ACTA - Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

[Yagan Kiely]

Don't know if anyone has heard of it (I just found it), but a worrying new 'law' is being considered. The law severely breaches privacy, in terms of Customs and ISP; and reduces fairness in relation to personal vs. profitable use.

I honestly think that laws like this are disgusting.

http://www.techcentral.ie/article.aspx?id=12145

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Count ... _Agreement

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Proposed_US_A ... ent_(2007)

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... uards.html

http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/acta/

______

http://www.trademinister.gov.au/release ... c_012.html

[imslp]

I would love it extremely if someone could submit the following Michael Geist blog entry to Slashdot. We desperately need public participation:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2815/

ACTA is absolutely ridiculous, and there should be as much of a protest against the adoption of ACTA in Canada as what happened a few months ago in opposition to Jim Prentice's proposal of a Canadian DMCA. The pressure on the Canadian copyright law by special interest groups, and their utter disregard for any moral or ethical standards, have led to changes in the copyright law blatantly reflecting their absolutely selfish interests. For example, we Canadians have been forced to pay blank media tax, yet despite this imposition there has been no counterbalancing benefit offered to the public.

And now we have ACTA in addition to a new copyright law proposal on the horizon. We must educate the public about these increasingly dangerous attempts at infringing our rights. The grassroots opposition lead by Michael Geist to the Canadian DMCA that has led to changes and delay in the legislation being tabled must be continued. As shown by the secrecy under which ACTA has been negotiated, the government does not want the intervention of citizens, because the government is not representing the interest of the vast majority of citizens. And it is up to us as citizens to force the government to consider our interests in the negotiation of any treaty, especially a treaty as major as the ACTA.

[Yagan Kiely]

What is surprising is that there isn't really any protest groups... that I can see.
Most other problems have some sort of opposition website yet this has been relatively hushed up by those involved.

[imslp]

I think it is because of the relative newness of the agreement. Wikileaks shows the disclosure date to be May 22nd. Though, had Wikileaks not leaked the document we might have not heard about it until it is actually discussed in July.

[Yagan Kiely]

I have corresponded with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade here in Australia and this is what they responded with: "We do not intend for the ACTA to bring about legislative change impacting on the privacy of anyone not involved in commercial scale trade in counterfeit or pirate material." and while that still doesn't answer a lot of questions it is a little less ridiculous.

For example, is it up to the boarder security guards to determine what is commercial?

Do companies have to have proof that people are downloading copyright material before they can obtain records from ISP providers? If so, what is the difference between the new and the now?

etc.

[Nicholas Kaye-Smith]

What is surprising is that there isn't really any protest groups... that I can see.
Most other problems have some sort of opposition website yet this has been relatively hushed up by those involved.

I first found about ACTA through http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/acta/
http://www.eff.org/action/sunlight-acta is another website about the issue.