In my last post I ranted about the four-letter words that are an assault to online freedom and exchange of ideas and creativity, namely SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.
The online campaign against these sinister attempts at censorship on the Internet have been enormous, sustained and very bruising to those pushing for these intellectual property 'protections.' On the streets the protests have been somewhat more muted and less widespread.
Except in one European Union country. A country where the loud street protests against ACTA in particular have numbered in the hundreds of thousands and where even the national government is said to be running scared. One EU country's population is taking a very visible stand.
Is it Germany?
France?
The Netherlands?
No, no, and no again.
It's Poland.
I've seen the footage on Russia Today since last week of Polish citizens in their thousands thronging the streets and squares of Warsaw in the freezing cold, all to make their outrage at ACTA very known to their government. No other European country's populace has come close in so visible and vocal a street opposition to ACTA.
I was taken by surprise. One tends to view Poland (rather patronizingly, I now realize) as quite conservative, staunchly Catholic and very pro-American and, therefore, hardly the country one would guess would be the land in which an almost anarchic revolt against state and corporate censorship would be so vocal and so huge.
It almost made me want to hop on a plane and join them and, heck, maybe even go live in Poland!
If this is what their people are willing to do in the middle of winter (and Polish winters must be no joke) in the name of freedom and against state censorship, then that is one country that must be wholly more vibrant and alive and tuned in than I previously would have thought.
The Poles have put other Europeans to shame on this it would seem. And all power to them for that.
Bravo, Polska!
SOPA
PIPA
ACTA
These are the four letter words of our time. Okay, they're acronyms - but still akin to four letter words; of the very worst kind.
SOPA = Stop Online Piracy Act
PIPA = Protect Intellectual Property Act (much longer, pedantic title, but who cares)
ACTA = Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
Three pieces of legislation or agreements that are a total assault on Internet freedom, privacy and right to free speech as we know it.
Legislators and political leaders bray on and on about how the laws and agreements would be there to protect artists and writers (and billion-dollar corporations, of course) from intellectual property assaults and 'misuse' by websites and bloggers and individual users online. Supporters of ACTA stated how the agreement was tabled "as a response to "the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works," whilst Wikipedia reported how PIPA would have "the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S."
SOPA and PIPA are American(-corporatist) products, whilst ACTA is an agreement between Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States, whilst the European Union and 22 of its member states signed up to it in January of this year as well.
All to 'protect' intellectual property, of course.
The online community saw it all for what it was and thought differently. Rather strongly.
On January 18th Wikipedia shut down for a day, as did many other sites on the Web in protest against what they see as government and corporatist infringements on free exchange of ideas and creativity on the Internet. As reported by that stalwart of establishment so-called journalism, The Washington Post:
"Around the country, Americans woke up without some of the oddball essentials of online life. No Wikipedia. No Reddit, a compendium of links to stories and funny pictures that draws millions a day. And no I Can Has Cheezburger?, the world’s best-known collection of funny cat pictures."
No Wired and a host of other popular sites either, and Firefox and Google both blacked out certain parts of their landing pages to protest what they also saw as online censorship.
I have no doubt that the vociferous backlash from the online community against these travesties of 'intellectual property protection' caught legislators and their corporate pimps by surprise. Both U.S. bills have been shelved (for now, only for now), whilst ACTA has come under big opposition, most especially from a surprising quarter in the EU (see my next post).
Shutting down websites (including blogs just like mine, by the way) for 'illegal' posts, uploads and even links in the name of protecting IP is nothing more than government and corporatist censorship masquerading as 'protection.'
How will sites be monitored for these alleged IP infringements?
Where will the line be drawn on what constitutes 'intellectual property' and the sanctity of copyright (at all costs)?
Why should corporations like those in the movie, recording and porn industries have copyrights that can be endlessly renewed, going well beyond the 50 years limit that used to be normative in copyright law?
What is this really all about?
This is an assault and a colonization by governments and corporations of that last bastion of true democracy and capitalism on Earth - the Internet.
We're all a threat to them - and they know it. That is why we must fight, fight, fight these bastards, so that they leave us the hell alone in the only place where we have some semblance of freedom.
As far as the Internet is concerned, a luta continua!
Do you get my point?
