ACTA Negotiators Refuse To Set Up More Timely Meeting For Consumer Advocates

from the who-needs-consumers? dept

Following up on the news of how ACTA negotiators hid the information about the latest round of negotiations, including scheduling the only opportunity for consumer advocates to meet with negotiators until it was too late for those consumer advocates to get to Tokyo in time for the meeting, a bunch of those groups asked the Japanese delegation to change the schedule to allow for a meeting next week, rather than on the 24th. Sean Flynn passes along the note he received (and others got nearly identical notes):
Dear Mr.Flynn

Thank you for your contact.

First of all, we regret that we could not inform you earlier of the lunch meeting.

As we just settled our program of this round this week with other parties, we have not able to inform our schedule to public beforehand.

Please kindly understand our situation.

Actually lunch time on 24 Sept is the only slot for NGO meeting.

The purpose of the lunch meeting provides an opportunity to exchange views informally between the negotiating parties and the public, not a firm consultation.

All ACTA negotiation parties recognize the importance of transparency and we are to discuss any ways to promote transparency of ACTA negotiations.

Best regards

Yoshihiro Takeda
Flynn also points us to the news that the Green Party in the EU also asked to meet with negotiators in Tokyo, and there was some hope that perhaps that the negotiators would agree to that, since the EU Parliament has made it clear that they are not happy with ACTA and may try to block it. But... no such luck:
Dear Sirs

Thank you for your message.

We understand the Greens/EFA Group's interest in the transparency very well.

The Government of Japan also recognizes the importance of the transparency in ACTA negotiations and decided to arrange a lunch meeting with the public on September 24 as you know.

However, it is with regret that we cannot arrange the meeting during the week of September 27 due to purely practical organizational reasons.

We regret that we could not inform you earlier of lunch meeting as you pointed out. As we just settled the program of ACTA negotiations in Tokyo this week with the negotiating parties, we cannot inform our lunch meeting to public beforehand. Please kindly understand our situation.

ACTA negotiating parties share the intention to promote transparency and we are to discuss any ways to promote the transparency of ACTA negotiations.

Best regards

Yoshihiro Takeda
Talk about lip service to transparency while at the same time mocking it. Also, while some supporters of ACTA seem to claim that because the documents were shown once to such public interest groups everything's perfectly transparent, it seems pretty damn obvious that those working on ACTA have done their best to keep rather important stakeholders very much out of the conversation. Of course, the industries, who are such fans of ACTA, may discover that screwing over consumers and consumer advocates comes back to bite them. You don't have much of a business without consumers after all.
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Filed Under: acta, consumer advocates, eu, green party, japan, sean flynn, tokyo


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  • identicon
    Yoshiro Taco bell, 24 Sep 2010 @ 6:48am

    the little puppy has somehting to say

    boo hoo, you bad people ACTA. YOU undemocratic people.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Designerfx (profile), 24 Sep 2010 @ 6:53am

    last statement holds true for corporations too

    corporations seem to forget that the last statement applies to them, as they are a business, too.

    All these anti-consumer decisions come around and bite companies in the ass after they're done subverting laws.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      coldbrew, 24 Sep 2010 @ 7:27am

      Re: last statement holds true for corporations too>> Blockbuster

      This is especially relevant as Blockbuster (BB) heads into bankruptcy. It's not like BB didn't have a product that was competitive with NFLX or Redbox, but the unfair treatment of their customers (e.g. excessive late fees) over a long time left BB's customers without much loyalty.

      The large residential ISPs (mobile and terrestrial) will be in a similar situation if true competition ever comes to those sectors.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Hephaestus (profile), 24 Sep 2010 @ 8:05am

        Re: Re: last statement holds true for corporations too>> Blockbuster

        "The large residential ISPs (mobile and terrestrial) will be in a similar situation if true competition ever comes to those sectors."

        competition will happen in 2 years with the FCC whitespace decision yesterday. If its not to corrupted by the incumbent ISPs.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        ltlw0lf (profile), 25 Sep 2010 @ 12:25pm

        Re: Re: last statement holds true for corporations too>> Blockbuster

        For me, I left blockbuster for netflix because they really didn't care much for their customers. I'd complain about problems, such as them sending the wrong disk, or a cracked disk...and it really appeared that they just didn't care. I understand they have no control over the postal system, but the postal system wasn't taking the DVDs out and switching them. They had no quality control and didn't really care.

        I kept receiving obvious knock-offs of videos, like someone took the real movie and sent back a burned DVD instead, and they apparently just took the disk envelope and sent it off to the next customer without checking to see that the disk inside was correct. I don't think the postal service was doing this.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2010 @ 6:58am

    A Shakespearean solution

    Add C-level executives to the lawyers.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2010 @ 7:32am

    Thank God I don't depend on the government to copy anything or to make anything.

    Short version:

    Piracy is unimpressed.
    Freedoms are being eroded but piracy goes strong.

    Is anybody going to stop backing up their videos and music? sharing with other people?

    Yah right LoL

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2010 @ 7:42am

    Who are these [explative]s, that they think they can just string us all along like this? Why do we care the the "negotiators" agree to?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    AdamBv1 (profile), 24 Sep 2010 @ 7:47am

    Transparency

    You keep using that word. I don't thing it means what you think it means. - Inigo Montoya

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2010 @ 8:06am

    Vote for the pirate party. Don't vote for any party claiming to be against ACTA, they'll stop ACTA but then they'll come up with another ACTA bill under another name. No, vote for a party that doesn't like IP altogether.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2010 @ 8:16am

    dont vote at all

    give up on this sham of democracy

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2010 @ 9:11am

    The biggest vote you can give is to vote with your wallet.

    Don't finance terrorism and the erosion of freedoms, don't give the industry and the government your money or respect because they sure don't give a f. about you.

    Every time you buy a plastic disc you are financing this terrorists that call themselves business men.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Josh Taylor, 24 Sep 2010 @ 9:14am

    Good Try, EU

    At least you tried, EU. As for the rest of you people, time to make Jesus your savior and confess your sins.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    greenbird (profile), 24 Sep 2010 @ 9:16am

    I'm not sure people really understand what's going on here. They're not subverting the laws. They're subverting freedom of speech, expression and privacy that once were the fundamental foundation of Western governments. There is no democracy without free speech. Once information is controlled so are the minds of the masses.

    They're is actually a law being considered in the Senate of the United States that allows censorship of speech based solely on opposition to certain corporate interests. And it has a large nonpartisan support base. That should scare the s**t out of everyone who actually likes having a modicum of freedom. This isn't the slippery slope. It's kicking the rock hold the avalanche back.

    Hell, in the US in the past it was difficult to impose censorship even during war when a great many lives were at stake. Now it's being imposed in the name of a few corporate interests who's business is being undermined by technological advances.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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