ACTA - Secret trade agreements for the growth of Intellectual Monopolies
ACTA - Secret "trade agreements" for the growth of Intellectual Monopolies
2008-07-30T05:40:41
If you are somebody interested at least a little bit in the growth and evolution of technology and its impact on society, do spare some time to read this. In 2007 a select handful of the wealthiest countries began a treaty-making process to create a new global standard for copyright, trademark and patent enforcement, which was called, in a piece of brilliant marketing, the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement". Wikileaks on ACTA - 1, Wikileaks on ACTA - 2 Check out Glyn Moody's detailed analysis. I wonder how people who accuse the FSF and RMS of mixing "politics" and "ideology" with Computing would react to something like ACTA! What about the "politics" that the monopolists play to satisfy their greed - to the detriment of everything else? Why does nobody talk about that? One reason might be the fact that most technology "geeks" live in a fantasy world where they believe that the only thing which matters is bits and bytes - like the pure mathematician who does math for maths own sake, the geek is so much in love with technology that he doesn't care for anything else; this is not a bad thing - the problem is that while the geek plays with technology, there are powerful forces around him active in "channeling" technology in certain directions to suit their own vested interests - often to the disadvantage of the geek himself, and consumers in general. RMS, the FSF and the hacker-activists are our first line of defense against the subjugation of technology to the interests of big business - when they "pollute" technology with politics and ideology, we should realize that they are doing us the greatest possible service!
Anivar Aravind
Wed Jul 30 11:27:06 2008
ACTA is a hot discussion of last 2 months among Access 2 Knowledge Groups & Internet Governace discussions Read the A2k List. http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/a2k/2008-June/thread.html#3266
Pramode C.E
Wed Jul 30 17:55:41 2008
Thanks for the link, Anivar!