Some of the better ideas in the computing industry never make it into stores, and not because of expensive hardware, complex code or inadequate bandwidth. You can blame laws that keep otherwise desirable products off of the market. […]
Want a program to copy a DVD to your iPod? You can’t pick one up in a shop, thanks to the 1998 vintage Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA bans that software, along with other tools that might help you use movie downloads, e-books and other « protected » files in ways not specifically allowed by their vendors. […]
This Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, represents an attempt by the United States and other countries to set common rules for violations of intellectual-property laws. The United States hopes to use ACTA to export its laws, but in the process it might have to import others. […]
Much information about ACTA has come from leaked documents posted to such sites as http://wikileaks.org; other details have been pried out through Freedom of Information Act requests by such groups as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Knowledge Ecology International. […]
ACTA’s first problem lies in the idea of making the DMCA a world standard. […]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/13/AR2009111300852.html