ACTA – which is The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is rearing it’s ugly head and I bet most people have no clue at all what this means to them and people across the globe.
SOPA’s supporters are pushing two agreements: ACTA and TPP1. ACTA would criminalize users, encourage internet providers to spy on you, and make it easier for media companies to sue sites out of existence and jail their founders. Sound familiar? That’s right, ACTA is from the same playbook as SOPA, but global. Plus it didn’t even have to pass through the U.S. Congress.
TPP goes even farther than ACTA, and the process has been even more secretive and corrupt. Last weekend (we wish this was a joke) trade negotiators partied with MPAA (pro-SOPA) lobbyists before secret negotiations in a Hollywood hotel, while public interest groups were barred from meeting in the same building.
Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a secretive backdoor track that–even though it creates new laws–is miles removed from democracy. Trade negotiators are unelected and unaccountable, so these agreements have been very hard for internet rights groups to stop.
But now the tide is turning. Fueled by the movement to stop SOPA, anti-ACTA protests are breaking out across the EU, which hasn’t ratified ACTA. The protests are having an impact: leaders in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have backtracked on ACTA.4 Now a massive round of street protests in over 200 cities is planned for this Saturday February 11th.
As an example here’s a snippet from foxnews.com that might put some perspective on things…
According to a Sept. 19, 2011 article on foxnews.com, Joel Tenenbaum, a 28-year-old student attending Boston University, was fined $675,000 for illegal downloads. That’s $22,500 for each of the 30 songs he was found liable of pirating, according to a July 31, 2009 techdirt.com article by Mike Masnick.
Now if that isn’t scary stuff, I’m not sure what is.
What’s your opinion on this?
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
