Posted by JimKillock |
I met Niels Larsen and a couple of the IT Pol (English pages) crew yesterday, so talked about the digital rights challenges in the UK and Denmark.
I talked about the current surveillance data collection proposals (the Comms Data Bill); and Niels and IT Pol told me about a few disturbing Danish policies.
Two…
Posted by JimKillock |
The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is the latest attack on your digital rights: and it will live or die because of the campaigning work of European citizens like you.
Earlier this year, tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets, and 1.4 million of us signed AVAAZ’s petition against the Treaty. People were livid and EU ratification stalled as a result.
The ACTA treaty is not what it sounds. It is not a simple trade agreement, or even primarily targeted at ‘counterfeit’ goods. It was suggested by US trade officials as a means of clamping down on online and pharmaceutical infringements of intellectual property. It is being agreed as a high standard of enforcement among a small group of mainly developed nations, with the aim of bringing other states in later.
After…
Posted by JimKillock |
The war in the USA between the open Internet and copyright industries pushing for draconian controls took an unexpected twist in the last weeks.
The Bills – SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protection of Intellectual property Act) – were withdrawn. President Obama threatened to veto SOPA. Republican candidates were highly critical.
It looks like a straightforward victory for common sense: which would be an unexpected twist. Normally, copyright industries seem to cloud political judgements to an extraordinary extent. Internet activists don’t expect their campaigns to be easy or quick. Victories are often last minute, down to the wire affairs.
The proposals – for Internet censorship of foreign “infringing” websites, interference with DNS, possibly intrusion into…