[BliliBoopsy]

Europe's people rise up against centralised control



In the week where Angela Merkel (see story ) gets to put an EU deal before the people of Europe, a less high-profile issue has had to go through the same process. The EU has just found out that the heads of government might agree between themselves but that doesn't mean that the people will and that means that directly elected members of the European Parliament, concerned for their own seats, can decide in the interests of their electorate, not according to the will of a national government. The European Commission (basically the civil service) is now in direct conflict with the people of Europe and their representatives over the question of protection of intellectual property rights.

On paper, it all sounds good. The EU, 22 member countries and eight more countries signed what they termed "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement."

In order for the treaty to become effective, signatory countries have to ratify it: in many countries, ratification requires a national vote. Ironically, the EU can ratify the treaty without a vote by member nations in an example of the concentration of power in the hands of the EU at the expense of member states.

But the EU does have a parliament of "MEPs" which are directly elected by the citizens of member states. While the Commission is, in effect, a committee of the heads of government, the EU Parliament is a democracy that gets much closer to the people.
The Treaty makes much of control of the internet and what appears on it. Taking on the world's social media has proved to be a bad idea. Pressure groups started up all over Europe, expanding to other countries. One, Avaaz, collected 2.8 million signatures demanding the rejection of ACTA. That's more than 10% of the current EU electorate.

MEPs cannot ignore that, nor the street protests that were supposedly spontaneous but are more likely to have been at least announced if not actively co-ordinated by some of the pressure groups.

Those who signed ACTA say that it is needed to standardise laws around the world to provide protection for intellectual property rights, including rights across borders.

But critics say that the agreement went far too far, providing opportunities for censorship, for passing the burden of publishing not just onto internet service providers but also onto the owners of individual websites to which third parties may post (which brings into question the entire future of "web 2.0" and social media).
Avaaz also argued that in order to comply with ACTA, ISPs would be forced to, in effect, "spy" on its customers, constantly checking what they and their visitors posted.

Although the USA signed ACTA, it is likely that, as with other treaties, it will not ratify it in its entirety. It will cherry pick. After all, several of the USA's largest businesses are, under US law, largely exempted from claims relating to copyright infringement and defamation over the internet. They will not want to give up that advantage. It is ironic that groups such as News International need that kind of protection for their internet businesses yet want to impose higher standards in relation to their own entertainment media businesses.

Also, the USA's interest in IP protection largely related to technology and entertainment media. Its protection of the written word is very, very weak and millions of websites are nothing more than copycat (either plagiarised or even automatically scraped) from sites where material originates. The US authorities do nothing about those and, indeed, argue that such use is permitted under "fair use" provisions which are legitimate in relation to genuine study but abused by those who simply want to get well written pieces on their rubbish websites and therefore steal any advertising revenue that might accompany it.

Although ACTA does not expressly provide for the creation of software patents, it does require that IP recognised in one state should be recognised in signatory states. According to End Software Patents, a pressure group, ACTA allows this in by a side-door due to the creation of "cease-and-desist" letters (a US concept) which puts a party on notice that a breach of rights has, in the opinion of the writer, taken place. Once that notice is served, the ISP (or other target) is deemed to be "knowingly in breach" and, in that case, the penalties are significantly increased. The end result is that ISPs may terminate accounts without warning or investigation just to cover their own backs.

The same group also points out that, under ACTA, infringement of a patent moves from being a civil liability to a criminal act.
The other countries that have signed the treaty are the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Kore. None have yet ratified it.

The Socialist Party in France was buoyant not about the particular issue but by the effective influence exercised by the citizenry: "For the French Socialists, the vote marks the first and foremost a new inter-institutional balance of power, with the active participation of citizens in the European debate," it said in a statement.

http://chiefofficers.net/888333888/c...alised_control