I'm aware this "bill" was proposed in 2008. However, with the recent SOPA/PIPA scare, I figured word should be spread of the just, if not more ominous ACTA. I'm actually not sure if it's even right to call it a bill, so I'll just call it a plurilateral treaty for now (though that's really wordy). For those of you unfamiliar, ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is a plurilateral treaty between various countries such as America, Japan, Canada, South Korea, and many European countries. This ACTA treaty covers counterfeit goods such as medicines, seeds, and of course things on the internet. It, if put into effect, would create a separate police body over the Internet and various other things across the aforementioned countries, forcing your ISP to inspect ever packet of data sent and recieved from your computer to check for any chance of copyright infringement. And if you are caught, you can be permanently disconnected from the internet, fined, and put in prison. It also covers various medicines and seeds, so if you are a diabetic you may have a harder time getting a hold of insulin after this treaty passes. Issues - ACTA Stop ACTA And here is a video, these will probably explain better than I can. Say NO to ACTA - YouTube And it WILL screw things up just as much as SOPA and PIPA, if not more. India opposes it and even vows to sabotage it, I have to wonder if they truly will do anything or if it is simply a farce. On that topic, it's also bypassing the normal system and being debated in secret by people who do not represent us. And for such an earth-shattering bill especially, this is wrong. Unsurprisingly, the entertainment industry supports it. What is your opinion on the matter? Mind you it will effect most of the EU, USA, Japan, and various other countries not even solely on the internet.
**** really seems to be going to hell. First, all that SOPA and PIPA bullshit. Then, they show that they don't need bills to **** up our internet, they can do it anyway, by shutting down MegaUpload, which caused the closing of FileSonic, too. Now this. I don't see why file sharing sites had to shut down completely either. FileSonic could've just done what uploaded.to did, and blocked US access to the site. These are grim times indeed.
Great, another one. And this time it won't only be America... The fact that it's been debated in secret really bothers me. The entertainment industry is out of control and needs to be stopped.
Indeed, we'll just have to keep holding until the entertainment industry's obsolete business model kills em' out.
Here is a question all of you really need to ask yourselves, Are you so upset about this because you can no longer download pirated movies and songs or are you upset because of the likely hood of legitimate sites like youtube or Wikipedia or Facebook being shut down? If it is the former, you are the kind of person these bills are trying to catch and you should be worried and you should be caught. If the latter then by all means pro-test and do whatever you can to get the parts of them that enable the governments to shut down sites that should not be held responsible for what their users are doing. The main problem with these bills and attempted law changes and what not is that they are using a bazooka to hunt down mosquitoes. Which is never going to actually stop the mosquitoes, only destroy where they currently live. Basically what you should be supporting is a change to these laws that wont end up destroying the internet as the means of sharing free information that it started out as.
It is Unless this thread is about getting more countries to stop signing it the bill has already been signed by the US, EU, and several other countries around the world.
My intent was to simply raise awareness; I've been searching but have found nothing about it actually being put into effect, solely signed. So in a roundabout way, I suppose my post is about that. I'll edit it for more clarity once I can get an actual computer, not just my phone.
ACTA doesn't have the same impact as either SOPA or PIPA directly on either the economy or the internet as a whole and really only affects online piracy and from where the copyrighted material came from and where specifically it goes to (the packets being sent from on IP to another). Mind you I would still be against it and find it a needless invasion of personal privacy but for the reason I stated that is why the US would not likely back out of it. Unlike the Carbon Emissions pact which would cost the US billions of dollars to stay a part of (again, personal belief is that we should be in the pact for a better environment that would save more money over time) ACTA would technically make money for the large media providers (At least more money than it would cost ISP's to monitor individual packets of information for stolen content).
Nope, It was illegally downloaded for 2 bucks. /troll Now anyway, this isn't AS serious as SOPA and PIPA, But the Medication thing is a major thing that really dissapoints me.
That and a rather large and impressive movie library. But you'll note I am not getting up in arms about pirating sites being taken down. Only legitimate sites for stupid reasons.
Any act or law can get repealed with enough public outcry to force politicians to do so. Hence the prohibition's short lifespan, have you any idea how many representatives it takes to repeal an amendment? lol
What if it's simply because you believe in the proliferation and exchange of information technologies? Wouldn't ACTA impact these as well?
Just off the top of my head, isn't it 2/3 just to bring it to questions and 3/4 to make an actual change?