1. What is ACTA?

    Since Spring 2008, the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as a few other countries have been secretly negotiating a trade agreement aimed at enforcing copyright and tackling counterfeited goods (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Specifically, leaked documents show that one of the major goal of the treaty is to force signatory countries into implementing anti file-sharing policies under the form of three-strikes schemes and net filtering practices. 

    At a time when important debates are taking place on the need to adapt copyright to the digital age, this treaty would bypass democratic processes in order to enforce a fundamentally irrelevant regulatory regime. It would profoundly alter the very nature of the Internet as we know it by putting an end to Net neutrality. 

     
    http://www.stopacta.info 


    STOP-ACTA

  2. Swiss Government Declares Downloading for Personal Use Legal →

    Despite the industry’s claims that downloading undermines their business, this study shows that the effect of unauthorized downloading on the industry’s bottom line is negligible. One key finding of the study is that downloaders spend as much if not more to acquire content legally as those who do not download. Researchers found no change in amount of disposable income spent on music and movies, despite the fact that roughly one third of Swiss people engage in some form of downloading. The government concluded, then, that no change to the current legal structure was necessary, and urged the entertainment industry to grow and adapt with the changes in technology and in consumer habits, rather than trying to suppress progress.

  3. right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the FREE and OPEN Internet.

    SOPA and PIPA - Learn more

    SOPA - infographic

    Wikipedia has a handy-dandy page set up which allows you to locate your state representative.

  4. staff:

    Yesterday we did a historic thing. We generated 87,834 phone calls to U.S. Representatives in a concerted effort to protect the Internet. Extraordinary. There’s no doubt that we’ve been heard.

    So just to keep you updated: The well-intentioned, but immensely flawed “Stop Online Piracy Act” is still in the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was yesterday and now members will debate and bring amendments to the bill. The Committee will reconvene in a few weeks — the date has yet to be scheduled. Nothing has been brought to a final vote. Everything is still very much in play. We’ll keep you posted on what’s going on and what you can do to help. But for now, we want to thank you.

    One encouraging thing we heard yesterday:

    I don’t believe this bill has any chance on the House floor. I think it’s way too extreme, it infringes on too many areas that our leadership will know is simply too dangerous to do in its current form.

    — Representative Darrell Issa

    We also want to express our tremendous gratitude to our friends at Mobile Commons who, on 30 minutes notice, hooked us up with their amazing platform (and provided their expertise) to automatically connect callers with their Representatives.