Oh no, not again

Yes, dear readers. It is going to be yet another blog post about the Top Secret Copyright Treaty known as ACTA. Firstly, here's the only civil society observer who has actually read the proposed ACTA treaty in full explaining why this is all so important:



According to Michael Geist, participating countries in the ACTA agreement, including NZ, have agreed to signing the ratified document as early as next year.

If there's any more evidence required that ACTA is yet another underhanded over-zealous reaction by multi-national conglomerates to hold on to an extinct branch of the distribution model, have a read of Colin Jackson's guest post at Public Address:

If I come over as a little irritated about this, that's because I'm seethingly angry.

Colin Jackson's not wrong and he's not alone. The NZ Pirate Party, the Creative Commons Foundation, InternetNZ, Geekzone, and a fistful of ISPs are also seethingly angry at the lack of say that NZers have over this secret deal. The plebs with pitchforks and torches won't be far behind.

I'm surprised there's not more seething from Mike Moore, former head of the WTO, on the matter. The proposed treaty circumvents the World Intellectual Property Organisation, making it the most overt and least legitimate grab for power since Blackwater became the United States' preferred mercenary.

And, if you're still not convinced that the ACTA treaty will contain some very thorny thorns for everyone, here's BoingBoing with the latest news:

The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town's municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie.

A year from now, it might happen in a city near you.

UPDATE: This just in from Geekzone:


© kiwiright from fyminc on Vimeo.