A treaty, aiming at enhancing copyright protection has been secretly negociated by several great powers, and is actually threatening internet freedom. Six meeting have already taken place, leading to a draft called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (or ACTA).

The next round of negociations will take place from January 26th to January 29th in Mexico. ACTA aims at controlling the Internet, while conveniently circumventing democratic processes. Unelected negotiators - carrying out the orders of the entertainment industries - are attacking the very essence of the Internet :

+    The last leaked analysis of the European Commission unmasks the global intent of the text: imposing extra-judicial “voluntary” agreements between Internet service providers and rights holders to combat copyright infringements through “three strikes” schemes or automated content filtering or removal. To force Internet operators into accepting such access restrictions, ACTA will make them liable for the copyright infringements done by their users.

+    According to the Electronic frontier foundation (EFF), ACTA raises many questions about privacy & freedom, innovation & free movement on the internet, about trading and (above all) about the (in)ability for developing countries to choose the most suited policies according to their domestic situation and their development needs.

+    According to the Free Software Foundation, ACTA, by tightening copyright protection would be threatening free softwares and their distribution.

The words “heavy shit” comes to mind… Seriously … Are international treaties governing Internet content and intellectual property even necessary? In my opinion, as they fly in the face of normative cultural practices and contradict or tighten existing national laws, these suggested measures remain inflexible and unrealistic. But whether they become reality and shape the landscape of the Internet-to-come remains to be seen.