Canada may ransack travelers for pirated video and music at border, U.S. playing along

 

Canada is about to prove itself good friends with movie studios and record companies, trying to pass the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) we’ve been hearing about for the past few months. The idea behind this proposed international agreement is to search iPods, mp3 players and electronic devices for pirated videos and music at Canada’s borders, and get other countries in on the crazy ransacking of people’s rights, too. The agreement also aims to stop peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent.

What gets us steamed is one of the main proponents of such Constitution-flaunting (and secretly negotiated) laws here in the U.S. is Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), whose top four campaign contributions in 2006 were from Time Warner ($21,000), News Corp ($15,000), Sony ($14,000) and Disney ($13,550). Other Washington politicians are also listed as having their palms greased by the Hollywood greedmeisters.

So digital content will be the new contraband? Seems like just as the moronic "War on Drugs" winds down, here’s a brand new way to violate citizens’ rights, shaking them down for a few tunes. How will this be verified? What if we ripped the songs from CDs we legally own? What if we bought a Blu-ray disc and made a digital backup to watch on the iPhone while traveling? This is getting out of hand.

Wikileaks and UberReview, via Boing Boing

Leaked ACTA Treaty Will Outlaw P2P [Copyright]

 

ACTA—the misleadingly named "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement"—is the worldwide copyright treaty that's being negotiated behind closed doors, and that will create a sort of global DMCA if continues in its current state. Now Wikileaks has posted a draft of the treaty, and Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow gives his take:

Among other things, ACTA will outlaw P2P (even when used to share works that are legally available, like my books), and crack down on things like region-free DVD players. All of this is taking place out of the public eye, presumably with the intention of presenting it as a fait accompli just as the ink is drying on the treaty.

Wikileaks points out that the U.S. politician behind ACTA is Howard Berman from California, a Democrat whose top four campaign contributors for 2006 were Time Warner ($21,000), News Corp ($15,000), Sony Corp of America ($14,000), and Walt Disney Co ($13,550).

So what can you do, other than shake your head in disgust? Well, here's a list of members of the subcommittee overseeing the U.S. side of things, so you could start by seeing if your rep is listed and contacting him or her directly. One Boing Boing reader suggests contacting your representative regardless of committee membership—you can find the correct contact information here using your zip code or address.

"Proposed US ACTA multi-lateral intellectual property trade agreement (2007)" [Wikileaks via Boing Boing]
(Photo:Getty)

Indicted Saudi gets $80 million US contract

 

ABC News reports on the humorous story of Gaith Pharaon, a Saudi financier who is wanted by the FBI for alleged bank fraud that cost US taxpayer $1.7 billion. The funny part is that the US military just awarded him an $80 million contract to supply jet fuel to US military bases in Afghanistan.

The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.

As a purely coincidental aside: "Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy."

Link (via Reason Hit & Run )

Even Garbage Bags Are Not Immune To The Grocery Shrink Ray [Grocery Shrink Ray]

 

Now that you have to buy more packages of your favorite orange juice, ice cream, and butter to get the same amount of the product as you used to get in one package... you're bound to have more garbage, right? Just a little bit more?

Well,that's just too bad for you, because even the trash bags are not immune from the evil grocery shrink ray.

Readerannelise13 says:

As I was picking up an 80-pack of Glad trash bags at the store last week, I thought to myself "Didn't there used to be around 90 per package for this exact same price?" Sure enough, when I checked the old box back at my house there were 96 in it!

You can't win, can you?

Comcast Starts "Net Neutral" Slowdowns of Heavy Broadband Users [Comcast]

 

Comcast is finally rolling out its "net neutral" network management scheme, starting with customers in Chambersburg, PA and Warrenton, VA. As we've explained before, Comcast says of the new plan that "heavy users, who are doing things like conducting numerous or continuous large file transfers, may experience slightly longer response times for some online activities, until the period of network congestion ends." And it doesn't matter whether it's BitTorrent or gobs of GooTube.

There are reasons behind the rush to curb heavy data users, whether or not they're asshole pirates, are simultaneously simple and complex, but one of the major reasons is that content flowing over the pipes increasingly competes with cable's TV offerings. Literally in Comcast's case, since it needs as much bandwidth as it can get to deliver HD content. We're keeping our eyes peeled for more about its rumored plan to test data caps, much like Time Warner is doing—it's increasingly looking like the future of broadband in the US. [Threat Level