millsworks

Yeah – you read that headline correctly. Cory Doctorow posted an item on BoingBoing about Michael Geist’s reaction to a leaked negotiating document for CETA, the Canada – E.U. Trade Agreement.

Similar to the still “secret” negotiations of ACTA, the E.U. is seeking to impose copyright reforms that include term extension, DMCA legislation, resale rights, and ISP liability.

Geist writes:

Having viewed the document, I can report that it goes downhill from there, promoting the key message that Canadian laws are inadequate, while liberally quoting a report from the Canadian IP Council and discredited counterfeiting data.

The document states that the trade negotiations are a “unique opportunity [for Canada] to upgrade its IPR regime despite local anti-IPR lobbying.” It includes an assessment of recent copyright reform efforts, noting that two bills have died due to “political instability.” The document adds that the copyright reform process was revived in 2009 with the national copyright consultation, but notes dismissively it may have been a “tactic to confuse.”

I am so fucking sick of this trade negotiation bullshit where corporations bypass the will of citizens, dictating social policy outside of any legislative process and shitting down our throats. It’s not just business and it’s not just Canada. This kind of crap is going on all over the place.

In Italy the Berlusconi government is proposing a mandatory license for the right to upload video to the internet. As it says in the Standard:

“The decree subjects the transmission of images on the Web to rules typical of television and requires prior ministerial authorization, with an incredible limitation on the way the Internet currently functions,” opposition Democratic Party lawmaker Paolo Gentiloni told the press conference.

Article 4 of the decree specifies that the dissemination over the Internet “of moving pictures, whether or not accompanied by sound,” requires ministerial authorization. Critics say it will therefore apply to the Web sites of newspapers, to IPTV and to mobile TV, obliging them to take on the same status as television broadcasters.

“Italy joins the club of the censors, together with China, Iran and North Korea,” said Gentiloni’s party colleague Vincenzo Vita…

“It’s the Berlusconi method: Kill your potential enemies while they are small. That’s why anyone doing Web TV — even from their attic at home — must get ministerial approval and fulfill a host of other bureaucratic obligations,” Gilioli wrote. He said the government was also keen to restrict the uncontrollable circulation of information over the Internet to preserve its monopoly over television news.

Business and government don’t like it when the citizens can speak to each other and hear other voices than those which have been approved.

Fuck them.

I can only hope the net is growing fast enough and becoming pervasive enough that it will be impossible to regulate like this without causing massive unrest and the public dismemberment of the greedy cretins responsible. But that doesn’t mean they won’t stop trying.

In the early days of radio the airwaves were public. Supposedly they still are but they are held in trust by governments who auction off the rights to the highest bidders. They call it spectrum management – also known as theft and control. In the very early days of radio anybody could be a broadcaster if they could get their hands on the gear. It was chaotic and anarchic and a shit load of fun. Imagine what the world would be like today if those airwaves hadn’t been hijacked by government and big business. It’s too easy to say it needed regulation or (with the benefit of hindsight) that the cultural treasures from those days (including news, music, comedies, dramas and their attendant advertising and propoganda) would have been lost. I’d like to think the airwaves would have evolved in a manner similar to the growth of the web – with innovations being introduced to help manage the chaos and new economic opportunities arising from it all. We’ll never know.

The web benefits from the rapid and ongoing acceleration of technological development. It is self-healing and does not require regulation to control it – it needs regulation to keep it free. If we’re lucky the web will grow in size and ubiquity to such a scale that it is no longer feasible – technically, culturally and politically – to wrestle it into a locked box.

Of course, stranger shit has happened in this world – if we let it happen.

No matter what kind of fancy sauce the politicians and lobbyists smear all over their pious reasons for wanting to control the net – and you – it will always smell and taste like bullshit. Trust your senses.

2010 marks the beginning of a crusade against the public use of the net. This decade will define what the net becomes – or is allowed to become. The outcome of these forces which seek to control your eyes, ears and minds will define how free you will be. This is no exaggeration.

Get angry. Get loud. Tell everybody. Be heard.

The net doesn’t just belong to you – it is you.

Defend yourself.

Cheers.