EU Parliament Rejects ACTA In a 663 To 13 Vote 477
An anonymous reader writes "'The European Parliament defied the EU executive today (10 March), casting a vote against an agreement between the EU, the US and other major powers on combating online piracy and threatening to take legal action at the European Court of Justice.'"
The 13 votes (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be curious to see the political/national/corporate affiliations of the 13 that voted for it. Maybe publish the details, to let people know how these folks were *cough* looking out for their "interests".
I'm always surprised when a minority votes for something that most unequivocally consider at the very least bad, if not downright evil.
Wow, there's some intelligent life left on Earth (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice to see not everyone in "government" is controlled by Hollywood
Wow - (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean there's still a legislative body that isn't a wholly owned subsidiary of their corporations?
Re:Wow - (Score:1, Interesting)
"You mean there's still a legislative body that isn't a wholly owned subsidiary of their corporations?"
No.
1. They have no real power to legislate.
2. They are just not owned by US corporations. EU corporations wouldn't like that.
Actually I am happy to see this. I am sick of the power Entertainment companies have over the US government.
What really burns me if when they want to not be regulated they wrap themselves in the Freedom of Speech and We are artists flag. Which the Slashdot crowd jumps right into bed with.
When they want a law past they are all about "Protecting IP rights" even at the expense of free speech and Fair use.
Re:Wow - (Score:5, Interesting)
Well this looks promising but no reason to take the pressure of them yet. Something I find odd with voting is that something can be effectively reintroduced continually until it is accepted, whereas it is much harder to reject something once accepted.
If we were to be highly sceptical we could point out that these guys weren't involved in the talks so could just be actioning their annoyance, or negotiating for their cut. Or, remember there were corporations - local corporations - who were set to suffer from this legislation. Maybe the ISPs were wiser with their 'donations' than the American-led movie and music lobby.
Re:And that is why.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good luck with that. It’s far from over. Our government (which is NOT the EU) still is very much for a totalitarian surveillance state. And the “terrorists” still are the excuse deus ex machina of law.
Cyncism about the EU? (Score:2, Interesting)
read well (Score:3, Interesting)
there are other stuff. Eu rules took effect last year exonerates ISPs from liability over pirated content in their network as long as they take measures to remove them when informed. the shit us corporations are trying to push in acta wanted to force isps into corporations' polices, policing their network for those people's content. also there are important declarations regarding freedoms there, not limited to 3 strikes.
Germany? (Score:4, Interesting)
I like Germany very much, but it's not a destination I'd recommend *specifically* for avoiding stupid (IT) regulation.
Before you pack up your wagon, google around a bit for the recent (~2 years) data laws passed in Germany. As a brief taste, it's apparently ok for the government to install spyware on their citizens' computers, but not okay for citizens to use network snooping (aka diagnostics) software.
Not than anywhere else is really a lot better. (Except maybe Iceland, soon?)
