/images/social_rss_dark.png "Subscribe to the site")
/images/social_twitter_dark.png "Follow us on Twitter")
/images/social_facebook_dark.png "Friend us on FaceBook")
Its a hand with a blue doctors clea...
dorkgeniuz21 on
Capcom, Namco, and Sega Team up for 3DS Collaboration Project
SOPA and PIPA May Be on Hold, but the ACTA Threat is Calling from Inside the House…
Today, the internet celebrated, congratulating itself on beating back the legislative shitstorm that both SOPA and PIPA would have brought, should it have become the law as many feared. Good for us—we did it!
But, as one of our commenters pointed out, there’s another threat to internet freedom out there—and in the United States, it’s already too late. It’s called ACTA, and it’s the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. From what I’ve been able to gather from the Wikipedia page on ACTA, as well as the handy video above, ACTA is sort of like the United Nations, in that it is an international conglomeration of countries gathered together to create and enforce its own set of rules. Like the UN, a country must agree to join, signing a treaty to signify its participation in the body’s actions and governance.
But where the UN looks to promote world peace and human rights, ACTA’s main function is to try and curb international and online acts of piracy—a laudable goal with disastrous real-world effects. Like SOPA and PIPA, ACTA seeks to hold service providers responsible for what their users do.
In other words, under SOPA/PIPA, copyright holders would’ve been able to take action against YouTube for “distributing” their copyrighted property, even though all they’re doing is providing a service to users to host stuff they like. The only way to avoid trouble was for YouTube and other sites like them to police their users, breach privacy, and limit freedom and expression on the internet.
ACTA is similar, in that it seeks to hold internet service providers—your Verizons and Comcasts and what have you—responsible for making sure that users don’t illegally obtain or distribute pirated content.
From the Wikipedia page to sum up the real-world effects of ACTA:
“Aaron Shaw, Research Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, argues that ‘ACTA would create unduly harsh legal standards that do not reflect contemporary principles of democratic government, free market exchange, or civil liberties. Even though the precise terms of ACTA remain undecided, the negotiants’ preliminary documents reveal many troubling aspects of the proposed agreement’ such as removing ‘legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers’ in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions.”
Here’s where things get even creepier: apparently the drafting process of the ACTA agreement was done in secret over the last few years, in the interests of “national security,” and just this past October, the United States—along with Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea—signed the treaty. Recently, the European Union voted against joining ACTA, which is good news for opponents of the initiative, because the fewer members there are, the less power it has.
But just what the implications are for the United States—as well as in the other member countries—remain to be seen. The text of previous drafts of the treaty can be read here and here, but the United States Government has officially refused to discuss the treaty, it seems. So far, I haven’t heard of anyone or anything getting taken down in the name of ACTA, but don’t be surprised if we start to hear about it sometime in the near future.
As for what we can do about it—as of now, not a whole lot. Being a member of ACTA is, again, like being a member of the UN. We’re in, and until we vote someone into office who can take us out, in is where we’ll stay.
So what’s next? No idea. But now you know about the next attempt to curb internet freedom—and as G.I. Joe once said, knowing is half the battle.
Via Wikipedia, Bastion of Internet Liberty and Freedom of Information
SHARE THIS POST WITH YOUR IDIOT FRIENDS:
READ SOMETHING ELSE WHY DON'T YOU:
SOPA and PIPA Shelved, Internet Succeeds
DNS Blocking Removed from SOPA
Anonymous Threatens Sony for SOPA Support
/images/top.png)
another threat? god will this ever stop? another boss fight or your princess is at another castle…if theres any more Anonymous better do something
Oh man, the internet can’t catch a break…
Protest what ever the hell they call it it’ll probably have it’s name changed every month
According to another commenter this thing got shot down back in December. Might wanna check up on the dates with this thing.
General Shepherd (MW2): “History is written by the victor… But you bring down one enemy and they find something even worse to replace it…”
This isn’t new. So to the people in the comments claiming this is some ‘new’ threat need to educate themselves about the matter. Imo anything like this is a horrible attempt at trying to control people. Whilst governments claim its to prevent copyright infringement, it just becomes more evident that we have control freaks in power.
>.> they seems like they are trying to barrage us with anti-pirating bills…the next one will be acta non verba like the bad company 1 mission
Give us a break and go censor some zoo’s ..
ACTA attacked the polish parliament webside a few hours ago.
Honestly, I feel like politicians just decide these things on their own without consulting experts and people with extensive knowledge about how the internet works. Actually… I feel like they never consult anyone regarding anything. Everything they do in congress is crap. It’s all private corporations pushing bills with big money. It’s all about the money. Damn government never learns.
imyourfather101 government knows the lesson, YES it’s all about money and government earns from this (the only big problem on politics is that THEY DON’T THINK, they are only there for the money nothing more nothing less, even when they say it’s moral, bullshit, it’s money!!! only money speaks), and will be forever about money, where is the clue? The big problem on this new pseudo “law” is that they even have enough “power” to showdown half of the internet by stupidity, they treat things on internet like it was real world things, and in this case worst!. Internet it is like it is, just simply because internet were build on this basis. Any stupid mind knows that, for now, Hollywood wins, governments fails (AGAIN and over and over) just because on the top of it there is a shiny dollar bill, money talks more that power. And that my friend I call it corruption, Is there a clue?
This is gonna turn out to be WWIII…
Now…V Fot VENDETA!!!!
This was proposed by Japan if any of you bother to read, this is also done in secret, the American government has denied it because they know that its a horrible thing to do, but the European nations might have already voted for it, all we can do is protest, spread the word, tell the whole world that the free world it self is at stake
If it does pass, wouldn’t the American internet and everyone who supports it just move to another country, or even become rebels if the protest doesn’t work out? US would become just another grey area to the internet. Well I just doubt the internet can ever be truly stopped.