Archive for the ‘acta’ tag
Tomorrow’s anti-ACTA protests and beyond
Opposition to ACTA is to take to the European streets tomorrow, with protests planned in over 100 cities. But the mob that are the internet-proles isn’t alone in objecting to ACTA. Here’s a non-exhaustive overview of the point of view of some organisations that will be, in the next few months leading up to the vote in the European Parliament, important parts of the broad anti-ACTA coalition:
- Electronic Frontier Foundation: “We Have Every Right to Be Furious About ACTA“
- Free Software Foundation: “Acta Threathens Free Software“
- Reporters without borders: “Online freedoms threatened by another step towards treaty’s adoption“
- Doctors without borders: “The deal claims to be an effort to protect consumers from fake medicines, but it will inhibit the production of legitimate, affordable, and safe medicines by giving companies far reaching powers to block competitors’ products.“
- Association Européenne pour la défense des Droits de l’Homme: “L’AEDH s’oppose à cet accord et appelle à se mobiliser à la fois contre des négociations tenues secrètes en dehors de tout débat démocratique et contre le contenu même de cet accord.“
- Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure: “ACTA’s intrusive character harms health and freedom of expression. ACTA will have a chilling effect on innovation, Internet service providers, mass digitization projects, startup companies and diffusion of green technology“
- EuroISPA, GSMA, Cable Europe & ETNO: “We are concerned that ACTA threatens to establish rules that go beyond the EU acquis and undermine the existing balance of the legislative framework, at the risk of undermining Europe’s innovation capacity and competitiveness“
- European Greens: “EU governments wave through ACTA deal, ignoring major legal concerns” with links to very in-depth studies about what makes ACTA a threat.
- Party of European Socialists: “ACTA is “wrong in both content and process”, says PES in strongly worded declaration“
If you want to join the anti-ACTA movement (you should), here’s what you can do:
Act up against ACTA
The European Parliament will soon vote on ACTA, an international trade agreement that might have a huge impact on the internet as we know it. The YouTube video below explains some of the ramifications (in a propaganda-esque kind of way, but still) and this Wikipedia-article provides some more objective information and contains links to -a lot- more detailed reviews and criticisms.
The bottom-line: if you’re European and you were supporting the great anti-SOPA-protests in the U.S., this is the time to act yourself! Spread the word and sign one or more of these petitions against ACTA:
The video:
