1) The negotiations of ACTA and its contents had been kept secret for several years - any materials that got published were provided by Wikileaks. That's one of my main concerns: this is simply not a way to negotiate an agreement that - allegedly - changes nothing. So unless I see some mighty broad consultations and a good professional report on this subject, I will not be convinced that ACTA is 100 percent harmless.
2) ACTA uses very broad, general terms - for instance, it does not specify what it considers "a violation of intellectual property rights" or "appropriate cases". There are concerns about the big players exploiting this loophole and pushing their preferred definitions of "IP violations". However, ACTA does acknowledge the "primacy" of the local law in this respect - again, art. 3.1 - so maybe, just maybe, these fears are unfounded.
3) There are signs that ACTA is not only being used to prevent counterfeiting - it's used to fight any potential intellectual property violations. This, in turn, causes damages to generic drug market, which is being mercilessly ravaged by large pharmaceutical companies. An unsettling summary is given here: http://www.keionline.org/node/1300
4) And, of course, there's always the broader discussion. What does "intellectual property" mean in this modern era of constant content-sharing and how to protect it? And whose interests are protecting, anyway? Are private property rights and civil rights always convergent with each other?, etc.
So, I think it's important that people know what exactly is going on, because to oppose ACTA effectively we need to know exactly what it represents. No, it's not out there to go after our freedom of speech and our puny little blogs - it has bigger fish to fry (Seriously: it couldn't go after our puny little blogs even if it wanted to). And if we start to believe that it's all about monitoring our twitts and blocking websites, then we're not only looking in the wrong place, but we're also missing the bigger picture.
1) The negotiations of ACTA and its contents had been kept secret for several years - any materials that got published were provided by Wikileaks. That's one of my main concerns: this is simply not a way to negotiate an agreement that - allegedly - changes nothing. So unless I see some mighty broad consultations and a good professional report on this subject, I will not be convinced that ACTA is 100 percent harmless.
2) ACTA uses very broad, general terms - for instance, it does not specify what it considers "a violation of intellectual property rights" or "appropriate cases". There are concerns about the big players exploiting this loophole and pushing their preferred definitions of "IP violations". However, ACTA does acknowledge the "primacy" of the local law in this respect - again, art. 3.1 - so maybe, just maybe, these fears are unfounded.
3) There are signs that ACTA is not only being used to prevent counterfeiting - it's used to fight any potential intellectual property violations. This, in turn, causes damages to generic drug market, which is being mercilessly ravaged by large pharmaceutical companies. An unsettling summary is given here: http://www.keionline.org/node/1300
4) And, of course, there's always the broader discussion. What does "intellectual property" mean in this modern era of constant content-sharing and how to protect it? And whose interests are protecting, anyway? Are private property rights and civil rights always convergent with each other?, etc.
So, I think it's important that people know what exactly is going on, because to oppose ACTA effectively we need to know exactly what it represents. No, it's not out there to go after our freedom of speech and our puny little blogs - it has bigger fish to fry (Seriously: it couldn't go after our puny little blogs even if it wanted to). And if we start to believe that it's all about monitoring our twitts and blocking websites, then we're not only looking in the wrong place, but we're also missing the bigger picture.
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