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Stop ACTA!

58

After the US, European websites and citizens are now also in danger being limited in their freedom on the internet.

From Avaaz.org:

ACTA - a global treaty - could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties -- even prison sentences -- against people they say have harmed their business.

Europe is deciding right now whether to ratify ACTA -- and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some members of Parliament are wavering -- let's give them the push they need to reject the treaty. Sign the petition -- we'll do a spectacular delivery in Brussels when we reach 500,000 signatures.

Act now, sign the petition.

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

58 Comments

      • A lot of the lobbying groups behind ACTA vehmently oppose even the idea of free software such as Blender.

        Sooner or later those people will bend any law to go after Linux and other programs that distribute freely.

        That literally is what is happening on the ground at the moment in the lobbying industry.

        If you care about being able to download your copy of Blender in 5 years without going to jail, then it would be a good idea to oppose ACTA.

        Just in case you think I support people being able to crack software and illegally upload films to the internet, I do not.

        The laws being proposed are nothing to do with people distributing illegally cracked software or the latest bluray.

        The laws being proposed as designed to restrict copyright protection to very powerful organisations and prevent ownership of copyright outside of those powerful organisations.

        If ACTA was a proposed law designed to stop illegally copied software and films, I would probably support it. I know what it is like to be ripped of by someone copying my work and I also know the financial losses are real.

        ACTA is not about protecting artists, coders or ordinary people holding patents/copyrights.

        ACTA is purely about restricting copyright and patent protection to powerful organisations at the expense of artists, coders and the freedoms of the general public.

    • Dober, how much do you love to be under surveillance ?
      How much do you like to be accused and sentenced without any due process ?
      Once government and corporations get that much control over the Internet, do you really expect them not to abuse it ? Each packet sent will be inspected for copyrighted content; how hard will it be to inspect it for anything else once the mechanisms are in place ?

    • You model Iron Man (or even just a company's logo) as an exercise and post it on BA => ACTA shuts down BA for copyright infringement.

      That's how Blender and Blender Users are affected.

  1. To control the internet, you must essentially shut it down.
    You will not win anything by shutting a few counterfeit and pirate sites except opening the door to corruption (of people and purpose) causing even more damage.

    • This may be true if we look only at the technology.
      To control the Internet you must frighten enough of its users into conformism. The few remaining won't be much of a problem or can be easily found and eliminated if they become one. The Internet will become the same as the rest of your life...

  2. I cant' believe that people even question the opposition of censorship!  If you want to stay free, raise your voice!  We've seen what can happen when people gather against a cause.  SOPA was stopped, for now, don't let ACTA sneak by unnoticed!!!

      • You model Iron Man (or even just a company's logo) as an exercise and post it on BA => ACTA shuts down BA for copyright infringement.

        That's how Blender and Blender Users are affected.

      • ACTA will affect any content on the Internet and the people using it... not only Blender. Besidesd Open Source community had been threatened for years because big companies do not like competition, specially the one that make software open and free for averyone.
        ACTA, as SOPA and PIPA, give more power to corporations to control and censor any content on Internet. Even make a review online of a movie could be considered Illegal if media corporation do not agree with it.

        Quoting Wikipedia (because my english is not good enough to explain it :P)

        "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published "Speak out against
        ACTA", stating that the ACTA threatens free software by creating a
        culture "in which the freedom that is required to produce free software
        is seen as dangerous and threatening rather than creative, innovative,
        and exciting."
        ACTA would also require that existing ISPs no longer host free software
        that can access copyrighted media; this would substantially affect many
        sites that offer free software or host software projects such as SourceForge. Specifically, the FSF argues that ACTA will make it more difficult and expensive to distribute free software via file sharing and P2P technologies like BitTorrent,
        which are currently used to distribute large amounts of free software.
        The FSF also argues that ACTA will make it harder for users of free
        operating systems to play non-free media because DRM protected media would not be legally playable with free software"

      • talentlesshack on

        If Europe operates anything like the US, then some smart lawyer will soon discover that two obscure lines of code deep in the bowels of Blender "resemble" two lines of code in a product that one of his clients has under copyright protection.  Under SOPA, that would be enough to authorize immediate confiscation of the domain names of every server that was used to download Blender.  It would, of course, eventually be sorted out in court, but only after the server owners had spent serveral tens of thousands of dollars and months (possibly years) on legal defense - unless they chose to settle the case - with a large part of the setllement going to the clever lawyer. 

        It would't take long before it became virtually impossible to find a server that would support download of *any* open source software, and THAT is how it effects Blender and Blender users.

