Yet Another European Government Drops ACTA 117
An anonymous reader writes "The government of Bulgaria, which had already signed ACTA, yesterday reversed itself, and announced that it would not seek ratification of the treaty. This comes after similar moves by Poland, Germany and the Netherlands, and a weekend of massive protests against ACTA across the European continent."
Common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you, Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
We in Canada thank you for being smarter than us. Our prime minister still has his nose up American corporate ass.
Re:Need non-EU contries to reject it to die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Answer: (Score:3, Insightful)
Corruption
They are just bound and determined... (Score:5, Insightful)
Man...glad I was here to see the wild west days of it back in '92-'93 and just after that.
Then again, I remember going to the gates at airports to greet people as they got off the plane, and even before metal detectors going to the gates.
Sigh...the US use to be a much more free place.
Re:A word of caution (Score:3, Insightful)
Far better to be clueless and admit it than to be simply clueless, which appears to be the position of most of our politicians.
Re:Wrong target (Score:5, Insightful)
They already tried that by telling me that downloading a couple of tracks from the Internet was equivalent to nicking a car. They then showed that piracy is masterminded by some half-naked medieval torturer with glowing red eyes and a red hot branding iron. Seems so fucking cool to me that I of course had to give it a try.
It was disappointing, but I at least came away with some free music.
Internet vs Establishment. We are winning (Score:4, Insightful)
ACTA source EU (Score:3, Insightful)
Text of the treaty:
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/11/st12/st12196.en11.pdf
Main aim of this legislation seems to be exporting the US legal approach to the rest of the world. Tactics like secret negotiations, participants having to sign non-disclosure agreement intended to implement this more or less under the radar of public scrutiny.
Please take into account that the US patent system is considered "broken" through awarding trivial patents, patents on software, genetic patents, patent trolls, corporate patent wars.
Like the mission to Iraq the US has again created a coalition of the willing and is using that to get more aboard. US diplomacy is exerting pressure to join. If the EU would have joined it would have very difficult for third world countries to evade joining. That would definitely have impacted the price and availability of generic pharmaceuticals.
That legal approach includes for instance the damages calculation which led to obscene claims in the US and also would enable a business model for law firms to extort consumers sharing a few files.
Please note that this treaty aims to cover all Intellectual Property rights. The implications for the Internet (ISPs having to cooperate) draws the most attention up to now.
More specifically it will enable Monsanto to enforce their genetic seed patents outside the US. So do expect them to sue farmers saving part of their harvest for seeding next year. Given the wide contamination by pollen seed stocks are inevitably contaminated by GM material.
The US political system is thoroughly corrupted. Corporate interest like MPAA's Dodd (an ex-senator mind you) is openly threatening to retract campaign contributions. The failure of the US political system in their fiduciary duty to protect citizens/voters/consumers against exploitation by the economic system is of truly epic proportions.
Corporate interest simply don't have the same level of influence in Europe.
However now the very secretive approach has been exposed, the very text will be studied much more thoroughly. For now ACTA seems dead in the water indeed.
Nice to see international grass roots cooperation to stop this (now more that 2.3 million signatures:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?tta
Re:Thank you, Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm so sick of that argument.
The conservatives only got 40% of the popular vote, so 60% of Canadians didn't want them to be in power....
Ok, but look at the alternatives...
30% voted for the NDP, that means 70% of Canadians didn't want them to be in power...
19% voted for the Liberals, that means 81% of Canadians didn't want them to be in power...
6% voted for the Bloc, that means 94% of Canadians didn't want them to be in power...
4% voted for the Greens, that means 96% of Canadians didn't want them to be in power...
Yes, I can understand that the "first past the post" riding system might cause a party that has less then 40% of the popular vote can still grab 54% of the seats, but look at the system in the US, it causes the same issues. 2000 election had Al Gore with 48.4% of the popular vote who lost to George Bush with 47.9%.
So the party that had the largest percentage of people voting for them ended up forming the government and you are calling this Fascist? I think that might better suit a system where you write off the fact that the majority voted for one party and say they shouldn't be in power and that a less popular party should be in charge.
Re:Thank you, Europe (Score:2, Insightful)
Your use of profanity to bolster your argument betrays your intelligence level. Better luck next time.
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I don't think opposition from former Eastern Bloc countries like Bulgaria and Poland surprises anyone really, nor do I expect their dissent to convince any of the proponents to back down, particularly the US. On the contrary, I expect they'll use that to fuel their argument about the necessity of ACTA.
Good to see Germany and the Netherlands opposing it though. The economic powerhouse of Germany cannot be ignored, and their opposition makes it politically easier for other countries to voice their dissent as well.
Re:The fight for democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Need non-EU contries to reject it to die. (Score:4, Insightful)
Very unlikely to happen in the US. The administration hasn't even submitted it to congress for ratification yet. Also, remember treaties need 2/3 support of the senate, and there are an easy 34 senators that oppose this.
Re:Common sense (Score:3, Insightful)
The US already has the DMCA, so it matters little if it's ratified here. ACTA was to impose the DMCA on other countries. From what I've seen, ACTA adds nothing new. As many tech pundits have already pointed out, DMCA works well in the US because of Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms that many European countries lack, which would make their version of a DMCA relatively unhindered from becoming downright draconian.
Bad for Europe, a shoulder shrug for the US.
Re:Thank you, Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
What's weird is when the party has less than 50% of votes, but more than 50% of seats.