On February 08 2012 05:14 radiatoren wrote: If a government just copy-pastes ACTA to their laws without a huge chunk of exceptions it will essentially give roots to far more fascist opresion of free speech than what is in effect in China. Nobody can stop Hungary from implementing that with slightly hidden suppression of the opposition!
There is absolutely no way that this would happen. What has stopping illegal filesharing go to do with free speech? I just don't understand you people's line of argument. There is no way Chinese repression would be allowed under EU law, which is a much stronger system of treaties than one trade agreement.
Although you can't deny that these protests and all the opposition are having an effect to change the policy of governments involved in this agreement. In my opinion if governments want to push through anti-copyright legislation they should make it a lot more well restricted and avoid the scope being too broad, make it very specifically entirely about torrent websites or whatever. This way they will be able to categorically all this free speech talk which I still think is a smokescreen to be able to keep downloading things for free.
What I wrote has absolutely nothing to do with illegal filesharing. What I am commenting on is the empowerment of companies to appear as police and judge at the same time. Thanks for strawmanning me...
One example that I would bring forth is the Sony-case, where a man found the illegal rootkit installed by Sony. If you do not have an exception towards reverse engineering, the man would have been in jail and Sony would still have installed rootkits at random since the govermentcontrol is almost none-existent. That is censorship of free speach and has nothing at all to do with the piratebay-junkies and their illegitmate claims for breech of free speach.
The DNS-blocking that was in the previous version would be extremely controversial since DNS-blocking is completely meaningless for anyone with even the slightest clue about the internet, since it is extremely easy to get past, even unintentionally unless all countries in the world would ratify it! You are restricting me from using the internet freely based on geography. That is exactly what is happening in China. If you read the existing text it has the possibility to use such a measure.
You are correct that if they want to stop anything on the internet it should be a lot less wishywashy. It would be a million times better than creation your own little team, make a "trade-agreement" in total darkness and get it passed as if it was nothing without sufficient involvement from outside your own special interests.
Could you point that out in the current text? I thought it was taken out in the last revision and cannot find such a provision at the moment.
We are discussing a "what if" scenario. If you look at section 5.6 it can be done by DNS-blocking as a possible measure. Besides: If DNS-blocking wasn't possible in ACTA, Denmark would have to change laws to get in line and that is something that will not happen according to the government.
Do you mean that the ACTA committee may, according to 36.2 (c) "consider any proposed amendments to this Agreement in accordance with Article 42 (Amendments);" which reads "A Party may propose amendments to this Agreement to the Committee. The Committee shall decide whether to present a proposed amendment to the Parties for ratification, acceptance, or approval. "
From which follows article 36.6 "The Committee may amend the rules and procedures. " that you referred to.
But all this says is that there's a committee that discusses amendments and does the paperwork, the amendments do not go through without "the parties" ie. countries ratifying, accepting or approving it. So the committee itself cannot make DNS-blocking possible, it's the individual countries that need to do it.
On February 08 2012 05:14 radiatoren wrote: If a government just copy-pastes ACTA to their laws without a huge chunk of exceptions it will essentially give roots to far more fascist opresion of free speech than what is in effect in China. Nobody can stop Hungary from implementing that with slightly hidden suppression of the opposition!
There is absolutely no way that this would happen. What has stopping illegal filesharing go to do with free speech? I just don't understand you people's line of argument. There is no way Chinese repression would be allowed under EU law, which is a much stronger system of treaties than one trade agreement.
Although you can't deny that these protests and all the opposition are having an effect to change the policy of governments involved in this agreement. In my opinion if governments want to push through anti-copyright legislation they should make it a lot more well restricted and avoid the scope being too broad, make it very specifically entirely about torrent websites or whatever. This way they will be able to categorically all this free speech talk which I still think is a smokescreen to be able to keep downloading things for free.
What I wrote has absolutely nothing to do with illegal filesharing. What I am commenting on is the empowerment of companies to appear as police and judge at the same time. Thanks for strawmanning me...
One example that I would bring forth is the Sony-case, where a man found the illegal rootkit installed by Sony. If you do not have an exception towards reverse engineering, the man would have been in jail and Sony would still have installed rootkits at random since the govermentcontrol is almost none-existent. That is censorship of free speach and has nothing at all to do with the piratebay-junkies and their illegitmate claims for breech of free speach.
The DNS-blocking that was in the previous version would be extremely controversial since DNS-blocking is completely meaningless for anyone with even the slightest clue about the internet, since it is extremely easy to get past, even unintentionally unless all countries in the world would ratify it! You are restricting me from using the internet freely based on geography. That is exactly what is happening in China. If you read the existing text it has the possibility to use such a measure.
You are correct that if they want to stop anything on the internet it should be a lot less wishywashy. It would be a million times better than creation your own little team, make a "trade-agreement" in total darkness and get it passed as if it was nothing without sufficient involvement from outside your own special interests.
Could you point that out in the current text? I thought it was taken out in the last revision and cannot find such a provision at the moment.
