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EU To Sign ACTA Later This Month
rysiek writes "At a meeting of Polish Government officials with Polish NGOs and business representatives it was confirmed that the European Union is poised to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement as soon as January 26th. But all is not lost. The Treaty still needs to be ratified by the Euro Parliament and member states individually. The ratification vote is important, as it is an either-or vote — if not ratified there, ACTA gets rejected in its entirety. The Ministry of Administration and Digitization is not amused and has asked the Prime Minister (who promised this May to hold ACTA adoption until the kinks are worked out) to cancel the signing authorization for the time being."
So who's bribed who to get this pushed through ?
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
Will Wikipedia, Google and TotalBiscuit black out for us?
No?
Damn, we're screwed.
Picketing the EU Parliament won't work because most representatives don't show up anyway
:(
20 minutes into the future
These types of EU processes seem very convoluted to an outsider, as lawmaking processes often do. Can somebody give me a flow chart or a UML diagram? Or even pseudocode is fine.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
So SOPA was a diversion?
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Stuff like ACTA is bad, because piracy is inevitable. I don't think we should be trying to prevent piracy at all, as piracy is actually a good thing.
Firstly, it is copying. It isn't stealing. If it was just stealing the term piracy would not need to have been invented as distinct from stealing. Keep in mind that the word Piracy has existed for about 500 years, and only in the last decade or so has come to be taken as stealing.
Why is Piracy good?
Keep in mind piracy is legal in many countries, for good reason. This is an important point for people who rely on the piracy is stealing argument. Those countries tend to be smarter about such matters than the US and western Europe.
Piracy is not going away. Piracy is inevitable. Why waste so many resources on what is arguably a good thing?
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
All your dirty language gave me a stiffie.
All the other countries are just little bitches for the USA now.
It's ok. You can still hate us, we give you permission for that. Just so long as you bend over when we say.
You'll all do as you're told. Or else you might walk into a door and get hurt.
I am out of touch with each countries individual stance on ACTA. Could this be a good thing if enough countries are against it. A wait could afford more time to bring holdouts in line?
No sig for you!!
The Ministry of Administration and Digitization is not amused and has asked the Prime Minister (who promised this May to hold ACTA adoption until the kinks are worked out) to cancel the signing authorization for the time being.
This bit, the last sentence, is about Poland only, one of the 27 EU member states.
There are no ministers in the EU government, I think the closest would the comissioners in the EU Comission (EU government/executive branch) whose head is the president. And there are several vice-presidents among the comissioners.
Though there is the Council of the EU aka Council of Ministers. This council consists of one minister from each member states depending on the topic of discussion. Agriculture ministers when discussing agriculture etc.
This world we live in - and I am not only talking about the cyberworld, - is turning into a place where every-single-thing gonna be monopolized by somebody
We can blame the governments.
We can blame Washington D.C.
We can blame the greedy politicians.
But IMHO it has passed time to point fingers.
It's *US*, yes, You and Me, who is responsible for this mess.
You see, it's *US* who have allowed the politicians we have elected to carry out all these bullshits.
The article talked about "all is not loss", WTF ??
What does it mean by "all is not loss" ??
We've given our politicians the blank check to pass all these bullshit bills, and still, we're saying "all is not loss" ??
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
In the EU, it has to be approved by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
I'm not sure if there's any diagram that would make things clearer. Diagrams present formalities that mask the political reality of the decision making process.
Remember when software patents were put on the agenda of the fisheries committee? Procedures include flexibility...
Blocking ACTA isn't about spotting something on a map, it's about talking to our representatives and saying "We don't want this". (Council of Ministers is made up of the relevant ministers from the national governments, and the European Parliament is made up of our MEPs).
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
You see, it's *US* who have allowed the politicians we have elected to carry out all these bullshits.
The European politicians who are behind this sort of bullshit typically aren't elected in any meaningful sense. Indeed, quite a few EU Commissioners are very politically connected but basically unelectable in their own country; serial resigner Peter Mandelson was the UK's Commissioner for several years, for example.