your move, media corporations (Score:4, Interesting)
it seems that even with all your paid for government whores, you can't legislate against technological progress
maybe you should consider your only option: death. fucking parasites
creators: you have a choice too. you can sign a ridiculous stifling agreement with some lawyer assholes where they get the lions share of your creative effort, or you can self-distribute
the downside is it's totally free, the upside is it's totally free. this is not communist thinking, this is in fact a solid capitalist model: think of your digitized creative output as advertising, the same solid capitalist business model as good old FM radio or broadcast television... give it away for free, reap the side benefits. you get fabulous exposure, free advertising, and permanent presence and community building with fans. then you can tour, or show only in movie houses, or a number of other ancillary revenue streams available to you, capitalizing on your exposure
you are your own entrepreneur, with your own creative output. no more is your fate decided by some asshole in a suit in an office: you rise and fall on the sheer affinity of fans to your output. this is, in fact, capitalism at its finest. for those who say the internet is destroying the capitalism as represented by traditional media corporations: no, that's an oligopoly. monopolies and oligopolies, in fact, are a greater threat to healthy capitalism than communist thinking. free over the internet is capitalism at its finest, not communism
creators: make money the honest way, rather than making a deal with the devil that the internet has pretty much destroyed now as a viable avenue for you. help us destroy the financial parasites on our culture, who are attempting to warp our freedoms to grandfather their unnecessary existence into our societies
die bertelsmann, die time warner, just fucking die, die, die you useless rotten pile of lawyers and suits. WE DON'T NEED YOU ANYMORE. DIE
Re:663:13 !? (Score:5, Interesting)
Firstly, the vote was not against ACTA, it was a resolution to force the Commission to open up the documents (See one of the Pirate Party MEPs blog: http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/epic-win-for-transparency-on-acta/ [wordpress.com] or the official EP website http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/026-70281-067-03-11-903-20100309IPR70280-08-03-2010-2010-false/default_en.htm [europa.eu]). The article is very very wrong. The 13 against are listed in the EUPs roll calls.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+PV+20100310+RES-RCV+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN [europa.eu]
The following are against (by their EU party grouping)
EFD: Agnew, Andreasen, Batten, Bufton, Colman, (The Earl of) Dartmouth, Farage, Nattrass, Nuttall
NI: Bontes, Sinclaire, Stassen, van der Stoep
These are from the UK and the Netherlands. All of them UKIP (British anti-eu party) or PVV (Dutch anti-islam party).
The British MEPs are the following
UKIP: Andreasen, Agnew, Batten, Bufton, Colman, Farage, Nattrass, Nuttall
Previous UKIP (expelled): Sinclare
The Dutch ones the following
PVV: Bontes, Stassen, van der Stoep
I have not bothered to include the ones who abstained their vote.
Re:Cyncism about the EU? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The 13 votes (Score:2, Interesting)
another option is to prevent sneaking unrelated crap on top of new bills
fool (Score:4, Interesting)
going and patenting stuff like 'single click' and leaving that aside, patenting BASIC logical thought processes that has been the very fundamentals of logic equations since last 5000 years and then trying to force your 'ownership' over these onto entire world is medieval feudalism at it best. it has nothing to do with creativity, it has nothing to do with productivity, it has NOTHING to do with rights. its basically laying claim to intelligence. the ONLY place on the face of the world where patents and copyrights granted for BASE thought processes, is united states. united states is the problem here, not the pirates. no amount of piracy can outshadow the villainy of trying to lay claim to logic itself.
Re:Let me be the first (Score:1, Interesting)
Screw Creative Commons. If you're really serious, you'll make it kopimi.
Re:663:13 !? (Score:4, Interesting)
So ironical to call that party PVV (this is a quite new party, only founded some 5, 6 years ago or so).
PVV = Partij voor Vrijheid, or Party for Freedom. And what they vote against here is freedom.
PVV is indeed an anti-islam and anti-immigration party. Playing into the people's terrorist fears and the like, as happens so often these days. And as so many of this type of parties they claim to be for freedom, but in reality they are the exact opposite. For repression, secrecy, privacy invasions, surveillance, etc.
Re:Obama's Administration officially looks stupid! (Score:3, Interesting)
If an international agreement has to remain secret, then it is bad for the general people. No doubt about that. If it is good for the public, why keep it secret in the first place? When the agreement comes in force, it has to be published to be of any use in the first place. ACTA is about forcing other countries to make laws around it - that can only be done if it is public. Laws, by nature, have to be public,
There can be no other reason for such an agreement to be drafted in secret than that it is against the wishes of the general public. And possibly against the legislatures of many of the countries involved. So no matter how you turn it, it makes Obama with his promises of an open government look more than just stupid. It makes him look Bush.
Now I am aware of the US having secret laws/regulation (especially regarding air traffic). It makes me wonder how to go about people breaking those laws. Because on one hand, a basic legal principle is that "ignorance of the law is no defense". But what if that law is secret? Can you not argue that it is impossible to know about it? And that in effect such a law doesn't exist for you as you can not know about it for the very fact that it is secret?
