Mexican Senate Votes To Drop Out of ACTA

An anonymous reader writes "The Mexican Senate has voted unanimously to drop out of ACTA negotiations, saying that the process has been way too secretive, left out many stakeholders and appears to deny access to knowledge and information. Of course, it's not clear if this 'non-binding resolution' actually means much, as the negotiators are not under the Senate's control. At the very least, though, it appears the Mexican Senate is going to fight to keep the country from agreeing to ACTA."

Comments

Not at all

[cappp]

That's not what the resolution says at all.

First .- The Senate agreed to form a Plural Working Group to follow up the negotiations for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, known as ACT (for its initials in English Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) in order to assist in the transparency of the multilateral negotiations and ensure that the provisions of this Agreement are in accordance with the guarantees and fundamental rights that our Constitution provides for Federal

Second .- The Senate agreed to hold, through the Working Group Plural provided in resolving previous public forums and consultations with officials, academics, experts and interested parties in order to build a position on it, and its case, to form an agenda and an alternate route to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), in order to prepare and submit bills related to the Internet, the industrial property rights and copyrights, as well as freedom of expression and the right to privacy. Third .- While setting up a position by the Senate on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), requesting the owner of the Federal Executive, Mr. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa , stop the process of negotiations for our country to sign the international convention.

This says nothing about dropping out at all. It is asking for negotiations to be paused while they set up internal discussion and review groups. The tone of the entire thing supports the general need for something like ACTA but is against the secrecy of the negotiations. The healine there is misleading.

So...

[Barrinmw]

Another "backwards" country cares more about the freedoms of its people than the United States.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I always feel like the Imperial March should play any time our ambassadors arrive to negotiate some new onerous "IP law" treaty with a wide-eyed, third world country?

Wow.

[ignavus]

Unanimous ... I bet the US senate would be closer to unanimous in the other direction.

Smaller countries know when they are being taken to the cleaners.

Made In America

[Citizen of Earth]

I can't understand why any country other than America would even care about draconian copyright enforcement. Given that America is a huge media maker and most of the world are consumers of this media with a small amount they produce themselves, their citizens achieve a higher quality if life with existing copyright enforcement. ACTA really only benefits the US. All the other countries should figure this out.

IP economy vs. Freedom

[oldhack]

I just think IP economy is incompatible with freedom in general. I know you guys can follow thru.

Re:IP economy vs. Freedom

[mcvos]

I completely disagree. Suppose your livelihood depended on creating intellectual property;

Suppose your livelihood depended on creating hot air. It's not the law's job to enable business models, its job is to enable a healthy society. And at the moment, a lot of IP laws don't seem to do much good to society.

There are already ridiculous amounts of money and lawyers involved in IP at the moment. We're creating more content than ever before. More than we can ever hope to consume. Why do we need a new treaty to make IP even more powerful? We need some balance.

Now let's say your hot new video game gets distributed in a way that results in heavy losses for your employer. Now let's take this one step further - your bonus/raise/benefits have all been drastically reduced due to heavy damages. Then what are you going to do?

Try something that works, rather than go whining to the government for more draconian laws.

Nice sideshow alright, but ACTA marches on

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> Smaller countries know when they are being taken to the cleaners.

Yeh, but the only institutions that complain are ones with no power.

The European Parliament, the European Privacy Commission, and the Mexican Senate aren't in charge of the ACTA negotiations for their countries. They can stomp off and their citizens can feel proud that the elected officials are looking after their interests, but ACTA goes ahead. Funny, huh?

I didn't understand how society let TRIPS go ahead in 1994. I guessed it was snuck in while citizens weren't looking at the global level, and it would thus never happen again. Now my generation is letting it happen, and we're watching it unfold, and it's unfolding...

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement_overview

Re:Nice sideshow alright, but ACTA marches on

[tongting]

The future's so bright I gotta wear shades, not. "Democratic" societies are sort of a joke. The masses are easily distracted with a combination of glittering objects and FUD while they are increasingly put under the boot of the powerful.

Re:Mexico has much bigger things to deal with

[dbet]

I would argue every nation has bigger things to deal with, but that's just me.

Go Mexico!

[Arancaytar]

Mexico may have been turned into a lethal hellhole by the drug cartels, but you have to credit their government with more integrity than most of the developed world, as far as that treaty is concerned. I hope the EU makes good on its promise and follows suit.