{"id":247,"date":"2003-05-20T10:20:41","date_gmt":"2003-05-20T15:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=247"},"modified":"2003-05-20T10:20:41","modified_gmt":"2003-05-20T15:20:41","slug":"a_treaty_they_l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/20\/a_treaty_they_l.html","title":{"rendered":"A treaty they like"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charming. While the Bush Administration is willing to fudge or fail to push for confirmation or withdraw from international treaties they find objectionable, they apparently don’t have any problem with signing treaties that bind Congress’ hands regarding the DMCA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the FTA is also the first of its kind in another sense, as well. It is the first international trade agreement to demand that the signatories implement anti-circumvention provisions similar to those of the hotly controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).
\nBy pursuing anti-circumvention measures in a bilateral trade agreement, the Bush Administration had taken a new step in the progression by which the ownership and use of intellectual property have been increasingly politicized in recent years.
\nThis step will have international, as well as domestic consequences: If Congress approves the FTA, it will not able to alter the DMCA without violating its obligations to Singapore.<\/p>\n

And it’s fast-tracked, too. Swell.<\/p>\n

And it gets even better.<\/p>\n

Unless and until the FTA is enacted, courts will be able to narrow the DMCA’s scope to respect free speech and the public domain. After the FTA, however, that will be impossible: it is not the judiciary’s role to decide whether the United States should honor its treaties.
\nIf Congress promises, in the FTA, to stick to a harsh version of the DMCA, the judiciary cannot renege on that promise. Again, this dynamic would be less troubling if we were dealing with straightforward legislation relating to ordinary products and goods – not legislation that implicates serious constitutional issues because it relates to intellectual property.
\nIf the FTA is ratified, the judiciary will be out of options when it comes to ameliorating the effect of the fair-use-stifling DMCA. Congress will then have only one option: vote to override the treaty, a complex and wide-ranging trade agreement that regulates commerce between two nations.<\/p>\n

(via BoingBoing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charming. While the Bush Administration is willing to fudge or fail to push for confirmation or withdraw from international treaties they find objectionable, they apparently don’t have any problem with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":421,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/16\/information_sho.html","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":0},"title":"Information should be free","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Apr-03 12:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Voice of America is working with a leading anti-censorship activist to develop easy-to-use, easy-to-install circumvention web server software package. The target is China, which routinely blocks whatever web sites...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14144,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/12\/unblogged-bits-for-friday-13-march-2009.html","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":1},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Friday, 13 March 2009","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Mar-09 10:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ... Amazon Misusing DMCA to Block Non-Amazon Book Buying for Kindle?While conceptually I still have doubts about the Kindle, my gravest concern is with Amazon's DRM surrounding it, and the \"trust us, you can store your books on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3440,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/21\/we_want_informa.html","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":2},"title":"We want … information!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Nov-02 7:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"The DMCA was intended to provide stronger copyright protection for digitized data. Some folks, though, are calling it the McGyver of IP law: whatever you want to call copyrighted material...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":924,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/01\/well_yknow_mayb.html","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":3},"title":"Well, y’know, maybe we really should try to work together on this","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-Nov-01 6:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Bush Adminstration is now pushing forward proposals for international cooperation and -- dare I say it? -- multilateral treaties on biological weapons. Oh, George, don't you know, those things...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12526,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/02\/do_what_thou_wilt.html","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":4},"title":"“Do What Thou Wilt”","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Apr-08 6:57am","format":false,"excerpt":"Spiffy -- a newly declassified 2003 Justice Dept. memo (rescinded 9 months later) that told the Defense Dept. it could do pretty much anything it wanted when it came to...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5839,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/12\/all_your_tape_d.html","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":5},"title":"All your tape drive are belong to us","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Jul-04 6:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"Yet more DMCA delights. I've previously reported on how the DMCA -- ostensibly intended to protect copyrighted and encrypted media from hacking and piracy -- has been used to outlaw...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}