Crafters of ACTA to Blame for Confused Reactions

    • The problem that our sweet BEN ROONEY isn't even mentioning is that ISPs will be required to police their users. The websites that we visit wont be private any more. That's the problem we are talking about, not the bs he is writing about.

    • ...and one more thing, the negotiating parties did not went public, WIKILEAKS leaked ACTA papers in 2008. And I will say - well done Wikileaks.

      so much lies in this blog I can't resist but laugh it out.

    • @oak - Sweet? Have you seen my picture?
      The point about ACTA is that it doesn't affect existing law. If your country's legal code does not allow for that, then ACTA won't change that (see article 27.4). These are matters of national competency.
      My own view is that the procedure by which the agreement was drawn up lacked any transparency (for no apparent reason). However when you actually read the treaty and understand its legal status, and understand its purpose, it is not the end of the world as we know it. It does not change existing EU and most national law.
      However, I think that Mr. Zimmerman's point is a good one about the potential for exertion, but that is not a critique of the agreement itself, it is about diplomacy. I also think that Prof. van Eecke makes a very good point about the potential harm, and the parties need to be very mindful of that.

    • The main issue is that once you sign an international agreement like this, then you are bound to it and cannot change your domestic laws in ways that would contradict the agreement. It doesn't matter that your current laws are in line with ACTA.

      Copyright has grown way out of proportion in terms of length of protection. It needs to be cut back substantially. We have let this happen, since there are strong forces trying to extend protections, but the general public is indifferent about it, since for them it just sounds like a technicality that wouldn't affect their lives. They are wrong.

      Patent law is another similar construction. Why is it that 20 years is an optimal number to promote scientific progress? Well it isn't, it was just a random number cooked up a few hundred years ago. Current law is inflexible as different fields clearly require different lengths of protection. 20 years in software is madness, but for pharmaceuticals it might just be the right number due to the substantial costs and time it takes to get a product onto the market.

      Asking lawyers if they think IP law is stupid is useless. They only care about whether or not a client is breaking current law, not if the current law is just plain wrong. Our IP laws also provide them with a lot of billable hours, so they are rarely against the status quo.

    • The fact that your article equates copying to theft shows me that it's not a true discussion of the issues.

    • “If you say copying other people’s copyright is an OK thing to do, then you are saying that theft is OK. Everyone is very keen on sharing until it is their stuff that is being shared.”

      That is a gross mischaracterization of the opposition. It implies that the opposition is entirely made up of thieves.

      The real opposition to more powerful copyright laws have to do with an unbalanced copyright system where large rights holders have all the power to extort money from their users over and over again for the same good. They flat out lie about their damages in every public forum attempting to gather sympathy while raking in profits. They attempt to break the internet and computers at every turn to stay off all forms of innovation. Copy Rights in and of themselves are ridiculous in an age where copying is a shortcut on the keyboard. Instead of truely reformative laws we're stuffed with this travesty of the legislative system that serves only to further prove the corruption of our elected officials.

      But ya we're all thieves, them included, because that's what these laws serve to do. Turn everyone into thieves so you can extort them to protect your antiquated business model.

    • This is the text of ACTA : Just so as we can be clear, this is the exact text of the treaty that the European Parliament is to vote on.How can any democratic parliament be expected to vote on a treaty that is mostly redacted? What's so sensitive about the redacted pieces (which is nearly all the document)

    • A magazine that is (now) owned by Rupert Murdoch (the person who is famous for profiting from yellow journalism) says that ACTA is good and that people who are against it have "confused reactions" and "paranoia".

      I will not be surprised if Rupert Murdoch himself supervised the writing of this "journalism".

    • Ruper Murdoch Propaganda is propaganda


      My opposition to stricter DRM & IPR is that they are too strict already.

      Current DRM & IPR restrict my freedom of movement and freedom of expression. Let me explain.

