My ACTA Dinner Invitation To Bert Johnson

Recently, Michigan Senator Bert Johnson celebrated the poetic justice of the death of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) by slamming its sponsors.

SOPA and its Senatorial counterpart, Protect IP Act (PIPA) may not have been the most publicly engaged pieces of legislation but it did open discussions.  Sadly, no one really understands the motivation behind the formation of national intellectual property policy because it was international.

The United States, along with China and Russia, were a handful of countries that would not comply with international treaties regarding the interference of commerce, or rather counterfeiting. Counterfeiting and piracy was not limited to the recording and film industries, it  was far-reaching into the realms of electronics, food and pharmaceuticals.

One main target for implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) international treaties and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

So what we have is an international stage where the issues encompass the economic impact of fraud.

Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy

With the help of the SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United the phenomenon of unlimited amounts of money from secret contributors, the anonymous funding of movements began to skew the public perception with asymmetrical background on SOPA.

Quintessentially, the public drank the SOPA Propaganda soup.

Do not get me wrong, SOPA had issues but I would have wanted more input from other SEO experts such as myself.  Alas I entered the equation far to late to be considered as a strong coefficient for the parsimony of the legislation.

So, here's is what happened behind the scenes.

While everyone was rallying against the possibility of SOPA censoring free speech and creativity of the internet, Google was constructing mutational algorithms to prepare for just that: manipulating commerce through the process of filtering information.



It seems SOPA was distractionary legislation to ACTA (Anti-Counterfieting Trade Agreement)an international treaty which the European Union just signed and is expected to be implemented soon.



Here is the link for Stop ACTA http://www.stopacta.info/

I will not argue that the music and film industries are working with antiquated models, but so are the majority of corporations, all of whom register its intellectual property and have demonstrated substantial increases in corporate profits along with a parallel correlation of government subsidies.

The point is that while everyone was mesmerized with the ability of an international community to support major sites going black, ACTA was passed in the silence of the night behind closed doors.

SOPA contained strong parameters for the measurement of intellectual property.  Any tangible good that is registered with the federal entities of either the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or the U.S. Copyright Office and granted the federal marking, is intellectual property.   (As a rule of thumb, if it does not have the federal marking, it is not intellectual property).  The United States even has established what is called "fair use" standards for using intellectual property.



The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is warehoused in the U.S. Department of Commerce meaning, under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Congress has the vested powers to protect individuals and the States from the interference of commerce.

"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

The U.S. Copyright Office is located in the Library of Congress. When there is fraud, be it counterfeiting or piracy, it contaminates the historical record of the nation by rewriting history and preventing the Congress to obviate policy. 

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The key word is "peace". Interference in the recording of the nation's history disrupts the legislative process to ensure peace.  Once this tenet of the First Amendment is violated, peace, the government is empowered to protect the people, pursuant to the General Welfare Clause in the U.S. Constitution. The following is an excerpt of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States, called the General Welfare Clause:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Protection of commerce is in the best interests of the nation.  Fraud is economic domestic violence.

How the nation generates domestic products is part of our national treasure and should not be violently pilfered with counterfeiting and piracy.

Violence, be it verbal, emotional, physical, or economic, becomes grounds for government intervention, or rather the calling of the police to maintain the peace. When fraud of intellectual property happens you have an economic insurrection, pursuant to the General Welfare Clause.

ACTA is vague whereby arbitrary and capricious standards may be applied in the determination of whether something is intellectual property.  Not only that, its enforcement mechanisms are not transparent therefore lacking accountability.  I fear ACTA and now that you are briefly educated upon it, so should you.

In summation, Senator Johnson, instead of attacking the two selected lawmakers who have worked for the last 7 years obviating the potential impact of ACTA, perhaps it would behoove you to first get to know all the guests at the intellectual property dinner table and commerce expansion courses being served.

A true characteristic of a charismatic leader is to generate alternative solutions.  Feel free to bring a dish to the dinner.

United Nations Report on UNCITRAL Colloquium on International Commercial Fraud