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ACTA Censorship: Say Goodbye to the Internet as We Know It

Topic - November 18, 2011 - 1:55pm
Noa
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If the Anti-Copyright Trade Agreement (ACTA) is implemented, the internet as we know it will be gone.  Say goodbye to Youtube and any other website that post videos and other intellectual property (whether formally copyrighted or not).  Say goodbye to Facebook pages, blogs, and forums which upload and share information freely across the internet.  Say goodbye to the Gathering Spot and all the PEERS websites, because it will be impossible to comply with the new law by removing all the outlawed material.

If we allow the PTW to censor and control the internet, we will have lost our greatest tool for freedom to global tyrants.  Please spread the word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement.[1] ACTA would establish a new international legal framework that countries can join on a voluntary basis[2] and would create its own governing body outside existing international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations.[1][3] Negotiating countries have described it as a response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works."[2] The scope of ACTA includes counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet.[4]

The idea to create a plurilateral agreement on counterfeiting was developed by Japan and the United States in 2006. Canada, the European Union and Switzerland joined the preliminary talks throughout 2006 and 2007. Official negotiations began in June 2008, with Australia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and Singapore joining the talks. The negotiations were classified as secret, in the US on the grounds of "damage to the national security". Apart from the participating governments, an advisory committee drawn from large US-based multinational corporations was consulted on the content of the draft treaty.[5]

After a series of draft text leaks in 2008, 2009 and 2010, the negotiating parties published an official version of the then current draft on 20 April 2010.[6] A new consolidated draft text, reflecting the outcome of the final (Tokyo) round of negotiations, was released on 6 October 2010.[7] The final text was released on 15 November 2010.[8]

A signing ceremony was held on 1 October 2011 in Tokyo, with the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea signing the treaty. 

The European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland did not sign the treaty, but "attended the ceremony and confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the Agreement as soon as practicable".[9][10] Article 39 of ACTA specifies that the agreement is open for signature until 31 March 2013.

 

 

http://fl.pirate.is/?p=93

Friday, 18 of November of 2011

ACTA to be signed this Saturday

For the last few years, representatives of the United States and developed nations around the world have been meeting in secret to write a treaty named “The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”. During this process, no draft of the document was ever released, and no peer review by world legislatures or citizens was allowed. However, through the efforts of free speech activists and insiders, bits and pieces of the treaty were leaked. Though given an innocuous name and trying to pass it off as a trade treaty, we saw that the agreement was a gross violation of national sovereignty, free speech and expression.

This agreement all but clears the way for:

  1. worldwide copyright expansions without peer review or approval
  2. warrant-less border searches and seizure of your electronic devices (including music players, laptop computers and hard drives)
  3. expansion of extra-judicial prosecution of alleged copyright offenses (including domain seizures, binding non-judicial takedown demands)
  4. Suppress the distribution of free software over peer to peer networks

The text for the agreement was released in January and representatives from several nations, including the US, Japan, Australia and the EU will be descending on Tokyo this Saturday to sign their names to this atrocity, despite lingering questions about it’s legality. This agreement disregards the constitutional power of the Senate to assess and vote on treaties, and the sole power to change international trade and copyright laws. If this agreement goes into effect, it will deal a major setback to basic human rights and civil liberties.

The text of the agreement in full form.

The Pirate Party is staunchly opposed to this egregious attack on our civil liberties, and any international accord agreed to in secret is a direct attack on the fiber of democracy.

 

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/united-states-signs-acta/

 

U.S. Signs International Anti-Piracy Accord

The United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on Saturday, an accord targeting intellectual property piracy.

The European Union, Mexico and Switzerland — the only other governments participating in the accord’s creation — did not sign the deal at a ceremony in Japan but “confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the agreement as soon as practical,” the parties said in a joint statement.

The United States applauded the deal.

“As with many of the challenges we face in today’s global economy, no government can single-handedly eliminate the problem of global counterfeiting and piracy. Signing this agreement is therefore an act of shared leadership and determination in the international fight against intellectual property theft,” said Mariam Sapiro, deputy United States trade representative.

The deal, more than three years in the making and open for signing until May 2013, exports on participating nations an intellectual-property enforcement regime resembling the one in the United States.

Rashmi Rangnath, a staff attorney with Public Knowledge in Washington, D.C., said the deal “clearly, is an attempt to foist U.S. law on other countries.”

Among other things, the accord demands governments make it unlawful to market devices that circumvent copyright, such as devices that copy encrypted DVDs without authorization. That is akin to a feature in the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States, where the law has been used by Hollywood studios to block RealNetworks from marketing DVD-copying technology.

The accord, which the United States says does not require Congressional approval, also calls on participating nations to maintain extensive seizure and forfeiture laws when it comes to counterfeited goods that are trademarked or copyrighted. Most important, countries must carry out a legal system where victims of intellectual property theft may be awarded an undefined amount of monetary damages.

In the United States, for example, the Copyright Act allows for damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. A Boston jury has dinged a college student $675,000 for pilfering 30 tracks on Kazaa, while a Minnesota jury has awarded the Recording Industry Association of America $1.5 million for the purloining of 24 songs online.

A U.S.-backed footnote removed from the document more than a year ago provided for “the termination” of internet accounts for repeat online infringers. U.S. internet service providers and content providers, however, have brokered such a deal toward that goal.

Until European Union authorities began leaking the document’s text, the Obama administration was claiming the accord was a “national security” secret.

Photo: MikeBlogs/Flickr

See Also:

 

 

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