By xaosseed
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is shaping up to be a stupendous pain in the ass - particularly where “the proposed agreement would allow border officials to search laptops, MP3 players, and cellular phones for copyright-infringing content.”
Ok - I go and scour my laptop and mp3 player and make sure I’ve only got mp3’s I’ve ripped off CD’s I own - lets say I go super paranoid and don’t include CD’s that were given to me by other people who bought then, or which I’ve passed on to others afterwards. Lets say I don’t have any up and coming artists who’s work doesn’t have CD’s that I’ve only got as podcasts, free downloads, mixtapes or whatever. Lets say I leave out anything like mashups that might samples stuff (even under fair use grounds).
So now I have a laptop with a couple of gigs of squeaky clean music, and Ipod ditto and a phone that is capable of playing mp3s (even though I never use it as such for battery longevity reasons). Three pieces of tech I could reasonably be expected to have on me going through an international border, and now all must be searched, potentially seized. I arrive at the border of CopyrightLand because I’m on holidays, or I’ve been sent there on a business trip and frankly can’t survive long flights without music (and from August, every flight to anywhere will be a long flight).
And so, up I pitch - and the guy/gal takes my stuff, checks them, finds they contain a very large quantity of music… and…? Then what, he says are they legit, I say yes, whether I have all the CD’s hermetically preserved back home or whether I’ve pirated the lot by streaming through someone elses WiFi connection (for extra illegalocity). So, customs guy has me, a bunch of devices and a pile of music… and what does he do? How can I prove that I legitimately walked the tightrope of fair-use rights and am infringing no copyrights with whats on my machines? Will he just default confiscate everything to be sure? I’m sure if its anything like every other border security thing, we, Jo(e) Q Citizen will have zero recourse if they do - therefore border security is incentivised to just take everything, ‘just in case’, because they will get in no trouble for erring on the side of caution, but may get yelled at if they let the guys from the Pirates Bay through on the wave.
I’m hoping the sheer unenforceability of it will make this less of a legalistic horror but I’m not certain. The EU has a decent (relatively speaking) track record of dealing with the more lunatic copyright infringement stuff but with *everyone* else on board for this I worry.
Mainly, I worry because even if the EU stays out, it makes transatlantic flight *even* more of a fucking hassle - because as soon as TSA decides to look at you, you can be dissappeared, and where previously as a white, working age Anglophone I was minimally worried, if ‘ipod’ and ‘laptop’ turn into red flags then thats me square in their sights - and while I could easily create a ‘travel only’ ipod which is entirely kosher and above board it still doesn’t answer the basic question of how the hell do I *prove* its entirely legit and above board if they stop me?
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2nd of June, 2008
“and now all must be searched, potentially seized.”
Change “must” to “may:” “the proposed agreement would allow border officials to search laptops…” (emphasis mine).
There are big shiny signs all over Dublin airport that say I can’t bring knitting past security, but I’ve done so every time since I took up the damn hobby. People drive all over California without insurance, even though they’re legally required to be insured. Stuff like this only becomes an issue for Joe Random when he starts pissing off the people at security and/or customs — as a working age white Anglophone, you’re less likely to be stopped for anything, won’t have your iPod or laptop searched, and won’t have to explain that yes, all those gigs of music are indeed freely available podcasts.
Technically, I believe you can already be stopped and searched extensively if you’re suspected of being up to no good. Crossing borders was never meant to be easy or fun. ;)
2nd of June, 2008
Border guards can and do already do this. I know of one person who was searched going in to Canada (they missed tens of gigs of data). It seems like the white’n'nerdy look is a disadvantage in this case.
As with all attempts to control behaviour with tech, it’s ridiculous and pointless. The solution is 1) to have a guest login account with no access to any mp3s. 2) have all mp3s on removable media and bin the media before you get to customs.
Bruce Schneier explores the issue here:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/crossing_border.html
3rd of June, 2008
This is beyond impractical though when you consider the variations in intellectual property rights between countries. For example, in some countries it is ok to make copies of your own cds for archive purposes (or transfer music from your cd to your mp3 player). But in the UK at the moment it is not, though there is strong pressure to change this. If you rip your own cd in the UK at the moment for the purpose of putting that music on your ipod you have committed a crime. So what happens when you go from a country where it is legal to one where it is not? I can’t see this agreement going anywhere practical.
4th of June, 2008
The thing that amuses me about the whole copyright infringement thing is that the corporations who are complaining loudly about it are the very ones selling the technology which enables it.
I doubt it’ll become much of a concern, because Sony et al aren’t so dumb as to let the personal media player and home-recording tech markets disappear.