happy motorcycling incidentally. Used to ride a nice beemer, but head on. You know how that goes afterward.

KEI was surprised to learn in early September that the United States Trade Representative was using nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to selectively share copies of the ACTA Internet text outside of the USTR formal advisory board system.

When questioned about this practice, USTR told KEI that it had “consulted with an array of experts from various IP and tech industries and associations and NGOs in the process of deliberation regarding a US proposal on one section of the agreement.” According to persons who have been approached by USTR, this included the opportunity to review the texts that the United States would present at the next round of ACTA negotiation. USTR did not extend KEI an offer to view the text under an NDA.

We asked USTR for the names of the persons who had signed the NDAs and had been given access to the text. USTR declined, on the grounds that the release of the names of persons who had seen the text would undermine the national security of the United States.

The “problem” isn't copyright violation so much as extortion on the part of the entertainment industry. Copyright was only 14 years at the time of the Constitution. Now it's up to 125 years for a corporation, and life+70 years for an individual. That's too bloody long and violates the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, which grants LIMITED copyright.

Also, the U.S. doesn't like to be reminded that we broke copyright, brazenly, in the early days of the country. The folks “hurt” by our breaking copyright were British publishers and authors.

The safe harbors in the US Copyright law require ISPs to adopt and reasonably implement a policy for termination of “repeat infringers” “in appropriate circumstances”. US law currently gives ISPs considerable flexibility to determine what are “appropriate circumstances” justifying the termination of a customer’s Internet account. If the leak reports are correct, this would no longer be true. Instead, ISPs would be required to automatically terminate a customer upon a rightsholders’ repeat allegation of copyright infringement at a particular IP address.

The people? Hah.