Sign Petition: Please Submit ACTA to the Senate for Ratification as Required by the Constitution for Trade Agreements (Horrifically slow to reach late Friday night due to "maintenance issues")
Thought SOPA Was Bad? 10 Reasons to Oppose ACTA
So, we've shot down SOPA and PIPA. Congratulations Internets for a job well done. Mission accomplished, right? Not so much. While that's two bad pieces of legislation pushed back, there's much more where that came from. Leaving aside existing nastiness like the DMCA, we also have the even nastier Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (PDF). How bad is it? Bad enough that the European Parliament's rapporteur for ACTA (Kader Arif) resigned over it today (January 27, 2012). Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, President Obama has already ratified ACTA on behalf of the United States.See: Blog post in full
Informational Links on ACTA:
(EFF) Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: What is ACTA?
(CNN Fortune) Meet SOPA's evil twin, ACTA
(Ars Technica) Secret US cables reveal: ACTA was far too secret
(Boing Boing) WikiLeaks ACTA cables confirm it was a screwjob for the global poor
(WikiLeaks) WikiLeaks.org Category: ACTA
(WikiPedia) Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
The Constitution requires 2/3rd of the Senate to ratify treaties but Obama will not send it up stating his signature is all that is needed.
ReplyDeleteACTA was negotiated in secret without any input from the public, tech or Internet industries or civil liberties groups. It was signed when few were paying attention to copyright and Internet censorship issues.
There is still a chance though. Call your Senators and demand they force Obama to send ACTA up for consideration in the Senate. That is the only way to stop it now.
Is TPP out to completely abolish fair use?
ReplyDeleteTrans Pacific Partnership Article 4, Section 1:
"Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary."
This line would destroy fair use and without fair use say goodbye to freedom of speech and usher in the tyranny of the copyright owner.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120203/02333517646/real-goal-regulating-buffer-copies-so-hollywood-can-put-tollbooth-innovation.shtml
Did anyone actually expect anything else? I mean really, at this point only extremely naive idiots (Vast Majority of Liberals) truly believe that Obama cares about preserving the freedoms of the common man in this nation.
ReplyDelete