ACTA Is Backta, New Round of Talks Start Today

An anonymous reader writes "Negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement resume today in Lucerne, Switzerland, with the ninth round of talks. The Toronto Star highlights the mounting opposition to the deal from developing world countries such as India and China, while Michael Geist has posted a video of a recent lecture that provides background on the agreement and where things currently stand."

Comments

Standings

[Wowsers]

Where you stand with the ACTA agreement if implemented.... no need to worry about it, it will cut the legs off of ordinary people, whilst pandering to big money to tighten it's grip on the little people. Thus the problem of "where you stand" will be eliminated.

You can't win

[rsilvergun]

you're up against full time lawyers, and you're just a bunch of starry eyed idealists with day jobs & kids on the way.

Re:Evil From a Democratic Point of View

[JockTroll]

>The democratic process is dead. What options are left to us?

Boomsticks and boompacks. What else? The self-appointed elite sees no reason to listen to the little people, the little people must use extreme measures.

ACTA has nothing to do with counterfeiting.

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded the version of ACTA posted previously. Considering the title is the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, I figured it would talk about the illegal production of currency, with a page or two that lobbyists stuck in the middle dealing with copyright infringement. So I did a text search on "money," "coin" and "currency."

The only results were talking about whether money exchanges hands for illegally copied works.

In other words, the Anti COUNTERFEITING Trade Agreement has nothing to do with the illegal production of false currency. Nothing whatsoever. The "Counterfeiting" in the title refers to simple copyright infringement. It's trying to equate copyright infringement with one of the most serious crimes a sovereign nation can face.

If a treaty has to lie right in the title in order not to provoke outrage by the citizens of the countries governed by it, it's a bad treaty. No exceptions.

Re:ACTA has nothing to do with counterfeiting.

[Anonymous Coward]

counterfeit v.t. Imitate (an action, thing, etc.) with intent to deceive; make a fraudulent imitation of (money etc.).

Counterfeit covers money but it also covers fake Rolex watches, fake medicines, fake DVDs, etc.

Re:ACTA has nothing to do with counterfeiting.

[SheeEttin]

It's not referring to currency counterfeiting, but goods counterfeiting, like that guy on the street that sells "Rolex" watches for $5, or the guy that sells DVDs out the back of a station wagon.
Of course, I assume that was the original target, but the final bill is apparently more targeted at your everyday consumer, trying to put all the power in the hands of corporations.