We are discussing a "what if" scenario. If you look at section 5.6 it can be done by DNS-blocking as a possible measure. Besides: If DNS-blocking wasn't possible in ACTA, Denmark would have to change laws to get in line and that is something that will not happen according to the government.
Do you mean that the ACTA committee may, according to 36.2 (c) "consider any proposed amendments to this Agreement in accordance with Article 42 (Amendments);" which reads "A Party may propose amendments to this Agreement to the Committee. The Committee shall decide whether to present a proposed amendment to the Parties for ratification, acceptance, or approval. "
From which follows article 36.6 "The Committee may amend the rules and procedures. " that you referred to.
But all this says is that there's a committee that discusses amendments and does the paperwork, the amendments do not go through without "the parties" ie. countries ratifying, accepting or approving it. So the committee itself cannot make DNS-blocking possible, it's the individual countries that need to do it.
The point was "if ACTA is implemented in the strictest fascion possible it would entail a huge reduction of freedom". You are arguing completely according to EU protocol, which does not influence the hypothetical situation.
On February 12 2012 00:04 radiatoren wrote: One example that I would bring forth is the Sony-case, where a man found the illegal rootkit installed by Sony. If you do not have an exception towards reverse engineering, the man would have been in jail and Sony would still have installed rootkits at random since the govermentcontrol is almost none-existent. That is censorship of free speach and has nothing at all to do with the piratebay-junkies and their illegitmate claims for breech of free speach.
I find it extremely hard to believe that a man who discovered an illegal rootkit from a company, albeit by an illegal method, would have been sentenced particularly harshly...unless he were in the business of regularly reverse engineering products so that he could pass their details on to copying companies...in which case it would be fair he faced punishment for that.
You see, whilst YOUR arguments may be fine, and make sense, and be valid...there are so many people jumping on this bandwagon just because they like the free ride that the internet gives them, and they are trying to pin the moral tail on the donkey by whatever twisted and convoluted language they can. If you actually pin half the people attacking ACTA down, I'd wager they have no specificity in their arguments.
Thanks to everyone for participating. We had 16k in munich alone. I guess 100k+ in germany and in EU between 500k-1mil. (depending on numbers). The demonstrations were a great success and even the gov of germany did decide beforehand to not sign it yet, it send the proper signal to the politicians for now!
Watch out for now. I bet other " harmless agreements" will come our way ^^
The european stop ACTA day has passed, and yesterday and today a lot of my friends were asking what that was all about - people are reading about it in the news (austria and germany had tv coverage) and I am pretty sure that there are going to be a lot more people at the next demonstration. The real danger is that people will forget about it in 2 months, and it will pass anyway. Stall tactic can be very efficient, and has been in the past. We just have to remind our and the EU`s parliament that is is not allowed to pass, and keep at it.
Lets do this
Edit : Oh I could chant "ACTA ! AD ACTA!" all day long. Damn you latin fools.
Here is the video I made for the Anti-ACTA Prostest in Saarbrücken. Saarbrücken is just a small city with only 180.000 ppl and still we had around 2000 ppl protesting (which is huge). The video is in german and in the beginning it says: "Dear members of the european parlament... around 2000 ppl in saarbrücken want to tell you something:"
On February 12 2012 00:31 iloveav wrote: Government: A way to legalize "what i want, as long as i have half a decent way to back up my moral choices".
And we have allowed this since like.... Ancient Egypt? And then we think we are "intelligent creatures".
We are dumb sheeps. People who has too much power always end up retarded, abusing children and such. I agree so much with you! LETS END IT RIGHT NOW WITH A REVOLOUTION
It's nice to see so many people oppose ACTA all of Europe. Australia has already signed it from what I've heard but I haven't noticed any differences to the internet. I think the reason was it wouldn't change the internet laws that Australia already had. How would this be different in Europe? I'm just curious and I don't want to spend a lot of time researching this so could someone explain?
5000 people (according to police) opposing ACTA in Stuttgart., Germany. The video can't do the demo justice. It was an overwhelming amount of people peacefully marching through the city at adverse wheather conditions. video compilation made by a youtube user (1 hour long)
On February 12 2012 22:39 SocialStigma wrote: It's nice to see so many people oppose ACTA all of Europe. Australia has already signed it from what I've heard but I haven't noticed any differences to the internet. I think the reason was it wouldn't change the internet laws that Australia already had. How would this be different in Europe? I'm just curious and I don't want to spend a lot of time researching this so could someone explain?
it isnt in effect yet, they just collect the sign-ins for now. it gives companies the right and DUTY to controll your personal internet usage directly, just like music companies have direct access to youtube and can block things there at will.
it is very dangerous and also the EU is build very undemocratic, it will pass there eventually.
On February 12 2012 23:32 Liff wrote: 5000 people (according to police) opposing ACTA in Stuttgart., Germany. The video can't do the demo justice. It was an overwhelming amount of people peacefully marching through the city at adverse wheather conditions. video compilation made by a youtube user (1 hour long)
There is an official E-Petition on the site of german federal parliament... I know this is for germans only, but I'll post it anyways. I hope my fellow germans will sign up in large numbers ;-)