ACTA Signed By European Union

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has just been signed in by the European Union.

ACTA for those who don’t know, is kind of like SOPA’s big brother. It’s
a multi-national trade agreement that seeks to protect copyright
through a brutish censorship regime just like SOPA and PIPA.

The European Digital Rights Group (EDRI) details their beef with the
agreement:

"The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a plurilateral
international agreement which wants to set a “gold standard” for the
enforcement of intellectual property rights.

The Agreement will have major implications for freedom of expression, access to culture and
privacy. It will also harm international trade and stifle innovation."

[b]The EU and 22 member states signed the agreement today according to Wired.
The only five member states who have yet to sign the agreement are
Cyprus, Germany, Estonia, Netherlands and Slovakia. They are expected to
sign it soon though.

Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the U.S. signed the agreement back in October 2011.

As we previously reported, the U.S. signing of the agreement is in
direction violation of the constitution as it requires any trade
agreements, which ACTA is, to be approved by Congress before being
signed by the president.

The EU signed it, but it’s still not international law just yet. The vote must go before the
European Parliament first before becoming law.

The EDRI says that ACTA will presented before the International Trade Committee in March and is expected to be voted on by parliament in May.

There are numerous protests and attempts at stopping ACTA at the
European Parliament. Many of them are similar to the actions taken
against SOPA last Wednesday but on a global scale.

Anonymous has a hand in the fight against it too announcing a World War
Web. They are using the hashtag #ActAgainstACTA to drive up support on twitter.

Source

So this shouldn't effect us, unless we Copy Europe copyrighted material or if the U.S signs it?

#1Fan wrote:So this shouldn't effect us, unless we Copy Europe copyrighted material or if the U.S signs it?

The U.S already signed this back in october..

HopsinIsDope wrote:

#1Fan wrote:So this shouldn't effect us, unless we Copy Europe copyrighted material or if the U.S signs it?

The U.S already signed this back in october..

According to this article, it still has to be passed through Congress. I'll look into it.


Also, it doesn't matter if ACTA passes anywhere. If it passes anywhere, it will still affect us. Just like SOPA and PIPA fucked with everyone.

It's attacking the internet. The internet is a global thing which should not be governed.

It is fucking crazy why the government has to control the internet.

The government has to control everything.