Bulgaria silently signs for ACTA / Why ACTA, SOPA
and PIPA are bad for our freedom
r freedom Yesterday silently with zero publicity, Bulgarian
representatives ratified the ACTA (Trade agreement for fighting
counterfeit.)
The name sounds really good, but it has not much to do with what
ACTA is about, when applied to digital medias and data
sharing.
The ACTA legislation has been ratified in Tokyo last week, where 22
of the European Union membership countries signed in favour of
these "malicious" treaty.
The basic idea of ACTA looks tempting as it gives more freedoms to
copyright holders, however if you look closely you will understand
actually this copyright infringement clauses are not so in favour
of us the users but mostly in favour of multinational
corporations.
For all those who have not heard about ACTA and SOPA
in short this is anti freedom of speech treaty, which if put in
action could lead to serious filtering of the internet.
The ACTA 's controversial treaty has already raised an
outcry from dozens of computer literated individuals who daily use
the internet. Unfortunately, ACTA is less known among non-tech guys
... and hence most people on the internet have no about its
existence.
If ACTA is ratified and set to be valid as a legislation to
Bulgaria, this could lead to total Internet censorship in BG (more
or less like it is in china now).
ACTA legislation will make sharing files via torrents and other P2P
community file sharing networks a criminal activity.
Another effect of ACTA is that practically free software which
reads a proprietary formats like DVD becomes illegal in Europe
(like it is currently in America) and I will become guilty for just
reading the non-free format..
As a result of ACTA our ISP (Internet Service Providers) will be
forced to log and keep all traffic flowing through their (Routering
servers). Filters on a local ISP level that will be censoring free
speech could also become totally lawful...
Already there are plenty of ANTI-ACTA and ANTI-SOPA
propaganda website which are trying to bring some more awareness to
the public for the issue... Once an individual is suspected, to
fraudulent activity or anything that breaks what is in ACTA is he
is presumed to be guilty of crome ...
Just watch the two videos below and you will see how terrible the
consequence could be if this legislation is integrated with todays
Bulgarian government laws. If you're hearing for ACTA for a first
time and you live in a country which has still not rafitied ACTA as
a local country legislation, make sure you spread the word and let
all your friends about the bad impact of this anti-human
legislation. We have to really stand up and protest to retain our
digital freedom !
The Internet can be censored if Protect IP ACT (PIPA) and
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are put in action !