By putting legal and monetary pressure on Internet service providers (in a most subtler way than in previous versions of the text), ACTA will give the music and movie industries a weapon to force them to police their networks and users themselves. Such a private police and justice of the Net is incompatible with democratic imperatives and represent a real threat for fundamental freedoms.

"This vote is a terrible blow to EU citizens. It shows that the conservatives and some of their allies can get the Parliament to vote in favor of ACTA."

They also support preventative detention of potential pirates -- a ridiculous idea that has been put in practice in some areas of India already -- and which the US entertainment industry has encouraged.

Home > News > MPAA Urges Japan to Adopt “Three-Strikes”
Oct 21 2010
MPAA Urges Japan to Adopt “Three-Strikes”

* Written by Jared Moya
* 8 Comments

ja-lgflag

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act would create a blacklist of domain names that the government thinks are involved in copyright infringement. Internet service providers and others would be required to block any domains on the list.

The release of this text should not give the illusion of transparency by hiding the fact that the whole negotiation process was carried on out of public scrutiny. Moreover, ACTA could profoundly alter the Internet ecosystem by turning technical intermediaries into a copyright police of the Net.

"Surveillance, censorship, restrictive data formats and software-as-a-service threatened the freedom of IT users, GNU founder and free software activist Richard Stallman claimed..."