Raúl Santos
The European Parliament will soon vote on ACTA. The sad thing is that most people don’t know what ACTA is - but the really bad thing is: neither do the legislators and politicians voting on it.
ACTA is the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”. With such a name, one would think it’s a good thing, right? Well, it turns out that just as with several other misnamed laws of recent times, its name has little to do with what it really does.
First of all, ACTA is being secretly negotiated by 39 “countries,” bypassing parliaments, international organizations, and even the people, instead of being openly and democratically debated. And this is exactly what the entertainment industries want - yes, the same entertainment industries that prevent you from watching in Europe a DVD you legally bought in the US, for example (DVD region codes), and that recently managed to introduce a law in France that allows an entertainment company to cut off your internet access and convicting you of criminal acts, simply by accusing you of illegally obtaining entertainment material - without having to prove it, and without allowing you to prove your innocence. George Orwell is surely laughing at us from his grave right now.
ACTA is also such a complex beast, that most people have no idea of how broad it is - not even some of the people voting on it. It is being intentionally steered that way by the entertainment industry’s lobbyists, who know that if the full extent of this agreement is known, they will face some serious opposition and the agreement may be rejected.
If approved, ACTA will be a threat to Internet users’ fundamental freedoms and to EU Internet companies’ competitiveness and free competition, but it will also affect people out of the digital world. For instance, it will allow big corporations to prevent cheap, generic medicine to reach people in poor countries (or even poor people in developed countries), or to block certain seeds from being used to create better crops.
ACTA will undermine our freedom in order to serve one single purpose: to allow a few giant corporations to make even more ridiculous amounts of money.
The European Parliament will soon decide whether to give its consent to ACTA, or to reject it - hopefully for good. We must take this opportunity to make a stand and prevent big corporations from taking away our rights and our freedom.
I ask that you watch the video on this page and then do something about it.
These are times of change. The recent protests all over the world have proven that we can make positive changes if we’re willing to make our voices heard - let’s make ACTA another example of it!