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, in one of our countries, we've got our presidential elections upcoming and the only major opposition party's not even nominating a candidate, because they know that even if they'd win the vote, they'd still have no real power and would be forced to have the other party agree on every decision they'd like to push through - and that's by far not an issue exclusive to said country, that's for sure.[/offtopicrant]
Re:The 13 votes (Score:2, Interesting)
It's an unsolvable problem
*sigh* you are, unfortunately, right.
If only there was some way we could use the internet to collectively create and vote. I think we all, including politicians, know the political process rarely works the way it should. Ultimately it's because of what you described, people are self-serving. Politicians look out for themselves first, their friends second, the people that support them (financially) third and the people they serve last.
I can think of a perfect example of government not working that's going on right now. In New Brunswick, the next province over from mine, The government is trying to sell its electric utility. Despite the fact that everyone and their dog knows having a company outside of the province own the utility isn't going to be beneficial to them. Nearly the whole population is against it and are constantly pointing to Nova Scotia, the province I'm in. Where our utility was sold a number of years ago to a company in California. We have crap service and pay excessive rates. We lose power just about every time there's a storm and some times it takes days to get it back. My favorite yearly excuse is, "There's salt fog depositing salt on the lines that's cording them and causing the lines to break.". We live in a province surrounded by frik'n ocean and we never had a problem with "salt fog" before 1992!!! Why would a government sell something that is obviously making the province money!? I'm pretty sure the answer is the politicians are getting their pockets greased.
Sorry for the rant
Re:The 13 votes (Score:2, Interesting)
No, the NI are "independent", in the sense that they are not part of a major coalition. In truth, they are the European branch of the aptly-named "Partij voor de Vrijheid" ("freedom party"), led by Geert Wilders [wikipedia.org]. Basically, his party is the closest we Dutch have to the KKK in terms of cultural intolerance and xenophobia. Sadly, such "new right" has been gaining ground in most of Europe lately...
Makes me sad to be a Dutchman.
Re:The 13 votes (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially because all 3 dutch "no" votes were from the "Party for Freedom" (PVV). This same party was against ACTA last monday [webwereld.nl] (dutch article), MEPs emailed on what they were smoking.
Re:yes, it is childish (Score:3, Interesting)
however warped and cruel their beliefs, they are to be respected, because they will fight for their (flawed) beliefs. meanwhile, there is no respecting those who flee, or even just threaten to flee.
You would have made a great Klingon.
I have no respect for either of the categories which you list. I do not respect "warriors" who butcher innocent people in order to bring to power a regime based on their immoral theistic beliefs. Why you fight and how you fight are a lot more important than the fact that you do fight. There is no honour in mindless slaughter.
Re:your move, media corporations (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm going to Karma hell for this, but let me fix a few things for you:
creators: you have a choice too...ridiculous stifling agreement...or you can self-distribute
Creators, you can take that pile of advance cash sitting there on the table. Yes, those are stacks of $100 bills, and of course we can get you a duffel bag to put them in. Then again, you could always walk out with your "principles" and forego the chance to share your art with untold millions of future adoring fans. You don't have the capitol to market or get airplay, so you'll simply wallow in obscurity for entire career, requiring you to get a day job to make rent each month.
you are your own entrepreneur, with your own creative output. no more is your fate decided by some asshole in a suit in an office
Most musicians can't tell the right and left sides of a ledger apart, and really have no desire to do so. That's why they're called artists, and not entrepreneurs, business people, or venture capitalists. Every hour a competent business person spends managing your career is 4-10 frustrating hours an artist would spend away from creating. Hell, I'm an engineer and I'm pretty good at finance and accounting, but my finance person does the same job in less than half the time it used to take me. I couldn't even guess the hours it would take to write a creative musical work from scratch (and I know a little music, too).
creators: make money the honest way
Careful there, bub. Art is a luxury or an entertainment. Ever notice how lots of people do music for fun, but almost nobody does accounting as a hobby? To be good enough to get paid as a creative artist you've got to make a lot of people happy. It is insanely hard, and the opportunity to jump into the mainstream (including an income that lets you lose your day job) is a hard one to turn down. Bootstrapping in a mature, multinational industry - even in the internet age - is very, very hard.
