If You Beleive In Freedom Of Information...

[Epsilon]

Oppose this now.
Write directly to your head of state, if possible.
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Epsilon

[Sofaspud]

Care to explain why, Ep?  Just throwing a 14MB PDF at us is hardly clarifying your position, and I'm not seeing -- on a *very* brief skim, mind you -- anything particularly noteworthy here.
Edit to add: NZ's got style, man.  And I haven't figured out what country MX represents yet, but they don't come across as liking the US much.  Heh.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Bob Schroeck]

Haven't looked at it yet, but judging by the file name, this is the draconian international super-copyright law drafted in secret that is supposed to pretty much destroy anything even vaguely resembling fair use (and possibly the public domain, depending on which source you believe).
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Sofaspud]

Yes, I know that's the knee-jerk reaction to it... but I haven't seen anything in here that actually resembles that.  Oh, sure, the US is going for the gusto on this stuff -- Fines!  Penalties!  Inspections! -- but the other countries are for the most part holding the US back, when not taking cheap shots at each other.
And what I've seen that they agree on -- stress that -- seems to be aimed squarely at commercial, large-scale operations (*cough* China *cough*) instead of individuals who happened to time-shift Stargate Atlantis for their commuter flight home.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Epsilon]

In summary:
ISPs are responsible for policing all traffic that occurs on them.
Accusations of copyright crime are to be considered sufficient grounds to suspend ISP accessibility and so on.
If you want I can link to the rpg.net thread where several people are discussing the implications of the law.
-----------------
Epsilon

[Sofaspud]

A link would be nice, sure.
That said, I'm assuming you're referring to "Section 4: Special Measures Related to Technological Enforcement Means and the Internet", starting on pg. 25 of the linked PDF, which is the only bit I see directly addressing ISPs.
Sifting through all the back-and-forth -- the US proposes something, Japan proposes deleting it immediately after, the EU chimes in with another option, etc -- it does not appear that this has any more teeth than current US copyright infringement laws already support.  True, it would extend this to signatory countries -- assuming those bits make it through, which NZ and Switzerland seem opposed to, as well as Japan -- but it does not that I can see specify that the ISPs are responsible for policing their traffic, unless the country they are in decides that is the best way to implement this.
It -does- imply pretty strongly that an accusation is all that is required... however, I note that this is the current state of affairs in the US as-is.  If someone claims that I am violating their copyright on my personal website, it is taken down and I then have to defend it if I want it to stay up.  It's already a case of guilty until proven innocent.
While this is a deplorable state of affairs, it's hardly the groundbreaking revolution that some are claiming it to be. 
At any rate, unless I'm reading it wrong, the US tried to specifically introduce exceptions for fair use and other such acts, other countries are proposing striking that as redundant, which implies to me that this is not meant to stamp out our current ability to engage in said acts.
Frankly, Section 4 should be chopped from this entirely, because the rest of it all seems to be about physical counterfeiting, not digital.  But that's unlikely to happen.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Epsilon]

Here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=506440
Requires login.
---------------
Epsilon

[robkelk]

And I haven't figured out what country MX represents yet, but they don't come across as liking the US much.

Which is a surprise, considering that they share a border with you.

(No, Canada is "CA". Look in the other direction.)

While this is a deplorable state of affairs, it's hardly the groundbreaking revolution that some are claiming it to be.

It is, outside the USA.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Sweno]

ah yes, ACTA.

This started (and similar treaties have been in the past) all about physical piracy/duplication. Everything from knockoff watches, to large scale movie copiers, to any other sort of non-electronic unauthorized duplication/distribution you can think of. This is generally considered to be bad by almost everyone, and no one was bothered that treaties were being signed that affected local law about these things.

A country didn't have to sign up on these previous agreements. But (and here's the big stick) if they didn't there was a very big chance that none of the big publishing houses (movie, music, books, tv, and not just the US ones) would license content for their country. It basically was a way to lay down a standard so that you didn't end up shipping a boatload of content over there, only to have it copied and redistributed. But because of a local legal loophole, you were left with nothing that you could do.

And then somehow (I have no clear idea) the concept that this should apply to electronic content was introduced. And all hell broke lose.

I don't have the motivation to summarize all the nitty gritty details, so I'll just toss a couple of links to people who do.

http://www.eff.org/issues/acta

http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/acta/

http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/acta

Bad news for those of us in the states: The US has positioned ACTA as an executive agreement rather than a treaty (no need for senate approval)

The good news: Executive agreements don't have the power and reach to cover such changes to law, and it would be challenged in court (Lawrence Lessig and Jack Goldsmith have vouched to do so)
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Epsilon]

It is, outside the USA.

Indeed. There is a reason why Canada is on the US's shit list when it comes to IP rights, for example.
---------------
Epsilon

[Sofaspud]

I get that it's a change outside the US, actually.  I'm not so thick as to think the US = The World.
(As for the MX confusion, I originally thought it was Mexico, but then one of the annotations is attributed to "Mex", which suggested to me MX was a different country.  Ah, well.)
Regardless, it sounds like Section 4 is the one all the shouting is about.  And I'm not saying there's not decent reason for that.  But.. look.
"If you believe in freedom of information" comes across as a very heavily loaded statement.  And it's a misleading title.  This is not about freedom of information.  Even Section 4, as craptacular as it is, is not about 'freedom of information'.  It is about copyright (or trademark, as Japan keeps inserting in place of or in addition to the blanket term 'copyright').

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Rod.H]

But.. look.
"If you believe in freedom of information" comes across as a very heavily loaded statement.  And it's a misleading title.  This is not about freedom of information.  Even Section 4, as craptacular as it is, is not about 'freedom of information'.  It is about copyright (or trademark, as Japan keeps inserting in place of or in addition to the blanket term 'copyright').

True that, however there are people that do believe copyright and the related legalise being mooted are attempts to restrict information. As for Japan insisting on trademark, well take the words 'Harmony Gold' and apply liberally to anything produced for one market and sold in others by a 3rd party.