Is Peru Going To Get Its Own SOPA?

from the again-and-again-and-again dept

It never stops. What the entertainment industry fails to get in one place, it just looks to get implemented in the law somewhere else, so that it can point to that as an “example” for others to follow — and then often use questionable “free trade agreements” to force through similar rules. Earlier this year, we noted that Colombia rushed through a SOPA-like law after signing a free trade agreement with the US. This despite growing evidence that countries who ratchet up their IP laws don’t see much benefit from doing so.

Now we’re hearing stories that something similar may be happening down in Peru, where there’s been an ongoing (if odd) debate about how to deal with copyright infringement. Apparently, there are growing concerns that the crux of the bill will be to put the liability on third parties, including ISPs, search engines and others, with the expectation that by dumping the liability on them, they’ll somehow magically stop piracy. It’s the same old story: because the entertainment industry refuses to adapt its business models, it wants to rope in third parties and make them legally liable for propping up the failing models. Of course, all that actually will do is lead to much greater costs for users, and will make it much harder for internet companies to operate in Peru.

Hopefully, the government there doesn’t go down this particular path — especially since there are reports that the industry is hoping to use what comes out of Peru as an “example” of what other countries in the region should do as well.

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Comments on “Is Peru Going To Get Its Own SOPA?”

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23 Comments
WysiWyg (profile) says:

It COULD work...

In all fairness, creating third-party liability would effectively disconnect Peru from the Internet all together, since no one could offer a service.

While that probably wouldn’t stop ALL piracy, it would probably cut it down big time. Of course, it would also leave Peru on the refuse pile of history. Which I’m guessing the US based companies arguing for this would care about.

Anonymous Coward says:

DEAR GOD, WHEN WILL THESE PEOPLE STOP ENFORCING COPYRIGHT LAW??????????????????????????????????????????

“Dear Mike, stop being a zealot.

Sincerely, Mom and Dad

…who paid for your MBA, only to see you decrease your earning power every year and with every post on your blog. You ungrateful buffoon.”

Instead of taking Google’s money, Mike should monetize this site with recordings of his conversations with his parents.

Connect with your “fans”, Mike. Give them a “reason to buy”.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

You gotta love it when Mr. “I hate censorship” Mike Masnick blatantly censors a post.

Mike- this wasn’t up for but a few minutes in before you censored it. None of your readers are awake right now; much less enough of them to “report” this and get it pulled.

Do you really think we don’t see your hypocrisy?

out_of_the_blue says:

"don't see much benefit"... but SOME, eh?

From the link, your own title: “Research Shows Little Relationship Between Stricter IP Laws And Innovation Or Economic Growth” — IF that’s so then quit saying it’s always negative!

“because the entertainment industry refuses to adapt its business models” — No, it’s because of the inherent ease of copying rather than producing, and particularly the lure of free entertainment. Plus commercial scale grifters such as Megaupload are competing with the actual industry to divert income into their own pockets.

You’ve had years to come up with and promote a new “business model”, but haven’t. It’s a thoroughly intractable problem that arises because it’s always easier to copy than produce, and even you admit that those who produce/create should be the only ones reaping any rewards. You’ve only got various degrees of “give away and pray”, and “sell T-shirts”, and those just aren’t catching on, not least because don’t scale up to $100M movies. In the real world, producers are first concerned about recovering “sunk (or fixed) costs”, and we’re still waiting after 5 years for you to explain the key point of how those can always be recovered in absence of copyright.

What’s the most awesome term ever for adverse publicity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
And why is it the most awesome term ever? Cause Mike “Streisand Effect” Masnick sez so!

silverscarcat says:

Re: Hey, ootb...

Why should Mike have to come up with a magical formula for Hollywood to make money?

Free markets dictate that businesses that adapt and change with the times flourish, while those that don’t fade away.

When was the last time you saw people walking across the tops of trains to make sure that everything was alright?

Hint: They disappeared years ago.

What about the guys who bring ice for your ice chest? What about them? Ever since the refrigerator came into being, they haven’t been around.

Oh, hey, ootb, did you know that there was, a long time ago, a law that stated that cars could not go any faster than horses on the open highway? And that if a car was in town that they had to have people walk in front of them waving flags and warning people that a car was coming.

Imagine if we still used those laws today…

How much would we be held back today if those laws still existed?

btrussell (profile) says:

Re: "don't see much benefit"... but SOME, eh?

“In the real world, producers are first concerned about recovering “sunk (or fixed) costs”, and we’re still waiting after 5 years for you to explain the key point of how those can always be recovered in absence of copyright.”

You’ll always own your $100 000 000. What more do you want?

chillinfart (user link) says:

Peru is a disaster and they're planning a SOPA here

Here in peru, we have a lot of gaps about copyright and net neutrality.

-Lack of legal offer (Netflix and iTunes came here in last 15 months but their catalog are too limited).

-Lack of media payments. Local banks refuses to do an admissible electronic media for online payments, only two banks gives debit cards and one of them are abusing with fees.

-Useless telcos regulators. Traffic Shaping, arbitrary blocking of websites and the poor quality of the internet service (we have the rank 133th from 178 countries) are some of the worst issues that we have here.

And the first two issues (Traffic Shaping and blocking sites without reason) are curently illegal in peru, but no one was punished at the moment (specially Claro, that continue with that measures).

-Finally, lack of transparency. Talks about this law was called by our foreign trade Ministry (MINCETUR) and even appeared a site (responsabilidad-isp) for information about it. One day before first talks, the site fades with all info.

Accessnow has an english version of this misfortune. I was in the two of the talks and the lack of participation/interest was a notorius consequence.
https://www.accessnow.org/blog/2012/12/13/lessons-from-peru-a-tough-start-to-regulating-isp-liability

And MINCETUR had a bad past. They ignored a dangerous article in the FTA with the European Union (signed in past June and ratified two weeks ago), the article 254 can be used to force data monitoring and give that data to third parties under the excuse of piracy. And has a suspicious behavior about the Transpacific Agreement (TPPA), just says yes to any proposal gave by australian or american parties (thanks KEI for leaks), as the “three steps” measure for copyright exceptions.

Rekrul says:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; ISPs could easily kill such laws if they wanted to. All it would take is for a majority of the ISPs to get together and shut down for a week and explain why. Imagine if 75-90% of the internet service in a country simply stopped working. Not only would it create problems for the government directly, but you’d have millions of people calling for their heads.

Look at what blacking out a few web pages for a day did, and imagine what having no internet access for a week would do.

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