Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - Right or Wrong?

[Niall!]

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement for establishing international standards on intellectual-property-rights enforcement throughout the participating countries. Its proponents describe it as a response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works." The scope of ACTA is broad, including counterfeit goods, generic medicines, as well as "piracy over the Internet"

Problems with the law include:

The negotiants' preliminary documents reveal many troubling aspects of the proposed agreement." such as removing "legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers" in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions.

Guilty until proven innocent attitude: Police are allowed to charge people who are under suspicion of illegal downloading without investigating first. Apparently in the leaked 2010 documents, Police passing in the streets or police at airports can ask for your laptop/Ipod/Phone to check for illegally downloaded content.

Anyway, is this right or wrong?

I personally think it's wrong. Invasion of privacy is NOT cool, no matter how just the cause is.

[DrLacero]

You can download the full text of the law here:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5425059/

Which isn't illegal to do by the way, you can't copyright the text of a law

"It provides for criminalization of copyright infringement, granting law enforcement the powers to perform criminal investigation, arrests and pursue criminal citations or prosecution of suspects who MAY have infringed on copyright"

Basically, you're guilty until proven otherwise. Nice move big brother, nice move.

[AgnesIO]

The guilty until proven innocent is a good idea in general - but not or pirating..

I mean for thugs on the streets who when they get arrested use the 'I AM INNOCENT UNTIL YOU PROVE I AM GUILTY' story it would shut them up. But for pirating I just don't think it is worth it.

[GommeInc]

This and the Digitial Economy Bill? :/ Seems like a waste of time. It costs the digitial industry millions/billions to protect their work, so it's a waste of money to make these investments. They should keep with what happened in the past - let the good people who pay for things go about their business, and only worry about the baddies when they're caught in the act (websites logging them, being seen in public etc etc). That, or make their prices competitive for once.

[Niall!]

I agree. I game on the PC and the cost for a game through digital download is the same as through hard copy.

Now, tell me that isn't greed. No case. disc or manual.

[Black_Apalachi]

... Apparently in the leaked 2010 documents, Police passing in the streets or police at airports can ask for your laptop/Ipod/Phone to check for illegally downloaded content. ...

I didn't know this part, I'm completely shocked! At first I was like yeah fair enough - I'll just get loads of downloading done before the law comes into place, but if they can just stop me and look at my iPod, that's just stupid. Besides, how can you tell what on an iPod has been downloaded illegally? The only tell-tale sign is in the 'Notes' column of iTunes which I delete regularly and I don't think you can even access it from the iPod.

When are these laws due to come into place?

[GommeInc]

It's interesting how these futuristic war games reflect on current issues. The modern, western world are considered confused and paranoid, while the "terror" worlds are, well, just that - terrorists. You'd think we would learn by now to not be so paranoid :/ This seems like a fine example of the government and media world being paranoid about who's doing what.

[Niall!]

I didn't know this part, I'm completely shocked! At first I was like yeah fair enough - I'll just get loads of downloading done before the law comes into place, but if they can just stop me and look at my iPod, that's just stupid. Besides, how can you tell what on an iPod has been downloaded illegally? The only tell-tale sign is in the 'Notes' column of iTunes which I delete regularly and I don't think you can even access it from the iPod.

When are these laws due to come into place?

Unclear, but me and many people are now campaigning against it. It's an infringement of human rights and a law that will only benefit the corporations. How to campaign? Spread the word. The more people know about these laws and what they consist of, the better. The government is trying to keep it secret for a reason, and that's because mass public exposure would cause it to collapse.

[DrLacero]

The guilty until proven innocent is a good idea in general - but not or pirating.

No legal system in the world should function like this. It's the worst possible idea.

[Tash.]

No legal system in the world should function like this. It's the worst possible idea.

Like Lacero said, this is a founding principle of law, the right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. Checking people randomly on the streets I would imagine is a violation of human rights. I don't agree with it at all.