Well I felt like sharing my weird American feeling. So Acta will vote on June 2012 European Parliment I'm sure most of you already know. Well learn more and check out this sites... Sorry our stupid American government came up with most of this stuff. By the way I'd Like to know how the Site admins feel about Acta.

 

http://www.avaaz.org/en/index.php

http://www.stopacta.info/

why does a "trade agreement aimed at enforcing copyright and tackling counterfeited goods" need to be stopped? I couldn't see any reasoned argument on the 'stop' site.

 

As a web designer I assume then you're happy for your designs to be copied and anything you spent time creating to be used by someone else.

A lot of people see the internet as the last bastion of free speech and if these so called "anti piracy" laws do come to pass it basically means that the governments will have their foots in the door to be able to pass other laws of a similar nature until the net is "censored".... That's what's feared will happen anyway.

 

I'm not saying nothing should be done to combat piracy, but looking to control something isn't the same as competing with it.

that's the fear being promoted by people with vested interests?

Sure I'm probably overestimating at how far the censorship would go, but I for one would miss websites like Imgur and Anime streaming sites.

There's a lot of misinformation out there about ACTA. The negotiations were secret for a long time, which didn't help the public's understanding of the issue (and even caused its legitimacy to be questioned). I still don't understand everything in it, thanks to the flowery language used. ACTA doesn't seem like a "worse version of SOPA". It did at first, but the worst parts were removed from the agreement due to public pressure.

That doesn't mean it's all peachy now, though.

 

EDRi (European Digital Rights) has summarised its objections on its website. I could try to summarise this summary even further, but I'm not a great writer (and I'm also in a lazy mood ), so here are some quotes from the EDRi documents:

 

In Article 27, ACTA imposes an obligation on States to support "cooperative efforts with the business

community" to enforce criminal and civil law in the online environment. This obligation legitimises and

promotes the policing and even punishment of alleged infringements outside normal judicial frameworks.

The scale and extent of such measures is to be decided by private companies.

 

ACTA requires Internet intermediaries to disclose the personal information of alleged infringers to

rightsholders – along the lines of the current IPR Enforcement Directive, which is causing major problems for

citizens right across Europe. The practical effects of this Directive have never been assessed and the review

process is now starting. There is already evidence of serious problems with this approach, as shown

(particularly in Germany and the UK) by lawyers and alleged rightsholders using coercive tactics against

innocent users. They use the information obtained under the Directive to contact consumers and give them a

"Hobson's choice" between a costly court battle or a "settlement" payment.

^^^ The Getty images thread comes to mind, here.

 

ACTA jeopardises free speech by prioritising private-sector repressive measures aimed at copyright

protection over the fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of communication and association – rights that

are prerequisites of democracy - without guarantees of due process and equality of arms.

 

The undefined "commercial scale" limitation in ACTA is of little practical value as the proposed text goes

beyond the simple commercial scale to cover undefined "indirect economic advantage" and further still to

undefined "aiding and abetting" – which can only serve to push Internet providers to pre-emptively censor

services which they fear might be infringing, in order to avoid possible criminal prosecution

 

The digital chapter (Articles 27.2, 27.3 and 27.4) refers to the need to preserve "fundamental principles such

as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy". In the absence of any clarity about what "fundamental

principles" might mean (the drafters chose not to refer to "fundamental rights"), this appears to be entirely

unenforceable and, as a result, meaningless.

 

Worse still, the negotiators chose to avoid referring to either the right to a "fair trial" or the right to "due

process" and referred to a "fundamental principle" of international law: "fair process". Fair process, as

confirmed by the European Commission in response to Parliamentary question (E-8444/2010) is not a

principle, let alone a "fundamental principle" of international law at all. This legal fiction is repeated no fewer

than three times in Article 27 of ACTA.

 

ACTA:

- places the interests of rights-holders ahead of free speech, privacy and other fundamental rights,

- breaches EU law,

- violates the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU charter of Fundamental Rights.

 

In the US, Senate ratification was skipped by calling ACTA an agreement rather than a treaty. I don't know the particulars, but I've been told it's similar to this.

 

As to the "people with vested interests": that's everyone on the internet.

 

I'm all for an anti-piracy agreement, but not if that agreement infringes on civil rights. It's much more complicated than just enforcing copyright and tackling counterfeited goods. I urge you to read the EDRi's summary on the subject; it's only 5 one-page pdf files (on their site I linked at the top).

As a web designer I assume then you're happy for your designs to be copied and anything you spent time creating to be used by someone else.

 

False dichotomy. ACTA doesn't have a hope in hell of stopping piracy. Nothing does. The internet is just a web of virtualised trade ports for information. Everything is sharing all of the time and more can be created instantly in their millions. Any systematic attempts to thwart piracy are doomed to failure from the get-go. It's a constantly shifting battlefield with infinite potential locations.