There are also a few good ones, and I admit I'm a little surprised things have gotten this far with Neelie Kroes (who is normally well-informed and a voice of reason) currently serving as Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.
The only directly elected politicians in Europe are the MEPs. Let's hope they have a bit more spine than their colleagues. At least since the Lisbon Treaty one of the few significant improvements is that the MEPs do actually have real power, and seem to enjoy exercising it when it comes to getting in the way of the unelected Commissioners throwing their weight around.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Unfortunately, the "rich cocksuckers" (just citing Carlin) are influential, and have been projecting their influence all around the world. An EU politician isn't any better than any US politician - in both cases, corporate psychopaths tend to percolate up the chain of power, and therefore, have no quibbles being bribed and acting in their own interest vs. the interest of everyone.
This *could* be stopped if there were a concerted action like the one resisting SOPA/PIPA, but there isn't. There is no time even to mount a half-buttocked campaign, at this point.
I would love to be proven wrong.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
European Digital Rights has launched http://www.edri.org/ACTA_Week with 5 one page briefings that you can send to your National and Euro member of parliaments. Please do so, it will not take you long.
We enjoyed the rest from having to protest, for some twenty years, when life got back to being about pizza, drinks, and games.
Now we're in this really scary race to a frenzy that looks like the political oppression of other countries. And by race I mean drag car speed, not running.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
about the Poles being a bunch of morons until that became politically unacceptable. This does nothing but reinforce the original opinion.
Piracy is a bad word because it implies theft. Sharing is not theft and it is godly in that sharing is wat allows humans to express humanity. Distribution companies would like u to lump the too together and then call it all immoral and illegal. We need to fight this because it should never be illegal for u to share wat u rightfully own. Not sharing is generally a selfish option. But it should be a choice of the owner not the manufacturer. I can choose to share my car, my shelter, my food, my tools. The problem is distribution. Providing free copies of ur owned goods to people u dont know. That is wat big corporations do and historically it costs a lot of money to do this. Thus large distributors could charge a lot of money for providing this service. Now that the Internet came along and provided a very very cheap mechanism to distribute, the corporations who do this are finding it difficult to justify the amount they charge for this service. Effectively it costs $0 to distribute now. This is a problem for those who depend on this expense in order to justify expensive products and subsequent huge profits. Instead of adjusting to the new paradigm, it is easier and more profitable for them to attempt to legislate it away. I feel we are doing great harm by introducing laws to stifle progress in an attempt to protect the profits of companies who are now obviously just trying to limit new channels of competition. In the end, I expect these old companies r just shooting themselves in the foot by not embracing these new efficient channels of delivery. These companies would be better served by reducing prices and improving access to content. They could be beating the pirate companies at their own game. Look at wat apple has done in the music distribution industry. If the major players in the music industry had of acted faster to give people wat they wanted legally, then they wouldnt have to be giving apple such a large slice of their pie now. Maybe I am naive, but I think the majority of people DONT want to steal movies and music... they just dont want to be ripped off. Because inside, we all know that is exactly wat is happening. And the "theft" is justified based on this gut instinct.
No, it IS *them*.
We have a small part to play in the blame, but it's no good blaming the instructor for letting one of the fellow climbers unclip themselves from the rope and fall to their death when you're ignoring that it was the damn idiot playing around who is at fault.
Is http://rys.io/en/59 loading for you?
Can someone copy-paste the text, maybe also Freenet-copy it?
A better question would be "who is not not bribed".
I can see clearly that my government is weak and is ruled by the EU and USA, rather than self-governed.
It is such a pity, after all we are the country which actually brought an end to communism...
Is this the same Kroes who failed so bad in her own country? Minister of transport thanks to whose brilliant leadership competition on the rail network meant giving one company a tiny bit of rail (Amsterdam Zandvoort) and the new high speed link straight to the NS because you know, that encourages competition? Thanks to whose contracts that same NS can ignore some lines in its performance report and cancelled trains don't count towards the number of trains not driving on time?
