Central Europe Countries Continue to Oppose ACTA 111
tykev writes "The Czech government suspended the ratification process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ACTA, said Prime Minister Petr Necas today. The government wants to further analyze the issue. There were a number of public demonstrations against ACTA in several Czech towns, and some Czech Euro MP's oppose ACTA as being 'completely wide of the mark'. Earlier, Poland announced its intention to suspend the ratification process as well. In the meantime, the website of the ruling Czech Civic Democratic Party was attacked and defaced by Anonymous who also publicly released personal data of the party's members."
Futile (Score:3, Interesting)
There's still some hope. (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt I'll see that. Yet, I can still hope.
Hope yet for the human race? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hope yet for the human race? (Score:5, Interesting)
Should we dare hope?
No. But vote. And it would be a good idea to plan ahead for what to do after something similar gets passed.
what's futile is this : (Score:5, Interesting)
What we need to do is strike back at the politicians and remind them that they are serving the interests of all the population
they know very well who they should be serving. they are NOT choosing to serve who they should be serving. instead, they choose whomever pays them.
the difference of the central european countries is that, there is still a lot of generations currently at the age of running government, corporations etc, who has grown up during the communist era with at least some ideals. you wont find those in anglo-american countries. hence, the opposition from central europe.
Protests in many, many European cities (Score:5, Interesting)
What is also quite impressive are the protests planned by Pirate Parties and others in numerous cities all over Europe (+ some other continents). Many events are to be held this Saturday, February 11st. The map looks absolutely breath-taking:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=212120558776447282985.0004b7b33e16f13c710c7&msa=0 [google.com]
Re:Futile (Score:5, Interesting)
A better solution would be net neutrality is required if you use public land or public owned cables to run your ISP. Because it allows for the most amount of net neutrality (nearly all ISPs use public owned cables to do business with customers) but allows the greatest amount of freedom (if the ISP doesn't want to implement net neutrality don't use public land or cables).
Well of course not, they're not IP dependant (Score:5, Interesting)
Western Europe is the major source of intellectual property. Look at WIPO's top applicant nations - Germany, France, UK, Netherlands. Look at IMDB's top film making countries - France, UK. Look at the fashion world where you're nobody unless your're based in London, Paris, or Milan. In addition, Central and Eastern Europe are the conduits (if not the source) for many counterfeits. With ACTA, those governments would bear a share of the burden in protecting someone else's economy while their own not-quite-so IP-reliant economies see no benefit. So they'd go from not spending money enforcing someone else's IP while getting economic benefit from those citizen who profit from counterfeit, to spending money enforcing someone else's IP while killing off a pretty nice influx of money. Western EU countries are going to have to offer much more trade incentives to get what they want, but then by increasing trade incentives to get IP enforcement, they will just be switching from one hose siphoning money from them to another hose siphoning money from them.
Re:What's the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, and since this is the EU, they actually take the time to read the bills being proposed, unlike in the US where they just say Yes to the bill with the most financial backing. As a result of this, any unpopular law that somehow finds it's way into a completely unrelated bill, get's vetoed and removed before the bill can continue it's path, again unlike the US.