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ACTA To Be Signed This Weekend
We've been following the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement for over three years, from its secretive beginnings, to the controversy and debate that followed, and to the document it eventually evolved into. Now, Japan has announced that the agreement will finally be signed on Saturday during a ceremony that follows an anti-piracy symposium on Friday.
"The negotiation has been carried out among Australia, Canada, the European Union and its Member States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States, and reached a general agreement at the negotiation meeting held in Japan in October 2010, followed by the completion of technical and translation work in April 2011. ... The signing ceremony will be attended by the representatives of all the participants in the ACTA negotiations, and those that have completed relevant domestic processes will sign the agreement. The agreement is open for signature until May 1, 2013."
Well damn someone pass the lube I guess it's that time again.
Don't be shocked if this follows the pattern laid out in the case of the WIPO anticircumvention treaty. It did not require anything nearly as strong as the DMCA, but the content industry kept waiving it in congressional faces, demanding that we pass something far too draconian to be justified by the treaty we had actually signed. In principle, this is set up to be in line with extant US law, thus not requiring a full Senate confirmation, but I wouldn't be shocked if (a) the content industries rammed down much stronger interpretations down other countries' throats, and (b) they then came back to the US and demanded that we "harmonize" with these stronger interpretations.
... how's that 'representative democracy' working out for 'ya? Feel represented yet?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
America's top exports: pornography, hamburgers, movies, economic instability, and, of course, imbalanced copyright legislation. Damn it America, keep your garbage to yourself! We all have our own special interest lobby groups! The last thing we need is for our governments to feel the influence of YOUR lobby groups, too. There's hardly any highly developed countries left where people can live quiet lives with *sane* copyright legislation.
That is what the US will become. The warriors of intellectual property. If we can't manufacture, create, and export tangible things, then god-dammit we'll charge for any intangible a lawyer can serve papers on.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Invading Iraq on a WMD/Terrorist pretext is wholly different proposition to providing air support to an in-progress popular rebellion.
I'm not American, I don't care for Obama particularly, but the Libya actions seem to be attracting praise from people *worldwide*, whereas the Iraq debacle has ruined the reputation of the US the world over. This particular area is not something that you can or should reduce to partisan politics.
The Obama administration has made it possible to create petitions which, if they get sufficient signatures, will be
responded to and potentially acted on. I've created one at http://wh.gov/4PW which I encourage all to read and
sign if they agree with it. We can defeat this!