 

It's not about being 'happy' with piracy, it's about understanding it's part of reality and unless we want to shut down the entire internet and give up the digital age it sure as hell isn't going to go away. We need to learn to accept it, not put through rights destroying act after rights destroying act in futile attempts to protect the income of out of touch movie studios.

First of all Acta is not only aimed at "Pirates" The people who steal copyrighted information and sell it for a profit but also at the people of simple download files for personal use. On top of that it opens up the doors for other laws.

 

I also am a large Open Source and creative commons guy so I know I am the odd one out here.

 

Article 24: Penalties

 

Penalties that Parties should have in their criminal system should "include imprisonment as well as monetary fines", which are sufficiently high for discouragement of actions forbidden under the treaty.

'

I feel that It should be up to your government to decide what they find fair, Its not America and Japan's job to police the globe. I also feel that jail time is a bit extreme for making counterfeit Viagra.

 

Article 27: Enforcement in the Digital Environment

Against circumvention of systems to prevent copying measures should be implemented

This Is in fuzzy text saying censure anything that might be Piracy and counterfeiting.

It's not about being 'happy' with piracy, it's about understanding it's part of reality and unless we want to shut down the entire internet and give up the digital age it sure as hell isn't going to go away. We need to learn to accept it, not put through rights destroying act after rights destroying act in futile attempts to protect the income of out of touch movie studios.

 

 

This, which is exactly why they need to stop wasting their time trying to control piracy and start competing with it.

I also feel that jail time is a bit extreme for making counterfeit Viagra.

 

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals kill and harm hundreds of thousands globally each year. Do you think a 1000 lines and sent to bed without any supper would be more appropriate?

 

This Is in fuzzy text saying censure anything that might be Piracy and counterfeiting.

 

The trouble with these all encompassing laws is that they are a sledgehammer to crack walnuts. They also provide governments with an opportunity to muscle in even further into peoples lives. The UK government used 9/11 to impose a raft of "anti-terror" laws that have mainly been enforced against the general public to reinforce the state's growing control. They have used laws passed to prevent bombings to snoop on people putting out recycling in the wrong containers in order to fine them.

 

As always there are parts of the act which need passing but there are other which are vague and intangible due to international considerations and could be used by authoritarian states, like the UK, to bring in further repression of its populations. Don't be at all surprised if a future UK state uses something like this to bring in a "Site Vetting" law, i.e. You will have to pay for some civil service department to approve a site before allowing it to go live.

 

All the "anti-cowboy" laws being passed here only affect genuine businesses not the cowboys. They are protected under the UK and EU Human Rights Act.

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals kill and harm hundreds of thousands globally each year. Do you think a 1000 lines and sent to bed without any supper would be more appropriate?

Most counterfeits are just suger pills. The only harm they do is stop grandpa from getting a hard on. now say if someone is counterfeiting Azithromycin and someone Dies from an infection. The counterfeiting laws should fine him or her and manslaughter laws should put him or her in jail. To be clear the fines should go to the families effected and not all to the governments pocket.

 

Jail time is not going to stop the real pirates. Its only going to put suspicious looking people in jail. Its like the red scare all over again.

Edited February 10, 201214 yr by Garner Designs

Most counterfeits are just suger pills. The only harm they do is stop grandpa from getting a hard on. now say if someone is counterfeiting Azithromycin and someone Dies from an infection. The counterfeiting laws should fine him or her and manslaughter laws should put him or her in jail. To be clear the fines should go to the families effected and not all to the governments pocket.

 

Jail time is not going to stop the real pirates. Its only going to put suspicious looking people in jail. Its like the red scare all over again.

 

My brother worked for Cyanamid which eventually became part of Pfizer as a Pharmaceutical Chemist. He was at one stage in charge of the fake drugs investigation section. A lot more sinister things than sugar pills have been packaged up and sold. One Chinese outfit used Urine and not Urea in one fake product.

 

The UK's policy of paying way over the odds for drugs has kept it relatively free of dodgy drugs. However I read a report that in the US around 40% of the pharmaceuticals on sale are fake. In the third world this can be a lot higher.

 

The Thalidomide catastrophe is a perfect example of how even a tested product can have terrible side effects, never mind something cooked up in a garage somewhere.

I still don't believe that Acta is right. All of the countries signing the treaty already have adequate laws. The ones that don't like Mexico are not signing it. So it will do nothing to stop counterfeiting and promote censorship.

 

Well I will put an edit on this. Mexico hasn't yet. Most likely, the American lobbyist will point their finger and you know what will happen from there.

Edited February 10, 201214 yr by Garner Designs

I still don't believe that Acta is right. All of the countries signing the treaty already have adequate laws.

 

 

In the case of the UK's ConLabLib-EU First Alliance and their Euro-Soviet masters the more laws the better. They never miss an opportunity to find new and innovative ways of criminalising and fining their populations.