Folks if a private business organisation and your government sat around a table trading away your rights I suspect you would be very upset when they asked you to pay for their corrupt actions, but this is exactly what is occurring and right under your noses.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081221/1552013181.shtmlOne of our biggest complaints with ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that was initially written by the entertainment industry, and is being used to effectively sneak through new copyright law requirements around the world (every time you hear an industry supporter claim that copyright laws must be changed to live up to "international obligations" you know they're leaving out the part where it was the same industry that wrote those international treaties), is that the whole thing is being negotiated in secret. So, it seems rather amusing that the latest (secret) negotiations resulted in a press release saying that they discussed how they need to be more transparent (found via Michael Geist). So, after holding a closed door meeting, they let everyone know that they discussed how it really sucks that they hold these closed door meetings?
Changes to laws need to be democratic and backed by the democratic process not decided by lazy fat cat business figures who pay little to no tax on their wealth while you and I pay a bigger slice of our personal income because they can move their wealth abroad to defeat tax laws, do we really want such corrupt people deciding our fate and how much they are going to steal off us this year and the next in terms of new taxes and endless campaigning for copyright extensions that give an artist virtually nothing but line their own corporate pockets quite nicely, often for works that should be in the public domain, copyright is after all not an infinite right its a deal with the public and we should only respect it while the deal is kept on both sides if they want to breach the deal then maybe its time to ignore their rights as they seem to be ignoring yours and plotting to enrich themselves out of your pocket even more with ACTA.