I don't like the system, but asking an up-an-coming artist to try and buck it is asking quite a lot.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that the *AAs are facing a battle against time.
As time goes by, internet connections are going to improve and the citizenry is going to become more aware. In 4 years all of those 14 year olds today using Limewire will be 18 and eligible to vote in many countries.
It's a battle they are (eventually) going to lose to sanity. ACTA was probably going to be a stopgap. They tried to do it too big and have it too far-reaching, though, so they basically shot themselves in the foot.
I await the day 50 years from now when I can laugh about all of this, and weep about the same exact shit happening with some other medium, i.e. "Are neuro-interactive hologames making our education pavilions more violent?"
i am pragmatic, not romantic (Score:3, Interesting)
the odds are stacked against me, even if i share a belief with the majority of my fellow americans that, for example, politicians should not receive donations from corporations. the system is allayed against me, chance of success is slim to change those rules
however, if i give up and accept this ugliness as reality, chance of failure is 100%
in other words, slim chance of success, no matter how slim, is always better than certain chance of failure. you try, and lose, or you simply choose to lose. i see no superiority or pragmatic value in that. and, if it try, i may actually succeed. and in fact, it is in such thinking that every historical event of any value in this world ever took place
so it is actually cold logic, pure pragmatism, to fight against tall odds, no romantic idealism about it
to not care, to give up on my society, is to limit my own horizons as well, to recalibrate my relationship with reality such that if someone robs me, i will simply accept it. and corporate donors and their governmental whores are most definitely robbing me, in the abstract and the concrete
the psychological result of learned helplessness, of accepting injustice and cruelty and voluntarily subjecting yourself to that, is depression and unhappiness
so i'm not going to give up my happiness by choosing to accept the dim cynical parameters that others have chosen to define the poor reasoning by which they accept slavery as their natural state. i am not slave, no matter how many slaves, like you, say that i am. this is not a romantic statement, this is a statement of a pragmatic effort to maintain my happiness in the face of the injustices of my era, like corporate dollars influencing elections. i have made the pragmatic judgment that my happiness is important to me, and therefore, to always fight for freedom. to accept artificial limitations, meanwhile, is to accept unhappiness. thats not a pragmatic choice. if you don't have happiness, which you only get by vowing to fight for your freedom, your quality of life is quite poor, by any pragmatic measure
and so i will decide the fate of the world. or someone else who cares deeply. because the future of this world is owned by those who care about it, and is not decided by those who don't care about it
for example: palin supporters are a typically low iq ignorant lot. but they actually believe they can effect change, and so they will, ONLY IF those who oppose them freely choose, on their own, not to matter, and therefore to not fight them
do you want palin supporters to own the future of this country? no? then fight for your own beliefs, or you freely choose, on your own, to hand the fate of this country to them. of course you will have all sorts of self-reinforcing rationalizations for doing nothing, most of it based on empty low iq cynicism about the inevitability of undecdied things, or the truth of untruthful things, like all american's thoughts are driven by propaganda, or the democrats and the repulbicans are the same
so this is a coldly logical rational and pragmatic, utilitarian analysis of the reasons why you should care, and why you should act. nothing romantic about it all. you fight, simply because you wish to remain happy. ic ouldn't live with myself accepting the slavehood you have accepted, out of a pragamtic measure of the best way to maximize the quality of my life
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
The decision to allow the EU to enter the ACTA negotiations was done in a meeting of the EU ministers for fishery and agriculture (no joking).
Fishery and agriculture? They were also the ones who tried to legalize software patents in the EU (until the Polish minister vetoed it).
It's almost as if they really believe fishing and farming has something to do with copyrights and patents.