A Little Sunshine Brings Out Rapid And Well Deserved Anger Towards ACTA Treaty
from the spreading-the-word dept
Last week, I wrote a post highlighting the faulty premises behind a secretly negotiated treaty between the US and many other countries, the so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Since then a bunch of news articles have been written about ACTA, with most of the focus on how it will have border guards going through your iPod and computers to see if you have any infringing content. A bunch of folks have been submitting stories on this all week, despite the fact that we wrote about it last week. However, what's most interesting to me is how quickly this turned from a little story -- first posted to Wikileaks and a few blogs, into something that's been in major newspapers (oddly, mostly focused in Canada).Even more interesting, however, is how this has so quickly turned into activism, with some newspapers already already calling for people to stand up against ACTA to protect our privacy rights. Think about that for a second. This was a treaty on the "boring" topic of copyright, that was basically pitched by the entertainment industry to politicians who wrote it up in secret. It leaked out to a single website, and within a week there were major newspaper editorials calling for people to stand up against it, and thousands, if not millions, of people informed about the potential harm this treaty could cause. So much for slipping it under the radar.
This is really the culmination of a few different factors, including the entertainment industry's misguided and rapidly backfiring battle against consumers, that has catapulted copyright from a boring "wonkish" issue into one that people recognize effects so many aspects of their daily lives. Combined with the wonderful communications ability of the internet, it makes it harder for the entertainment industry to simply pull one over on people like this. Of course, as we've noted, the industry keeps on trying, and they love sneaking through legislation and treaties before anyone recognizes it -- but the rapid response to ACTA (which is far from over, of course) suggests that some of the industry's advantages are slipping away. Hopefully, this issue will continue to receive the attention it deserves so that there's a real debate on whether or not such a treaty is needed (it's not).
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: acta, canada, copyright, counterfeit, trade agreements, treaties
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
The USofA
eleete
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
how many more?
Is there any way to look at all of the trade agreements the US is a part of, to examine what else is faulty?
I remember when the Us shoved our copyright policy down australia's throats among other countries, so this is just as disappointing as ever.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
WTF?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Go through an iPod at the border?
This is just a waste of time, money, and effort for something that's broadcast on the radio for free, eh? That "Bridge to Nowhere" looks like a great investment- there's something to show for the effort!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Go through an iPod at the border?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Proud of my iPod files
Please give some suggestion to this mess if you have some.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Free Flashlights for Everyone
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Proofread, proofread, proofread ...
Proofread, please.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Proofread, proofread, proofread ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Proofread, proofread, proofread ...
proof read is two words
Sorry, but it's one word.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Tunes on phone
I recently read that searching someone's computer (without a warrant) was an invasion of privacy. Would this not fall under the same category of reasonably expected privacy?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The U.S. government has argued in a pending court case that its authority to protect the country's border extends to looking at information stored in electronic devices such as laptops without any suspicion of a crime. In border searches, it regards a laptop the same as a suitcase.
"It should not matter . . . whether documents and pictures are kept in 'hard copy' form in an executive's briefcase or stored digitally in a computer. The authority of customs officials to search the former should extend equally to searches of the latter," the government argued in the child pornography case being heard by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
area163 youtube.ca
companies filtering, throttling and ad-insertion (all money maskers)
all lead to a un-free net.(but profitable one. Bell started video on demand weeks after filtering)
they HAVE killed kenny already.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
or
KickThemAllOut.org (or dot com, i can't remember)
I wouldn't plug someone else's site, but geez, STOP TALKING AND START DOING.
THE PEOPLE HAVE (HAD) THE POWER!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]