very significant disruption to their business for the sake of the RIAA et al? I don't see it. Just commercially not viable to implement this sort of thing imo.

[djtoast]

I really don't understand how it relates to travelling, given that you can send films and music across borders electronically. Quicker, cheaper and more easily than carrying them on physical storage, certainly.

[Largest of Als]

Originally Posted by djtoast

I really don't understand how it relates to travelling, given that you can send films and music across borders electronically. Quicker, cheaper and more easily than carrying them on physical storage, certainly.

Yes, but if you work along those lines, there's no reason to be checking what's on people's laptops.. or confiscating them.. but it's happening.


Al

[nevali]

Originally Posted by Largest of Als

Yes, but if you work along those lines, there's no reason to be checking what's on people's laptops.. or confiscating them.. but it's happening.


Al

You're correct in that (at face value) there's no reason to do it. There really, really isn't.

Politically, though, there's plenty of reason.