Mexican Senate Votes To Drop Out of ACTA

An anonymous reader writes "The Mexican Senate has voted unanimously to drop out of ACTA negotiations, saying that the process has been way too secretive, left out many stakeholders and appears to deny access to knowledge and information. Of course, it's not clear if this 'non-binding resolution' actually means much, as the negotiators are not under the Senate's control. At the very least, though, it appears the Mexican Senate is going to fight to keep the country from agreeing to ACTA."

Wow.

[ignavus]

Unanimous ... I bet the US senate would be closer to unanimous in the other direction.

Smaller countries know when they are being taken to the cleaners.

might be bad to drop out :-(

[r00t]

The negotiating countries will need to sign this treaty from the start, but at least they get a chance to water it down.

Other countries get dragged into signing it later, with no chance to change anything. Ever notice how the USA makes DMCA-like laws a requirement of any trade-related treaty?

Re:Single Nation Treaty?

[mykos]

Lol...I'm not a lawyer or anything, but it doesn't seem like there's anything standing in the way of them doing just that. We could have a whole mess of laws written by "treaties" between zero outside parties, or calling an agreement with the **AA a "treaty". Stranger things have happened...we've had presidents using "executive orders" to get things done that lawmakers would never originate or approve of.

Re:IP economy vs. Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Brand names simply protect the brand not the product - so you could make a 100% same coca-cola, you just wouldn't be able to brand it so.

I believe that's exactly the GP's point (though your example is not a good one: see below).

While established companies might be able to trade on their "good names" and beat out copiers, emerging companies would have a much more difficult time to establish themselves - not to mention that established companies with "good names" could just steal from emerging companies and get the best of both worlds while completely stifling innovation.

You've got that precisely backwards. Established companies would be the ones having to work hard to retain their reputation; emerging companies would have precisely zero barrier to entry. Remember, in the present state of things it's the established companies that can afford to license pre-existing work; but a small start-up will find it very hard to start a printing press, because of licensing costs.

I'm not the OP but I agree that you need copyright protection - it makes it possible to be in the creative profession, and actually encourages scientific sharing (as you have no fear that they will steal the end product of your research).

You are confusing copyright with trade secrets. They're different things. It's not only possible to have legal protection for trade secrets in the absence of copyright; in fact, it is already normal. That is the case with the Coca Cola example you mention: the recipe of Coca Cola does not have copyright protection (you can't copyright a recipe), but It is a trade secret.

Go Mexico!

[Arancaytar]

Mexico may have been turned into a lethal hellhole by the drug cartels, but you have to credit their government with more integrity than most of the developed world, as far as that treaty is concerned. I hope the EU makes good on its promise [futurezone.at] and follows suit.