It’s this kind of ridiculous thinking that will get the world in trouble, and make it hard for anyone to innovate. That’s right; I’m talking about ACTA, the latest treaty that our government is developing. Most of you probably haven’t heard of ACTA, but that’s ok. The treaty is being negotiated in secret. Well, that’s because the treaty contains law that will be so unpopular, our government can’t risk letting the public know about this.
So before I get too far into this, I’d better explain what ACTA is. ACTA, or the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is a treaty that the US, Canadian, EU, and other countries are negotiating, which as the name suggests, contains measures to counter counterfeiting of physical goods such as designer clothes, but also includes some very, very scary regulation on internet piracy. The US government is pushing this treaty as a way to save their dying film and music industries, who blame their decline in sales on piracy, and piracy alone, not that they can’t get with the picture, and change their strategy to something that fits the new times. These industries make legally buying content a less attractive option, by making it so hard to enjoy legal content. For example, you buy a DVD, sit through 8 trailers, then look at a menu you don’t want to, and after that, watch some opening animation that the movie studio makes you watch then, finally you get to watch the movie, after wasting 10 minutes of your life watching trailers! The other option, involves downloading the movie, then pressing play and watching it, no strings attached! This is why the movie and music industries are in trouble.
Ok, back to the point, ACTA will make it required and legal for your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to kick you off the internet if you are accused of content piracy 3 times. So, what kind of rational person would suggest this? So, anyone can accuse me of piracy 3 times, say someone that really hates me, and I will be kicked off, no court of law involved, at all! Then, I can’t do anything to fight this, nothing at all. Next, my name is put on a blacklist, and no ISP will be legally allowed to serve me for the REST OF MY LIFE, although absolutely no one was required to present any proof to the ISP that I was doing anything illegal.
If ACTA becomes law, and I lose my internet service, how am I supposed to compete in the world, any office job uses email as a primary form of communication, and being unable to use that would make it very hard to get that job. Another, and perhaps more serious concern is that the internet is being used to distribute information that is vital to our safety, such as emergency information. And finally, the internet is not only a medium that supports content piracy, it is a method of communication that allows for important messages to be spread, to millions of people within seconds, such as last year, after the alleged fraud of the Iranian “election”, all of the normal channels of communication were blocked by the Iranian government, but protesters were able to spread the word, and make the rest of the world aware of the situation, using the internet, and specifically social networks such as twitter, and surprisingly, this was the main source of news coming from the country.
I have to point out that the record, and movie industries do have a point, isn’t fair that we steal “their” content, we do have to be respectful of their content, but at the same time, record labels, and motion picture studios need to realize that a government can sign a treaty that is favorable towards them, and their best interests, but piracy will not go away, in fact, quite the opposite, behaviour like this just makes people want to rebel, and make them want to pirate content. And in a bad economy, if you raise prices of music, and make it impossible for the person to play it on the mp3 player that you own so that you can control it, you can expect people to stop buying it.
To wrap this up, I’d just like to point out that ACTA is a good example of what can happen when business interests get tangled up with government. So, music and movie industry; smarten up, and get with the picture, the world is changing weather you like it or not, and you can’t just “get rid of the internet” because it inconveniences you, you have to adapt, and make the legal way the easy way. The world is better without ACTA, and there are better solutions which will require more effort, but will pay off in the long run.
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