        Here's a tip: Any time an American lawyer or politician lobbies for a new law to "protect people", take a closer look.  You'll find that what he/she is really seeking is another avenue by which lawyers can execute this form of legalized extortion.  I suspect this is true elsewhere. 

        If this law was crafted in such a way as to appear to protect programmers and artists (as mentioned upthread), you can bet that there would would be a loophole that allows lawyers to collect huge fees while paying a pittance to the "aggreived parties", while incurring zero risk for themselves.

  3. arf.. Hadopi, Sopa, Acta ,erf ... Hey Gouvernement, Sacem, and other money systeme, : Let's the people free .
    Ok pirate is not good, but othes solution exist : Deezer, vimeo , itune etc.. if the prise is sheep anybody can stop self Epiratage... ok, we do the same with Sopa > Vote No ACTA !

  4. Retards in the United States, stop voting for retards! The rest of the world doesn't want to swim in your merde of ACTA, SOPA and PIPA.. I decided to boycott all films and music coming from the US, corporate greed is disgusting!

    • Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

      Unfortunately, seems like most people in the US can’t be bothered to vote, because they see it as not making a difference. Instead, the politicians are driven by which companies can mount the biggest armies of well-funded lobbyists. Don’t do what the lobbyists ask, and they won’t contribute to your campaign fund, and you won’t get (re)elected. Doesn’t really matter what the voters think.

      And at least one large, powerful lobbying organization has already admitted that this is exactly what goes on, in public: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120125/04252517536/elected-officials-asked-to-return-hollywood-money-following-dodds-threats.shtml

      • I totally agree with you! US is run by many flavors of lobby groups, christian, jewish, corporate, national rifle association, arabs etc.. Yet people still go to the poles and vote for the retards that represent -not the public, but the interests of lobby groups, particularly the corporate ones. At times I find it difficult to believe a society in the 21st century can be so poorly educated or brainwashed by the corporate media. US is a democracy without democracy, or you could say a democracy far too often influenced by greed.

    • The United States government didn't come up with this idea. A cluster of countries from around the world got together in secrecy. Only the ignorant will point fingers, you have no idea what your talking about, we're in the same boat you are.

  5. Copyrights are worldwide under the cover of the Convention of Berne, since 1886. It gives all authors of original works the property of their works and the right to use them as they want. This document has legal value in around 170 countries that signed it. Until this document will be cancelled, new laws about Copyright will have no effect in front of a court !

  6. Eventually we will have to release all the murderers and rapists from jail so we can give more life sentences to the innocent

  7. Glenn Debacker on

    People who are asking "how this influence Blender" let met explain something. The US has lost it's manufacturing position to countries like China. They are focussing more and more to become a knowledge/Intellectual Property/Patent kind of country. Today I saw an article that some strong voices in the  US are saying they should also focus only on "software" and "knowledge" (ip/patents). 

    ACTA is very broad and shady to say at least and everyones knows ACTA only serves one country interests. A country that today is purely run by corporations. 

    What do you think if the corporations behind ACTA get more influence. What do you think can possible happen if an American company like Autodesk is getting more heat from Blender ? 

    It's like an atomb bomb (ACTA) against a firecracker (software patents) so yes it can influence the future of Blender. So please sign the petitions or even better contact your local European parlement MEP's to tell you are against ACTA. 

    The whole counterfeit / fake medicins are just a big facade to do more evil things. 

    • Most of Europe has lost its manufacturing as well.

      That does not mean that Europe has to go on a rampage against its own citizens and demand that USA citizens obey European law.

      European politicians should be legislating for Europeans, not US corporate interests.

      European interests can sometimes be the same as USA interests, but not always.

      I would suggest contacting MEPs directly and making your case directly to them, face to face.

      • Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

        Funny you should think any Western country has in any way “lost” manufacturing to the East. Look at your GDP figures, and you will see that by far the largest chunk comes from manufacturing.

  8. They will not give up in trying to gaggle the Web.
    Too many events have just happened: the Arab Springtime, the Europe riots, various Occupies, the Anonymous actions, etc.
    Governments are afraid of all this, and they are correct in being afraid.
    We have to keep our guard raised, find always new ways of communicating and spreading notices, raise our voices whenever there's the need to.

  9. If only people would stop pirating and rob the excuses of these bills...  But folks in general are just too selfish for that.  I blame both sides of the issue: the people ruining their freedoms with a lack of responsibility and honesty, and the people wanting undue control in a quite dishonest way.  Humanity in general is just too selfish to ever enjoy freedom with responsibility and respect.

    • Have some faith in humanity.

