[Rin on...] ACTA

I digress, my post on SOPA wasn't much of a post at all. It was a spur-of-the-moment attempt to kick this blog back to life. I was inspired by all the internet backlash, of the countless websites protesting SOPA in their own way. Let me hereby apologize by making a real post.

SOPA and PIPA have effectively been shut down.Thank you internet, for waking up. However, a new challenger has approached. Meet: ACTA.





ACTA stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This is, to use the WPO's verbiage, a plurilateral agreement. Essentially, ACTA is supposed to be setting up international standards with regards to intellectual property. Doesn't seem so bad, at start. The scope of ACTA includes counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet.

Here's an excellent article on why ACTA is a problem, and for this introductory post, I'll pretty much just TL,DR; it for you.


ACTA is definitely a problem as it's not just an act or a law, it's a trade agreement. This means that if we have a problem with it later, or the backlash comes too late, Congress' hands are tied. "The sneaky part is that once you have some of these 'international obligations,' it's almost impossible to get out of them. Copyright maximalists love to shout about how we must absolutely respect our 'international obligations' on these kinds of treaties, to limit the government's ability to fix copyright law." Know what that sounds like to me? It means get this the fuck out of here NAO.

It also exports and imports, if you will, certain laws from and to other countries that are part of ACTA. For example, we, having "fair use" policies, would have a bit of safety that people like you and I in other countries with no such policies wouldn't.

"Under existing international agreements, countries can ignore pharmaceutical patents to deal with health emergencies. That is, if you have an outbreak and need a drug that pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to supply at a reasonable price, governments can break the patent and produce their own." So, say there's an outbreak in Country X, and only Y Pharmacy has the patent for the drug. They want to charge $1000 a treatment. Government steps in and says, "Whoa Y Pharmacy, GTFO. We got this." So they'll break the patent, make the drug, and rectify the outbreak. Under ACTA, this would be significantly more difficult, perhaps even impossible.

Hell, "Homeland Security itself was worried about ACTA, because of fears that it would actually make it more difficult to be effective on intellectual property issues -- and might require them to spend more time trying to figure out if something is infringing, rather than if there's a terrorist trying to get into the country." Ridiculous.

And the scariest part is, as usual, these lawmakers don't even fully understand the scope of what they're trying to accomplish. Yet again, they don't understand the possible ramifications. "in Europe, they're insisting that it is a binding treaty. The US, on the other hand, has already said that it can ignore anything it doesn't like in ACTA. If you think that's a recipe for an international problem, you get a gold star." I'm pretty sure that's unconstitutional. We can't sign an international treaty and ignore the bits we don't like. That's not how international policy works. Then again, I'm no Poli Sci major.

Reluctantly, a lot of countries have already signed off on this. Unless the EU can be convinced not to sign off on it, we're screwed. This will go into effect soon enough. However, don't rest your weary fingers yet! Swallow that sadness and focus your attention on yet another bill that's being drafted behind doors: TPP.

TPP stands for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, and to quote Techdirt, it's basically "ACTA on steroids." After I do my research, I'll blog about TPP next.

This looks like a scary one.

Oh, and if you need a little pick-me-up after reading all of this, head back over to Techdirt and read this article on what our dear Internet has realized of late. We have power, over here, with our keyboards and our ability to make information spread like wildfire, and we need to make plans of what to do with this newfound ability of ours.

"The fact that lots of people are chiming in and sharing their thoughts may seem chaotic to an outside world, but out of it, I expect to see some amazing things come together. That, by itself, really is part of the power of the internet -- the fact that this doesn't need to be top-down and organized, but can build itself organically. It may be messy, but I expect we'll see some impressive things come out of it."

You sir, are correct.