<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt"><div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">I just got through with doing a phone interview for kpfa news about the ACTA protest we had today. Tune in at 6PM tonight to hear it at 94.1 FM in the Bay Area, channel 967 on Comcast cable tv, or <A href="http://www.kpfa.org">www.kpfa.org</A> . The news will be archived at kpfa.org in case you miss it. Thanks.</SPAN></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto"></SPAN> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">Sincerely,</SPAN></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto"></SPAN> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">John Thielking<VAR id=yui-ie-cursor></VAR></SPAN></div>
<div><BR></div>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 14pt">
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; LINE-HEIGHT: 0; MARGIN: 5px 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; HEIGHT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 0px; BORDER-TOP: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-TOP: 0px" class=hr readonly="true" contenteditable="false"></DIV><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Spencer Graves <spencer.graves@prodsyse.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> John Thielking <pagesincolor@yahoo.com> <BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Cc:</SPAN></B> sosfbay discussion group <sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org>; "scc-mta-general@yahoogroups.com" <scc-mta-general@yahoogroups.com>; Donna Wallach <dbwall@earthlink.net> <BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:42 AM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [GPSCC-chat] Protest ACTA today, Feb 11, 2012 at San
Jose City Hall 12-2PM<BR></FONT></DIV><BR>
<DIV id=yiv1942674677>
<DIV>Just a reminder: <BR><BR><BR> Protest today noon - 2 PM, City Hall. <BR><BR><BR> A more descriptive name for the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" is the "Advancing Corruption and Tyranny Agreement", in my judgment, because the primary effect of this agreement is to provide the government with legal arguments for attacking almost any web site they don't like, shutting it down and persecuting the owners. Current law was used on 31 January 2012 to block a video of an American Sign Language interpretation of Gnarls Barkley song Crazy (http://questioncopyright.org/). I estimate that abuse of power by the mainstream commercial media in the US, ABC-Disney, CBS, NBC-GE, Fox, CNN, is costing the average American family $48,000 per year in lost income; that's the increase in the difference between average and median family income since 1970. One tiny
portion of this is the $1.6 billion of US taxpayers' money used to support the Egyptian state terror system in 2010. <BR><BR><BR> Best Wishes, <BR> Spencer <BR> <BR><BR>On 2/4/2012 11:17 PM, John Thielking wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fff; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; COLOR: #000; FONT-SIZE: 14pt">
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=7><B>Protest Against ACTA</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=7><B>and</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=7><B>Decolonize The Internet</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=3><B>Protest 12PM-2PM, Saturday, February 11, 2012 at San Jose City Hall Plaza at 4<SUP>th</SUP> and E. Santa Clara St, San Jose, CA </B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><B></B> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal" align=left><FONT size=3>Ever since the Internet was first formed, the high tech settlers have spread across the great plains of the Internet, scooping up domain names and putting up their signs saying “open for business”. Initially, this didn't drive anyone off of their land or cost anyone their job. However, the proprietary rights associated with publishing material on a web site are fundamentally different from publishing the same material in a book. The material in a book may be reused for a commercial purpose if it is only paraphrased and is not even covered by copyright when such use is made. A step up from this use is the defense of “fair use”, which allows news organizations to use brief quotations or even entire works (such as news feeds) in their broadcasts or in print for the benefit of their for profit institutions without having to pay royalties to the original copyright holders or enter into special
contracts for each use they make of copyrighted material. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, 1/6 of the US economic output is based on such types of “fair use”. Note that “fair use” often does not extend to just any old commercial use.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal" align=left> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal" align=left><FONT size=3>On the Internet, many web sites throw this community contract of copyright law out the window and substitute in its place draconian Terms Of Use contracts. The TOUs often state that no information contained on the web sites may be used to make derivative works or for commercial purposes. A prime example is a section from the TOU on <A href="http://google.com/" target=_blank>Google.com</A>:</FONT></DIV>
<OL start=8>
<OL start=2>
<LI>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">You should be aware that Content presented to you as part of the Services, including but not limited to advertisements in the Services and sponsored Content within the Services may be protected by intellectual property rights which are owned by the sponsors or advertisers who provide that Content to Google (or by other persons or companies on their behalf). You may not modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on this Content (either in whole or in part) unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google or by the owners of that Content, in a separate agreement.</DIV></LI></OL></OL>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=left><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; FONT-WEIGHT: normal" align=left><FONT size=3>It would seem that even the act of reproducing this quote from the Google terms on this flier violates those same terms. According to these terms, apparently Youtube videos and Google Books can not be used to make derivative works. Even just paraphrasing and thereby reusing the information contained in such works is “using the Content” which is prohibited. Indeed, the Supreme Court just recently ruled that works that are in the public domain (such as the works on Google Books) can be copyrighted over again and taken out of free, public circulation. (Workers' World Feb 2, 2012 vol. 54 no 4.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This state of affairs marks the beginning of the problem that we now face with ACTA (the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) and similar initiatives such as SOPA and PIPA.</DIV>
