ACTA – A new SOPA…or Worse?

Whereas the world celebrates the withdrawal of SOPA and PIPA for an unlimited period of time, there has appeared a brand new hazzard on the way, which can possibly have much more negative consequences, than the former one – ACTA.

ACTA (full title:The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) may be easily considered a potentially dangerous document, which, in fact, presupposes attacks on human rights, even though it has been initially created in a seemingly democratic country (the US).

Naturally, as “the road to hell is always paved with good deeds”, the declared purpose of ACTA is more, than noble. Namely, the authors of the mentioned document plan to stop the spread of illegal and pirate content around the world.

Undoubtedly, the aim of ACTA is by all means positive, but the offered methods to achieve this aim are scarier, than one can imagine. In particular, the Customs officers have received the right to check one’s digital storing devices (including laptops, mobile phones, music players, or flash drives) for illegal or pirate content, with a further right to detain the device and forbid the person from visiting the country.

In this respect, it doesn’t matter, if you store password-protected info, you’ll be asked to unlock all your files, and otherwise your visit in the country will be forbidden either. Is it a bad dream? Unfortunately, it’s not.

The thing is that 22 countries, including EU members, the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Marocco, Mexico and Switzeland have already declared their desire to ratify ACTA, and if they do, the human right for confidentiality of personal data will vanish forever.

I have been truly taken aback, having read about the document for the first time, mainly because there’s yet no social reaction against the violations it makes legal. On the other hand, the answer, here, is obvious – there’s no media coverage of the news that the document is almost in action for now.

Of course, having started surfing the Web, I managed to find ACTA official site and the relative Wikipedia page, but I wonder if I would ever find out about its existence, if I hadn’t happened to encounter some brief facts about it a few days before.

In a whole, what is absolutely irritating with all these SOPA, and, now, ACTA documents, is that the authorities don’t see the line between a desire to fight Internet piracy and the brutal violation of all basic human rughts.

The thing is that, it has become pretty clear already, that any respectful site can’t but implement strict house rules to maintain its reputation. Much because of that, even the large file storage services, like 4shared or even MediaFire have already established the detailed and harsh Terms of Use, which all sites’ visitors are obliged to follow.

So why all the fuss, dear officers? I’m sure that such documents as ACTA won’t only help stop the distribution of piracy content, but will also make the whole society furious. Do you need it, after all?

Stay cool. And attentive

Andy

SOPA – Good Intentions vs. Abusage of Power

I’ll be perhaps one of the thousands, if not millions to speak about SOPA, which, in fact, has all chances to become the most dangerous Act in the recent years.

In case you somehow missed what SOPA is about, while preparing for Christmas and New Year holidays, I’ll try to explain it in brief. Stop Online Piracy Act, or as it’s mostly called SOPA (almost SOPE, lol)) is the US Congress Act, according to which the government authorities and private corporations (what a surprise!) receive a magical right to censor websites, and consequently cut the “unwanted ones” both from search on Google and a number of payment providers, like Visa, for example.

To say that SOPA is ridiculous, from my point of view, is to say nothing. First of all, it hides the danger for the fresh start-up social media sites, or, in a whole, the whole array of startups, and will, undoubtedly, slow their development down. Moreover, it also hides the incredibly vast area for abuse and corruption, and might be easily used as a tool to eliminate fresh rivals and gain monopoly in specific niches of the IT market.

My concerns are a just a small drop in the sea of worries and irritation, already expressed by almost 50 large and middle-sized reputable companies, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, not to mention TechCrunch and a great deal of others, and hopefully, their efforts won’t be vain, otherwise the consequences can be truly horrible.

I won’t be dwelling on the political underwater stones of SOPA, as I’ve never been involved in any party or something, but on the surface the good intentions to eliminate content infrigement have turned into a total scam, from my perspective.

They haven’t felt enough after removing large and (as I’d like to emphasize) trustworthy file-sharing sites, e.g. RapidShare or 4shared, from isnstant Google search with no auto prompts available. They want more, more power to manipulate the whole Internet community.

I won’t name who They are, let’s everyone have our own personal understanding, the only thing to add is that the proverb “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” has got one more proof of being right. We only need to add “so-called” before “good”, probably.

Stay cool & stay strong

Andy