Pro-ACTA Site Says 'Get the Facts' 84
Glyn Moody writes "We hear a lot about politicians and countries rejecting ACTA, but not so much from the treaty's supporters. Here's a new site, called 'ACTA Facts,' which invites Europeans to 'get the facts' on how wonderful ACTA really is. Judging by its content, this one will be about as successful as Microsoft's 'Get the Facts' campaign a few years ago, which tried to dissuade people from using GNU/Linux. For example, a new report linked to by the site claims that ACTA could 'boost European output by a total of €50 billion, and create as many as 960,000 new jobs.' Unfortunately, that's based on numerous flawed assumptions, including the idea that countries like China and India are going to rush to join ACTA, when the treaty is actually designed as a weapon against them, as they have already noticed."
Re:It's surprisingly poorly done (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at the source code it has references to things like file:///C|/Users/Jeff%20Hardy/Documents/4-websites/CCAPCongress/home/tn_new_o.gif
Jeffrey Hardy, BASCAP Director - I somehow doubt he's decided to moonlight as a really shitty web designer in aid of the cause.
I'm really not sure what to think. It's so poorly done I'm almost suspicious it's not actually legitimate.
Right, lets break it down. (Score:3, Informative)
From http://www.actafacts.com/faq.htm , going by point to point in the faq. I'm not copying it here so you'll have to put it side by side ;p
About the Internet
- "No requirements" - In other words, open to interpretation by the reader with no policies put into effect to prevent abuse.
- Same story, open to interpretation and abuse with no set policies against such breaches of freedoms and privacy.
- ACTA "mentions" privacy according to this entry but does not actually safeguard it, having no policies (yet again) to do this, letting it open to interpretation of the reader.
- Very clever wording, "seeks not to duplicate" -> However, ACTA seeks to CONTROL and supplant any existing policies regarding governance of the net.
- Again clever wording without actually mentioning safeguarding the rights and freedoms of anyone, much less the citizens, making no mention of whom it's supposed to protect.
About access to medicines and patents
- Good in what way exactly? In who's eyes? While removing counterfeit medicines is a good thing, the current treaty also prevents medicines to be produced without consent of the patent holder, which encourages price fixing and does not actually help the patient at all. The treaty makes this international law and as such only protects business interests of patent holders.
- Vague wording on a policy governments "may" institute or not.
- Again, open to interpretation, as governments may appoint customs officials as a 'competent authority' to save money.
- 'Lawful generics' - IE, patent holder interests, not patient interests.
- Seeds are not but patents and intellectual property are, under which seeds fall as per the design. While this entry doesn't blatantly lie it does beat around the bush trying to do it.
About Fundamental Principles, Rights, Data Protection and Freedom
- ACTA "recognizes" privacy and does not make data retrieval 'mandatory'. So what DOES it do exactly?
- Open to interpretation yet again, where it does not reference any existing law or policy safeguarding these freedoms, not to mention the loopholes that already exist in current law all over the globe.
- Again, using words like "recognizes" and "does not require" without giving any guarantees whatsoever to protect said freedoms and privacy.
- A savings clause that safeguards laws which already permit breaches of privacy and security, or might soon do? Loopholes are abundant.
- Same as above. "Protective of privacy" - Of whom exactly?
- Freedom of expression is exactly that, freedom of expression. When phrases, songs and looks are trademarked in such a way that you can get arrested for imitating them anywhere, it kinda limits what 'freedom of expression' actually is, right? This entry is just a blatant lie.
- Very open to abuse, this one, as it heavily encourages patent and copyright infringement trials which due to "protection" will most likely end up in the plaintiffs (usually corporate) favour, combined with the already mentioned breaches of privacy and basic rights above.
About Transparency and Governance
- In other words, it's a corporate effort to sidestep official national and international lawmaking.
- Clever wording: "Texts of ACTA were made public". ACTA as a whole was never made public and what WAS made public has always been subject to revision immediately afterwards.
- The question didn't mention changing the agreement but enforcing it. VERY sneaky here.
- The public is mentioned as an implied secondary party AFTER freedoms and rights were mentioned. Suspicious yet?
- In other words, if someone makes one penny from anything involving anything infringing, to their knowledge or not, they can be taken to court. The "indirect" wording here is especially worrying.
- This one is just too funny. "ACTA will not have a website" - What am i reading then? Not to mention the governing body which is mentioned at least once before this, does that not count as an international organization?
- US does