The contents on ACTA were never made public until Wikileak's release and it's contents still doesn't have an official release. Why do you think Kader Arif quit his job? Here is the full text of his
statement:
I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.
As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.”
Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.
This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.
The whole process is damn undemocratic. Do you think they have something to hide? Looks to be a classic example of
policy laundering.
And since it's a treaty, it itself is now law. It's just an agreement by the countries to create laws/policies/guidelines, etc.
For the US, this is very wrong and it other countries, still wrong, just less so.
Once a treaty is ratified, it becomes binding on all the states under the Supremacy Clause. Once ratified in the US, it automatically becomes law even if it was agree upon under executive agreement(Presidential power) alone, requiring no vote. In fact, treaties are only second to the constitution and will override domestic laws in the US and in many other countries.
What is potentially likely to happen is that should the treaty be ratified, the US would repeal the treaty due to "Unconstitutionality" once foreign governments have enacted the law leaving other nations in a competitive disadvantage.
If you don't want to discuss politics TJ, stop discussing it. Also, what the hell does terrorism have to do with this? Guy Fawkes's image has long since been co-opted into something different from the moment his plot was discovered and continues to change as time goes by. Guy Fawkes was initially celebrated to promote the King's escape, then as a man of convictions to stand against corruption and now the universal face of rebellion against western governments that no longer represent the people. It also sells fireworks. In a spot of irony, The Guy face mask is copyrighted by
Time-Warner. Which makes it an extra awesome display of subtly that the Polish pirated the mask by printing them on paper. I really hate having to explain a joke to you TJ. Sorry for ruining your joke SUPER.
Oh, lets not forget to add something funny to the discussion. Remember when the RIAA sued for
$75 TRILLION DOLLARS. That's 75,000,000,000,000 Dollars. Yes that's trillions. That's greater then the GDP of the entire world and a full 5 years GDP of the US. I will let you guess what the judge said.
Niche products always have a smaller market by definition, the main problem was always the difficulty of reaching the potential customers of such a market. Now things are just a google away. Old school business models don't do niche this they are so small they don't have good investment to payoff ratios assuming under their model it was ever positive, leaving it open to other more enterprising people willing to take more risks. With the internet, the bar to finding a niche product has fallen so far(Think rule 34), that the sum total of the niche market has become a large proportion of the total market making them collectively, a threat to the larger, established players. Under the new system, the big players earn less, but everybody else gains. The big boys don't want this since it means they buy 2 boats instead of 3 when they can live with 1.
One of the greatest things that impede free market efficacy is imperfect information, while perfect information can't be achieved, we can get very close to it. Pirating something can be considered almost perfect information on a product, making it extremely good at judging it's true value. It's very free market.
Topic: Nintendo Wises Up (Read 69052 times)
