Stop Censorship, Stop ACTA

20 thoughts on “Stop Censorship, Stop ACTA”

1. Like the post.

   By the way, will be doing a TPP related post soon, which will touch on some of the criticism of the IP provisions. There’s actually been something of an outcry over this in Japan, particularly the manga author community.

   FTAs are such a mixed bag. It’s hard to dismiss them out of hand, on the other hand there’s a lot of things that go into them that are simply not paid attention to by enough people. If we really are interested in these issues, we need to be more involved in the process and be more vocal about them.Report

   1. Agreed. FTAs are certainly a mixed bag, especially since so much bad stuff can be buried inside of them with very little transparency. I look forward to your TPP piece.Report

   2. Japan does have an extradition treaty with the US, doesn’t it? I knew someone who got in bigtime trouble with Japan (should I say Sony?) for a fileserver… US never seemed to take it seriously, though…Report

      1. There is an extradition treaty, but it’s not really well enforced.Report

2. Don’t people like you always want the USA to take its proper role in the international community?  To go along with the international community’s standards and methods instead of being pointlessly unilateral and isolationist?  To stop acting like there’s something special about the USA that justifies them doing whatever they want and ignoring the way the rest of the world handles things?Report

   1. Not to speak for Erik, but my general take on this is that the international community as a whole needs a wake up call on fixing the norms here. ACTA needs to be shot down not only in the US but elsewhere, but it takes a determined constituency to take down these things within a single country.Report

      1. Also, what Nob said.Report

      2. The problem is ensuring that a US refusal to sign onto ACTA is seen as an indictment of the basic concepts of ACTA, rather than just “oh that’s the US being a bunch of cowboys again”Report

         1. Of course the big problem with a lot of IP protection laws is that they’re being PUSHED BY THE US on behalf of the US Chamber of Commerce. If the US pulled back, and offered to renegotiate, I think we’d see a lot more flexibility here and pretty quickly.

            Also, I’m not so sure an indictment of ACTA is such a bad thing. Stuff like Parallel Imports have been major stumbling blocks to FTAs in the past. If the US were to remove them as a precondition for trade liberalization it might help spur on free trade.Report

            1. Yes, the US in particular likes using FTAs as a trojan horse for some other agenda (often IP-related).  I’m as bag an advocate of free trade as you will find, but even so I’d be leery of getting into an FTA with the US.Report

   2. Density – people “like me” eh? I’m not sure this even dignifies a response. Who exactly are “people like me” anyways? Are we just dumb, blind followers who grovel at the feet of the international community in order to avoid too much American exceptionalism?

      Give me a break. What an insulting thing to say. Gee, if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?

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      1. So you don’t think the US should obey international law, and think that it shouldn’t act to bring its laws into accord with international practice.  Got it.Report

         1. Sounds like your assumption is that the law justifies itself merely by being law.

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            1. I don’t think that US law should be dictated specifically to conform with other countries’ laws, but there are many people who A: do think that, and B: see a failure to do that as pointless intransigence.Report

               1. This is a bit backward.

                  At least from an embedded liberalism, liberal institutionalism point of view.

                  It’s more that the US has a very strong role in formulating international law and norms and should therefore set good examples when it decides to try to influence them. (As in, not act like a temper tantrum throwing bully)Report

3. PS note that the Supreme Court’s recent decision about “re-copyrighting” public domain works comes from the same place:  International treaties regarding copyright protections.Report

   1. linkie?Report

      1. Here’s Wikipedia’s entry. My understanding was the same as Duck’s: The law in quetion was an effort in international copyright normalization.Report

      2. Here’s one of about a billion on the subject.Report

4. Protests against ACTA in Poland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiV_SB-scMReport

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