Aspies For Freedom

Pods, iPhones, laptops and other digital devices could be seized by customs officials worldwide under a new top-secret copyright policing deal being worked out between the G8 nations, reports claim.

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.

It’s likely these lunatic new proposals are being drawn up in secret in order to outflank any outcry by privacy advocates or any true intellectual discussion as to whether such protectionism should be applied in favour of content creation firms.

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. And ISPs will be forced to hand over personal information on any alleged copyright infringers - no actual proof will be required. And, to make it even more Orwellian, ACTA will be unaccountable to any existing trade organisation, effectively meaning the RIAA and other such bodies will run a public/private international police force with the right to search, fine and confiscate property without any accountability. Local Canadian privacy advocates point out that governments have been privately negotiating these new proposals without consultation, and that the proposals revealed yesterday only surfaced due to the application of freedom of information type laws.

and its worse in the USA: didnt the RIAA try to get it so that ripping MP3 was copywrite breach?

The US is getting more obtuse about such things by the day--there was recently some discussion about having customs officials having the right to search your laptop.

I wonder what they would do for music that was under a creative commons license or which I composed.......

normally it makes them very nervous to find files they don't know
They'd ask you "where do have this from?" "what do you need it for?"
"why do you have it?" Why don't you collaborate with us if you have nothing to hide?"

And score another one for the nanny state!

Remember, every time their power to enact "social programs" is extended, governments take that as permission to extend their power in other areas.

There's no way that would get ratified with our upcoming president and congress.

And that "the only 'our' that matters" remark is why people can't stand Americans.

This kind of crap doesn't ride in on the back of social programs -- it's all about "protecting us from terrorists,"