      Sharing has been happening since we learn how to live together ages ago.If sharing anything is a crime Jesus Christ set the example.http://boingboing.net/2010/10/14/piracy-jesus-did-it.htmlBut to exclude, censor and silence others is a good thing?Granted monopoly evolved into copyright that is now evolving into censorship.I though mercantilism have died in the middle ages, it was bad then and it is bad now.Life + 95 years can't be right, ever more invasive laws to protect something that was supposed to be an incentive for very, very limited times can't be right, laws that threaten our freedoms to defend against assumed potential loses can't be right.If anything people can't be trusted with power to exclude others, in that sense I believe you are correct, people are to selfish and can't let it go, not learning to mind their own business and not being envy of what others can do, it corrupts our souls, it is a poison that spoils everything, we can't look at life and appreciate things, it makes us unable to be happy for others, it makes us want to harm others and that is what copyright does, it embeds the idea that we own something that has no form and can't be physically secured, it creates a fiction that we create things in a vacuum and don't depend on others it makes us selfish and greedy.

  10. It's weird...
    By what I've heard of ACTA, it's a really terrible act that should be stopped just like SOPA and PIPA...
    However, the explanations I heard of it were way foggier and less elaborate than the explanation of the other two.
    Also, the number of explanations are a lot sparser.

    • The first time people heard about this bill was from wiki-leaks. It was going to be planed and signed up to in secret. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16757142 The person the EU designated to represent this bill resigned because of the secretive nature of the talks and lack of consultation with the public.

      This is why the explenations are foggy. For this one all we have to go on are leaks...

      • Yeah, leaks...

        On one hand, that makes you wonder whether it's not half as bad as we think it is, as it's just based on few things...
        On the other hand, why would they hide it from everybody, then?
        Simply by what already IS leaked, it can't just be for being totally irrelevant/boring for anybody else but detail pickers...

        It does feel really terrible by what we DO know, however, the first thing I'd want to happen is, that it's rolled open for the public, so we can actually see WHAT we are trying to fight here...

        No enemy is worse than an unknown enemy.

  11. ACTA is negotiated in secret and a huge beast, supposed to deal with false guchi bags, medicine and the likes... So there have not been much info available and allot of the fight have been to make the negotiation more open and transparent. From what have leak it Do all the evils of SOPA and PIPA and more. Even if that stuff really have noting there to do. The lobbyists trying to push it of course want to keep it secret to get stuff like that in without protest.

    Nothing new - They tried to push software patent in EU on the fishing ministry meeting.

    ACTA should just die and something new should start in an transparent process and sticking to the goals.

  12. I'm somewhat surprised that people are reacting after the fact. ACTA has been in negotiation for over 3 years now and there has been some criticism, I haven't seen as mass movement to stop it. Users should've rebelled against it en masse years ago, it's probably too late now.

    • because for the most part this has been hidden from the public - very little was known by the masses. Perhaps it was also similar to NDAA 2012? Those in office said they would NOT sign the bill into legislation, lying to the American people to deceive them into thinking it's nothing to be worried about. (and received little media coverage). It was signed anyways. Also, it's just recently that the a large portion of society have finally woken up and realized mainstream media is not to be trusted and is the business of manipulation. Couple the above with SOPA, PIPA, and NDAA 2012, people are starting to scrutinize more than ever before because people are waking up to what use to be thought of as merely conspiracy theories. Now it's a known conspiracy, no longer a theory. Treason has been happening in the white house for sometime now. 

      Essentially, the government is turning up the heat to fast for the people not to feel it. 

  13. Marquis de Sade on

    If they try and censor the internet, and regulate it, watch everyone but us innovate and compete. SOPA and PIPA and any other similar proposals are nothing but a way for existing MEDIA and other powerful corporations to hold on their control and profits, while refusing to acknowledge that the value of their product has changed. (And never adjusting the prices based on that reduced value). All they want to do is make sure that you/I/We cannot compete by using the OPEN, nearly free channels of distribution known as the INTERNET. I'm not talking about PIRACY, but OPEN CHANNELS: OPEN, UNRESTRICTED AND PROMOTIONAL CHANNELS, i.e. WAYS TO REACH CONSUMERS THAT DO NOT PASS THROUGH THEIR SYSTEMS FIRST!

  14. Say NO to ACTA:

    Foarte bine ca sustineti miscare asta,cu cat suntem mai multi cu atat o sa se teme mai tare de noi.
    Aici cateva video referitoare la A.C.T.A,SOPA:

    B.A.S & B.M.B – Un indemn la libertate (Stop ACTA)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtsuRaFxWQA

    Comunitatea ON-LINE din Romania spune STOP A.C.T.A.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=link extern

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLRqD9TjBAM&feature=relalink extern

    Anti ACTA protests across Europe on 02/11/2012 - Summary

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsLbwkhwk9w

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