A few weeks ago, the entire draft of the ACTA leaked with some scary proposals that would severely limit individual privacy, consumer rights, and online freedom.

The U.S. Trade Representative, who has been pushing for the ACTA’s secrecy all this time, has promised that the trade agreement will do nothing to change U.S. law. But this is a blatant lie. Trade agreements like WIPO and TRIPPS were used in the past to bypass public debate since the receive less attention that actual legislation. Once these trade agreements are passed, lobbyists claim each country must change its laws in order to comply with their international obligations. ACTA is even more creative by calling it an executive agreement. And now that the entire draft has been leaked, the USTR says its willing to release it.

I’ve gone over a bit of the ACTA, but now the full document verifies many of the fears I and others have had about the agreement.  The draft includes proposals for borders searches of iPods (without probable cause), secondary liability for infringement without safe harbors or exceptions, making Google and eBay pretty much illegal and even forcing your ISP to be liability for anything its users do online. The ACTA even allows for injunctions to prevent “imminent infringement”. Yes, Minority Report style pre-crime prevention is coming to intellectual property first. Also, there would be no more due process for online anonymity and intellectual property cases get special priority within the court system while also evolving intellectual property crimes from a civil issue to a criminal offence. This means rather than being sued by the effected party, the government becomes a free police service for corporations. The U.S. doesn’t need the ACTA for this. Thanks to the PRO-IP law, our Department of Justice already prioritizes copyright infringement over less important crimes like identity fraud.

Slowly, public officials are noticing the lack of transparency and dangerous provisions in the trade agreement.  The E.U. Parliament voted 663-13 against the ACTA, but this hasn’t stopped the negotiations from continuing. President Obama, unfortunately, remains a strong supporter of the ACTA.

With almost no debate and minor opposition, the United Kingdom passed the Digital Economy Bill which is pretty much a wish list from the entertainment industry looking to trample over individual’s rights in order to prop up their obsolete business models.

The Digital Economy Bill includes a “three-strikes” type provision to ban copyright infringers from the internet, based on accusations from copyright holders, not the courts. This will also make open wireless networks impossible as the law holds the owner of the signal responsible for any infringement.  Let’s ignore the research that shows the costs of forcing ISPs to police their uses costs more than the already inflated lost revenue from the entertainment industry.

The law was pushed though the UK Parliament using a system called wash-up that avoided most of the debate and scrutiny a law would normally receive. Of course, let’s not forget Lord Peter Mandelson personally helped orchestra this law after having a ritzy dinner with the head of the MPAA (that hasn’t stopped Mandelson from infringing on others’ copyrights).

So ISPs are now legally forced to basically subsided entertainment companies who are unwilling to recognize changes in the marketplace.  Nothing in this bill reveals why people will suddenly start paying for content.  Rather, these laws only push file-sharing and piracy into more fragmented and underground areas making them even harder to track.

One of my favorite sayings is “Those who can’t innovate, litigate.” Many patent defends claim the patent system protects small inventors, but it more often seems as a way for large businesses to stifle competition. Look at recent lawsuit announcements and it’s a who’s who of no longer relevant companies who ceded their market leads by failing to continue innovating with market.

Apple has seemed like a company more focused on innovation. Even as Jobs proudly announced more than 200 patents related to the iPhone, Apple appeared to want to seriously compete in the mobile space by offering a more compelling product.  Those 200 patents did little to stop the many patent lawsuits lodged by marketplace losers against Apple including most recently Nokia (think, what was the last good Nokia phone).

Now Apple, rather than continuing to fund and innovate on the iPhone, has sued HTC, the maker of many Google Android phones, over several patents.  HTC and Google Android have been stealing much of Apple’s thunder in the mobile space and are both growing very rapidly (thanks, in part, to Google’s free and open-sourced operating system allowing HTC and other phone manufacturers to innovate and create compelling phones). Apple apparently thinks its worth spending millions of dollars on lawyers to sue HTC rather than spend that time and money making an even better iPhone.

Apple suing HTC, and by association Google, is a thinly veiled way of saying they’re scared of competition. Yes, Apple has a legal right to sue over patent infringement (even though most patent lawsuits are not over willful infringement but because two companies came up with the same idea but one patented it first), but what is gained from these lawsuits, aside from making lawyers richer. Rather than out-innovate and compete in the marketplace, as is object of capitalism, Apple would rather sue to keep quality products out of consumers hands. Enjoy that AT&T 3G. We might get stuck with it.

Music labels (and copyright maximists) often claim they need copyright to benefit the musicians, but their actions more often contradict that. Unlike the U.S., Canada replaced its compulsory license system (where anyone can pay a set amount to use a song) with a permissions based system meaning the copyright holder has to give permission for each use of their music.  Record labels have reportedly been releasing musicians’ music, such as on compilation discs, without permission nor paying any royalties tracing back to the late 1980s.  The labels have even kept a “pending list” of all the musicians they have not paid.  The list includes more than 300,000 songs from major names like Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce.  Jazz musician Chet Baker is leading a lawsuit against the labels claiming at least $50 million is owed to him.

The labels could face liability of $6 billion using the same infringement fines the label seeks from file-sharers ($20,000 per infringement multiplied by 300,000 songs).

David Basskin, the President and CEO of the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd., said in an affidavit that “the record labels have devoted insufficient resources to identifying and paying the owners of musical works on the Pending Lists” adding it would be “an unproductive use of their time.”

There are several other examples of record labels and collection agencies collecting money that never makes it to musicians from creative book-keeping, multiplatinum albums make no money, violating contracts to release music without permission, or just holding onto money because they can.

The reason record labels are so desperate to save CD sales is because that’s their main source of income – and the revenue only works when record labels have full control over distribution. When they have full control, they can charge whatever they want, like $20 for 12 songs,  and treat musicians as they always have – badly. Technology has dropped the cost of making and distribution music so cheap that musicians can control their own destinies – they don’t need labels anymore. Labels served a valuable purpose when there was no alternative. They provided the expensive recording, distribution, and marketing required to make a band successful.

With a computer and a website, almost anyone can make a go at being a musician. This means more music – more people making money from their music (whether through merchandise, live performances, or other inventive business models) and more music to listen to and enjoy.  The labels have lost control over the marketplace and this is a good thing as it will allow the marketplace to grow. Don’t believe me? Look at the U.K.