European Parliament prepares for crucial ACTA vote

Not due process

Regardless of any merits it may possess (not many, it would seem at an admittedly casual glance), this thing should be booted straight out of the window because of the way it was negotiated - in smoke filled rooms with only politicans and lobbyists present. Next time, can we see who voted for what and why - and have a mechanism for EVERYONE to have input?

Jail Time needed

Legislation like this is constantly being proposed. There is never-ending pressure from the various monopolies, oligopolies, cartels and mobs to press for ever greater advantage. As we can see from the series of outrageous legislation all over the world, they continue to succeed. At least the mob is up front about it.

We should identify the small (ish) number of operatives and their masters and prosecute them. If you attempt murder, it is a crime. If you attempt to push the horrendous self-serving legislation we see happening all over the world, it should also be a crime. Murder is a 'one-up' and even so prosecution is generally harsh. These constant attempts to steal the commons from the world's citizens and destroy their rights are much worse than a single murder. They are ongoing and they aid in our oppression by creating a mechanism to abridge free speech. This crime transcends treason because it goes even beyond the borders of sovereign nations.

Contrary to the rent seekers protests that copying is unlawful, the activities of the copyright and patent lobbies are the ones that create a disrespect for law. They have sought taxes on communications bandwidth, storage, processing power and even on speech itself. They have attempted to criminalize lawful commerce between individuals. Sadly, they have been incredibly successful. In the United States they have been able to coerce the Federal Government into acting as enforcer to lend weight to their civil complaints. Every time I see one of those FBI warnings on a video I think that we need to find the people in the FBI who allowed that message and prosecute *them*.

ALL of copyright is a dangerous fiction. There is no proper way to square copyright with the public good in the age of computer networks. Without copyright, every one of us would essentially have access to the entirety of the world's intellectual and cultural output going back into the mists of time. Freeing this material would make the world a much, much better place.

Without the rent-seekers inhibiting our communications and storage of information, everything would rapidly be available to all. The overall value of currently copyright-able material would radically increase if copyright became illegal.

Similarly, patents are also a dangerous fiction. In fact, as it pertains to software and algorithms, it is likely even worse. By allowing rent-seekers to control the use of ideas we destroy vast amounts of wealth.

Both Copyrights and Patents are generally evil. They are entirely for the benefit of non-producing rent-seekers and lately even of tyrants looking to control our thoughts, speech and actions. The notion that 'artists' and 'inventors' somehow benefit from copyright is laughable. The vast majority of artists *pay* more for copyrights than they ever have any hope of earning. The tiny handful of artists that actually make a living from copyrighted material often make it another way. Most working musicians likely make their money touring or teaching.

For the sake of an Eagles' "Don Henley" being able to bully the domain name "DonHenley.com" from the original owner (named Don Henley) and claim a disproportionate share of proceeds from the world's music, we financially (and musically!) impoverish nearly everyone else.

Only essentially criminal elements can ever hope to benefit from Patents and Copyrights. For the rest of us, it is an unfair tax and interference with our *rightful* activities. Things like ACTA are, in my opinion, in violation of common law and the people tirelessly pursuing this advantage should be brought to trial.

Most of what you earn now goes into paying one or more types of 'taxes'. Most of those taxes, in my opinion, are entirely misused and we would all be much more wealthy if we eliminated them and their hangers-on entirely.

The world is about 100 Trillion Dollars in debt, just about entirely due to the ability of some citizens to improperly divert funds from the rest of us into their own pockets. We need to wise up and simply declare all of this nonsense against the law and then round up the culprits. There are not many of them and they should be fairly easy to find. They would be living in one of those enormous buildings they own.

It amazes me that, for instance, the spooky 'DHS' in the United States could steal domains from people and put up those odious takedown notices and it hardly got a peep of protest. Legislation in the U.S. has gotten ever bolder in skirting the bounds of civil sensibility and executive branches responsible for administrating this legislation stretch the limits even further. How far does it go? The U.S. president now has a 'kill list' so we know in advance who he will (by definition unlawfully) have put to death without a trial or even a charge.

I am hopeful that there will be a limit to all this nonsense and people will reclaim their rights. However, I am also fearful that our increasingly invasive information technology and vanishing right to privacy will make the kind of revolutions we have seen in the past impossible.

The fact that ACTA has gotten to a vote should concern us all. It is a shocking attack on the body politic and the sovereignty of the world's nations. The attack itself merits punishment, regardless of whether it passes. If we don't punish the perpetrators, they will try again. As the PATRIOT act and the recent NDAA, stealthily signed while we celebrated the New Year, demonstrate, they will eventually succeed no matter how outrageous and fundamentally unlawful the legislation.