Yeah, real competent.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
As I said before, a lot of people who go to be EU Commissioners are politically connected but no longer electable back home. Maybe she started out that way too.
That said, during her time as Competition Commissioner, she went after Microsoft seriously. She also notably stepped aside in cases where the role gave a conflict of interests because she had previously worked in the industries concerned.
More recently, she has had the Digital Agenda portfolio, and she has several surprisingly-sensible-for-a-politician statements on things like open standards and software patents.
I'd say that means she has a much better record as an EU Commissioner than most, regardless of her track record back at home.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Sovereignty of a nation is paramount for independence of an individual, because it allows more direct control of the government system.
The other truth is of-course that the same answer applies to the topic of this discussion - copyrights and patents must be abolished.
No business must be in a position to get a subsidy or any other type of preferential treatment from a government (for the people, of the people, by the people, yes?)
Individuals, citizens, consumers - they are supposed to be the constituents of their governments, not businesses, companies, corporations.
Of-course businesses, companies, corporations are also 'people', as in there are people behind them - owners, shareholders, whatever. But they as groups must not be able to get more preferential treatment than individuals (and not group must be able to have that,) but also as a group they must not be punished in ways that undermines rights of individuals that run those businesses.
The correct answer is to get government out of business, finance, money, regulations and subsidies and this also means abolishing copyrights and patents.
Copyrights and patents are preferential treatment to a subgroup of businesses that rely on those instruments to get a subsidy of special type of protection by government, and this must not be accepted by individuals.
You can't handle the truth.
I love free stuff.
But I also despise the experience of paid stuff. DRM, region restrictions, retarded people in my movie going experience, price gouging.
Even if the physical Blu-rays were being given away ... I'd still download a rip. I can't in good faith buy this stuff, knowing that someone, somewhere is getting paid to develop DRM schemes for a living.
It's the combination of push and pull effects, which makes me love piracy. Both are important.
I think the parent is pretty good but misses the HUGE point that the artists make only a minority of the profit from their work; most of it goes to the business middle men and related corporations who produce NOTHING. The business model for them is pretty much DEAD and unnecessary so not only should most of them go find other similar work but the ones who are left will have to settle for making less money and possibly a more fair portion of the wealth the artists generate.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Those of us in the U.S. need to take the momentum built up defeating SOPA/PIPA and focus it on the administration. They need to stop trying to force this trade agreement (ACTA) down the throats of our allies, right now. And we need to further push the President to follow up on his emerging anti-SOPA/PIPA stance and repudiate ACTA.
Sensible? I previously thought so, but she wanted the cheater, lier and enemy of freedom of speach on the internet Guttenberg as an adviser on promoting internet freedom.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
First of all, I do not think ACTA needs ratification both at the european parliament and at the individual countries' parliaments, but rather one way or the other. If the kind of measures ACTA treaty contemplates are already allowed to the European Union by the current EU treaties (the last one being the Lisbon treaty), then no individual ratification is required - I think this is the case.
Second, the europarliament has already contemplated the signing of ACTA last year, and passed a resolution about it - one that was interpreted by some to be an stop to ACTA, whilst at the same time was interpreted by others as an advance for ACTA. My guess is that it allows the European Comission to sign the ACTA treaty as long as some concerns are addressed. Hence, ratification from the europarliament might be no longer necessary.
Third, the European Council has already approved to sign the ACTA Treaty on its meeting on December 15th and 16th - Agriculture and Fisheries. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/agricult/127031.pdf Yes, you've read it right. It was approved on a Agriculture and Fisheries meeting. Sit down, the surprises aren't over. It was approved without even being on the agenda. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/agricult/126837.pdf
So, as far as I know, all that remains to be done is a protocolary signature event, and ACTA treaty will be deployed in the European Union.
According to this article here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/24/acta-101?page=all the parlaiment is against ACTA! We're fine, I think.