ACTA Signed By 8 of 11 Participating Countries

An anonymous reader writes with this news on the ACTA treaty, straight from the EFF's release on the news: "On Saturday October 1st, eight countries (the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea) signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Tokyo, Japan. Three of the participating countries (the European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland) have not yet signed the treaty, but have issued a joint statement affirming their intentions to sign it 'as soon as practicable.' ACTA will remain open for signature until May 2013. While the treaty's title might suggest that it deals only with counterfeit physical goods such as medicines, it is in fact far broader in scope. ACTA contains new potential obligations for Internet intermediaries, requiring them to police the Internet and their users, which in turn pose significant concerns for citizens' privacy, freedom of expression, and fair use rights." Update: 10/20 13:24 GMT by T : As several readers have pointed out, the quoted news from the EFF describes the EU as a country; I'm sure they know it's not.

Comments

But of course

[dkleinsc]

Many major corporations are in favor of ACTA, and no major corporations oppose it, so clearly, signing it is a no-brainer.

I'd have been more surprised if any of the countries in question had had the cajones to stand up to Disney, News Corp, GE, or Time Warner.

Re:Nation-states no friend to liberty

[TheGratefulNet]

The world's people are no longer divided by stupid, arbitrary national borders. And yet we still have these gigantic nation-states serving to limit our freedoms.

get this into your head: the way the world works and has always works is: the ruling class exists to have a great life and we, the 99%, exist to support them and serve them.

anything else you learn in life is secondary to THIS golden rule.

sorry, but its true. this 50 yr old guy has learned this much from his years out in the real world.

all else they tell you is food coloring. the real deal is to keep the lower and middle classes 'in line' and there is NOT going to be any personal freedom if it interferes with the ruling classes.

its how humanity is 'wired' and its always, always been this way. internet or not, people are controllers and those in power are NOT going to give in to this new peer-to-peer (person to person) method of bypassing their control.

Your own government

[bussdriver]

Functionally, in areas where corporate interests dictate policy it is no longer your government. "Let them vote for cake" is where things are headed; serious self government is being removed gradually; like boiling a frog.