ACTA To Be Signed This Weekend

We've been following the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement for over three years, from its secretive beginnings, to the controversy and debate that followed, and to the document it eventually evolved into. Now, Japan has announced that the agreement will finally be signed on Saturday during a ceremony that follows an anti-piracy symposium on Friday. "The negotiation has been carried out among Australia, Canada, the European Union and its Member States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States, and reached a general agreement at the negotiation meeting held in Japan in October 2010, followed by the completion of technical and translation work in April 2011. ... The signing ceremony will be attended by the representatives of all the participants in the ACTA negotiations, and those that have completed relevant domestic processes will sign the agreement. The agreement is open for signature until May 1, 2013."

Lovely!

[Sodel]

America's top exports: pornography, hamburgers, movies, economic instability, and, of course, imbalanced copyright legislation. Damn it America, keep your garbage to yourself! We all have our own special interest lobby groups! The last thing we need is for our governments to feel the influence of YOUR lobby groups, too. There's hardly any highly developed countries left where people can live quiet lives with *sane* copyright legislation.

Re:Imaginary Property Warriors

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what the world will become, not just the US. Look at the ridicululous b.s. Apple has been able to pull over iPad and iPhone intellectual property, claiming ownership of any thin rectangular tablet device. Europe just passed a copyright extension specifically to give more money to the owners of the Beatles copyrights. And let's not forget that the original draconian copyright regime isn't called "the Berne convention": it's a European creation, rammed down everybodys throat at the insistence of European publishers and media moguls (who basically called the shots back then).

Petition created at Whitehouse.gov

[Anonymous Coward]

The Obama administration has made it possible to create petitions which, if they get sufficient signatures, will be
responded to and potentially acted on. I've created one at http://wh.gov/4PW which I encourage all to read and
sign if they agree with it. We can defeat this!