Experts Say ACTA Threatens Public Interest 107
langelgjm writes "In the lead up to next week's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations in Lucerne, a conference that drew over 90 academics and experts from six continents has released a statement issuing a harsh condemnation of both the substance and process of the agreement. Held last week at American University's Washington College of Law, the attendees say, 'We find that the terms of the publicly released draft of ACTA threaten numerous public interests, including every concern specifically disclaimed by negotiators.' The 'urgent communique' covers more than the usual ACTA topics of interest on Slashdot: in addition to the agreement's effect on the Internet, it also considers the effects on access to medicines, international trade, and developing countries. Meanwhile, Public Knowledge has an action alert where you can send a note to the White House expressing your opposition to ACTA."
just wait for Google to get black listed and then (Score:3, Interesting)
just wait for Google to get black listed and then this crap will stop.
Re:Crazy radical extremists (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FTFS: (Score:1, Interesting)
What ideology? He's like pretty much every other politician, just whoring himself out to corporate interests at every possible opportunity. The only ideology they have is trying to maximize the ratio between their own income and ours...
Re:FTFS: (Score:0, Interesting)
Funny. Credentialism != competence. Obama never led so much as a parade before a bunch of useful idiots elected him president, and now it's showing. Before you bring up his time in the IL state Senate and the US Senate, bear in mind that neither of those jobs actually involves RUNNING an organization and getting the various parts of that organization to work together smoothly. Nobody respects Obama. Not our allies, not our enemies, hell, not even our own generals respect him.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, is it really obvious? (Score:3, Interesting)
People on /. think it is, but then I'm not convinced many people here have a good grip on copyright. A non-trivial number seem to think that any copyright is a bad thing, that it hurts the economy, etc. There is some pretty good evidence to indicate that's not the case, but they aren't interested. They have an all or nothing stance on it. As such, this treaty is automatically and "obviously" a bad thing to them, since it increases copyright.
Well, I'm going to go ahead and say they are perhaps not the best to make that call, due to their bias. That doesn't mean I think they are wrong that the treaty is a bad thing, I think they are arriving at that conclusion incorrectly and that is why they might think it "obvious" when maybe it isn't.
So this is the kind of thing I like to see. Some real analysis to determine what benefits and costs it has (everything has benefits and costs) and if those result in a net benefit for the public. Looks like these experts say that no, it doesn't.
I think that is far more useful than just trying to claim "It is obvious!" When you think something is obvious, especially something complex (as any new law is) ask yourself: Is it really, truly obvious, which would mean that nearly everyone should see it, or do I think it is obvious because of my biases?
Re:getting pretty close to Tree-of-Liberty time (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinion, not everything is your fault. 70% of the votes are casted on voting machines, which are again and again proved prone to be manipulated. Yes, I'm saying that it's very possible elections are rigged. The first thing you should do is going back to counting votes with your hands.
Wrong Economic Strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
ACTA is the wrong economic strategy for the US. It's the modern equivalent of the British trying to force the American colony to pay British publishers, and it'll fail in the same way. No outright rejection or bloody rebellion, just a never-ending political argument over what's fair. The MAFIAA may collect for years, until China or India (or others) decide to "moderate" their enforcement of the rules. Then the US will find that a large part of it's economy is faltering with no way out, because it didn't take the pain and adjust when the technology changed.
Re:I think so (Score:3, Interesting)
And the best I've heard from yourself and the GP boils down to "you're not really qualified to hold that opinion" which I reject.
I, for one, never made an assertion that I, nor anyone on this site was unqualified to hold any opinion. I was simply stating that the parent post seems to be a request to further analyze those opinions you do hold. So, please don't go around pretending that I am trying to talk anyone down. I was simply commenting on the general theme that I felt the parent expressed.
And regarding quips along these lines:
....identifying yourself with a side of the debate that you don't especially seem to support.
I never made any assertion, in my original post, as to my stance on ACTA. If you want to know my thoughts regarding it, I consider the entire treaty to be flagrantly criminal. It is one of many things that my government is doing right now that I am ashamed of. The reason I did not vocally spew this into the void of the internet originally is because I find that expressing such sentiments on the internet is about as useful as sitting on my ass and staring at the wall. I prefer to make my opinions on such matters apparent through action, rather than words (if you want more details on what I have done/do do, let me know).
But the simple existence of differing viewpoints is hardly an argument for one side or another.
See, I think this outlines the crux of our discussion right here. You seem to be trying to argue a particular viewpoint. That's fine. My point was, I don't think the grandparent was trying to argue any particular position. You read manipulation and bias in his post...well, fine, you're entitled to your interpretations. I was simply trying to explain how and why I did not read his post to be of that same nature. Furthermore, I would like to assert that my intentions certainly weren't to argue ACTA one way or another...so, yeah. I'm not trying to paint you as a kicker of puppies. To be specific, the part of your response that seemed unfair to me was this:
So what, then? We should all sit tight and wait for someone in authority to tell us what everyone thinks?
It was an attempt to develop a false dichotomy: Either we accept what we consider to be obvious as the entire truth/picture and, thus, liberate ourselves from misinformation from outside sources, or we assess our own biases only to come to the conclusion that we are unqualified to think and, therefore, have to accept nothing but information from outside sources. Effectively, you tried to sum his post down to something along the lines of, "You're all biased and, therefore wrong," while painting your response to be something along the lines of, "We may be biased but at least we aren't brainwashed by the powers that be!" That seemed disingenuous to me with no acknowledgment of the middle-ground. You can just as easily think along the lines of, "ACTA is rubbish, it is shit, and here is why I think it is shit. It seems so obvious to me that it is shit, so why doesn't everyone else also think it is shit? Well maybe others don't see it quite like I do, or they are misinformed. So maybe my considering it to be obvious shit is unjustified. Perhaps it is really unobvious shit."
And I think that was more what the parent was trying to get at. And your attacking of that is what seemed unfair to me. Quiet honestly, he doesn't seem to be some intellectual elitist or any crap like that. He just seemed to advocating that slashdotters should consider the fact that what is obvious to us isn't as obvious to everyone else.
Now, you are correct to request his evidence...which is something I am highly interested in seeing myself. But the rest of your post just seems like you are looking for a good fight without particularly considering who you are fighting or what is being fought for.