<DIV><VAR id=yiv1942674677yui-ie-cursor></VAR> </DIV>
<DIV>See the reverse side of this flier for a discussion of ACTA and similar initiatives such as <BR>Lamar Smith's Internet snooping bill, HR 1981.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><B>ACTA includes the following, according to Spencer Graves of the Santa Clara County Green Party:</B></FONT></DIV>
<OL>
<LI>
<DIV>It empowers governments to take down Internet Service Providers (ISPs), not just web sites, it doesn't like. I don't know what recourse a targeted web site or ISP might have to the courts.</DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV>Security forces at airports and border crossings are authorized to search your cell phone, MP3 player or computer for pirate copies of anything and confiscate or destroy it if they find something they don't like. (No search warrant required.)</DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV>ACTA was negotiated in secret and signed by the US and several other countries. The Bush and Obama administrations successfully quashed Freedom of Information Act requests on the grounds that disclosure would cause "damage to the national security.”<BR><BR>A separate initiative is Lamar Smith's Internet snooping bill, HR 1981.</DIV></LI></OL>
<DIV dir=ltr id=yiv1942674677Section7>
<DIV dir=ltr id=yiv1942674677Section8>
<DIV dir=ltr id=yiv1942674677Section9>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr id=yiv1942674677>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV>According to an e-mail from Demandprogress.org:</DIV>
<DIV><A name=yui_3_2_0_1_13284221985462827 rel=nofollow></A>The ACLU, EFF, Demand Progress, and 25 other civil liberties and privacy groups have expressed our opposition to this legislation. Will you join us, by emailing your lawmakers today?... ...<B>ISPs would collect and retain your data whether or not you're accused of a crime. </B>Supporters shamelessly dubbed it the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act," but our staunchest allies in Congress are calling it what it is: an all-encompassing Internet snooping bill. Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California -- a SOPA hero who also led Democratic opposition to this bill -- said, "It represents a data bank of every digital act by every American [that would] let us find out where every single American visited Web sites."</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><B></B> </DIV>
<DIV><B>The current status of ACTA, according to Wikipedia, is that the EU has signed it, but not completely ratified it as only 22 of 27 countries have ratified it. The treaty goes into full effect when 6 of the 9 countries (or groups in the case of the EU) that have signed it ratify it. The US has likely not ratified it. Forbes.com presents a slightly different account, saying that the treaty is an executive agreement that doesn't require ratification by the US Senate for example after it is signed. Many protests are planned across Europe for February 11, 2012 to protest the signing of ACTA.</B></DIV>
<DIV><B></B> </DIV>
<DIV><B>There are three petitions to sign to try to stop these two initiatives from going into effect. They are located here:</B></DIV>
<DIV><B><A href="https://www.accessnow.org/page/s/just-say-no-to-acta" rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT color=#810081>https://www.accessnow.org/page/s/just-say-no-to-acta</FONT></A></B></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><B><A href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_acta/?cl=1547510096&v=12300" rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT color=#000000><FONT face=arial><FONT size=2>http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_acta/</FONT></FONT></FONT></A> </B></DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.blahblah.com/" rel=nofollow target=_blank>http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/snooping/</A></DIV>
<DIV>Please take a moment and type in these URLs into your web browser and sign the petitions. Thank you.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This protest action is sponsored by <A href="http://www.peacemovies.com/" rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT color=#810081>www.peacemovies.com</FONT></A>, a web site that hopes to make its author a living through the “fair use” or the not copyright protected use of copyrighted material available on the Internet. One of the sites that is used by Peacemovies.com is <A href="http://www.mercurynews.com/" rel=nofollow target=_blank>www.mercurynews.com</A>, which has a very clear statement in its terms of use policy that the material on the site may be reused by viewers under the exception to copyright law defense known as “fair use”, which ultimately means that the paraphrasing of information taken from the site and used for commercial purposes does not violate any copyright law or agreement. Please take a moment and subscribe to the Mercury News. Thank you.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><B><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" size=2>Peacemovies.com advocates overturning the laws that permit TOU contracts to be formed that deprive Internet users of their rights to “fair use” of content that is provided for free on the Internet.</FONT></B></DIV></DIV><BR>
<FIELDSET class=yiv1942674677mimeAttachmentHeader></FIELDSET> <BR><PRE>_______________________________________________
sosfbay-discuss mailing list
<A class=yiv1942674677moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org">sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org</A>
<A class=yiv1942674677moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://lists.cagreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss" rel=nofollow target=_blank>http://lists.cagreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss</A></PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR><PRE class=yiv1942674677moz-signature>--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph: 408-655-4567
web: <A class=yiv1942674677moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="http://www.structuremonitoring.com/" rel=nofollow target=_blank>www.structuremonitoring.com</A>
</PRE></DIV></DIV><BR><BR></DIV></DIV></div></body></html>