      Zonal DRM limits me and impedes my freedom of movement and freedom of expression. I want to buy IP and not be limited to where I can listen to the IP I have bought. We live in a global village and currently, Zonal DRM means that I either have to haul my home zone's devices & media around the globe with me or else I am stuffed. The only other legal option is to re-buy that which I have already bought in my DRM-zone. This is extortion in my view.

      I want to be able to play/use the IP I have bought WHERE EVER I AM.

    • "Ben Rooney wrote:
      The point about ACTA is that it doesn’t affect existing law. If your country’s legal code does not allow for that, then ACTA won’t change that (see article 27.4). These are matters of national competency."

      ACTA enables a countries legal code to be changed due to it's supra-national nature (see Vienna Convention[1969]). Governments negotiated away their citizens rights with ACTA, and no doubt they will legislate their own citizens rights even further domestically post-ACTA under the guise of 'this is to conform with ACTA' or 'these are our obligatoins under ACTA', etc.

      ACTA is an ENABLER for additional domestic erosions of citizens' rights.

    • If it doesn't change anything, why the secrecy? Why cut things early in the process if they're just agreeing that they're already doing something? I agree with the title, much of the uproar is of their own making. Still, I'm not convinced that ACTA is just a piece of paper saying the signatories agree on something.

      The entertainment industry has had far too much free reign. It's bad enough that they can subject their customers to horrible treatment via things like DRM (I, personally, know a guy who couldn't run his legally purchased software without a DRM cracking program because the DRM was just THAT broken). I don't believe that hardly anyone wants them to have that same sway over the internet. Between a free and open internet and a demolished Hollywood, I'll side with the Google demon any day. If the RIAA and MPAA insist on continuing like this, I really don't think they deserve to exist in this century.

      Also kind of annoyed at other posted comments. Just because you don't like Fox News doesn't mean that the WSJ is going to turn to crap just because Murdoch bought it. I may not agree with the man but I also don't think he's stupid enough to mess with something that's already a good thing.

    • There is no "Internet paranoia", as ACTA and PIPA are absolutely immoral. Hopefully people will see that they are just another evil in a massive line of evils. The movie and record industry (popularly nicknamed "MAFIAA" for good reasons) has long been pushing and bribing for protections to their rent-seeking business model, even if it means hindering the freedom of all of mankind.

    • Copyright violation != Theft.

    • Now I know when the worlds going to end.. Remember 2012? Yeap, I predict the future in my opinion that if this keeps going. Soon, Millions of people maybe even billions are going to protest resulting in major riots between countrys and soon it's going to be so big that no one can't stop it. Farewell to you all.

    • Hollywood's greed again. They pushed the Congress to extend a copyright to 70 years after the author's death and (how much do they pay the artists or their heirs?). A patent, by contrast, expires after 20 years.

      Let's limit a copyright to 20 years after a creation of a copyrighted work.

    • This has been said already, but copying is not theft - and the fact that your article (that is to say, the person quoted within it) makes no distinction between the two is not very good.

      To be sure, ACTA is not exactly a law. But its purpose is to encourage laws which violate human rights and censor information in the name of copyright. Why should my privacy be sacrificed for the benefit of a corporation's 65-year-old copyright?

      Basically, Mr. Rooney, I think your article isn't very good.

    • I find it amusing that the MPAA which does not produce content, and the RIAA which also does not produce content, are so insistent that they need to watch out for other people's content rights. It's pretty obvious that they don't care about the ethics of content rights, they're just after the money. The MPAA weaseled its way into hollywood and has been leaching off other people's success for decades now. The MPAA propped itself up as a necessity when in reality there was never any need or use for the stupid thing. Now they've got everybody's "rights" in a vice grip, and that's not enough for them. They have to dictate not only how the industry needs to handle these things, but how the entire world needs to. Rotten.

    • They just want the internet gone. They dont want something like google and Facebook to give entertainment for free and without the chance to manipulate people how they do with conventional media.

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