Piercing ACTA armour

We have looked at the growing protests online and on the ground against the Anti-Counterfeiting (and much more) Trade Agreement ACTA. The anti-ACTA feelings run high, but there is also a need for deliberation on the official policies of ever more draconian IPR enforcement, including ACTA (in 22 EU languages).


ACTA sources

The continuing #ACTA stream on Twitter offers you almost real time updates (if you wait a few moments), but the original contributions and gems are easily drowned by the the repetitive messages and the hype.

The decisive discussions are going to take place in the European Parliament and national parliaments, where arguments have to be based on hard facts and cool analysis in order to pierce through defensive armour, such as preordained government positions, party discipline and prior EU Council arrangements.

Here are a few gateways to critical networks and sources to help you steer towards more reasoned opposition.

You can follow @StopActaNow on Twitter for information including noteworthy blog posts and articles. The stopacta.info website contains both facts about ACTA and promotional items for activists. There are links to critical civil society websites and selected documents for further study.

You can advance to the ACTA dossier of La Quadrature du Net, the ACTA blog posts by professor Michael Geist, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastrucure FFII ACTA blog, the What's Wrong With ACTA Week at EDRI (with five short briefing papers), the Access website for global digital freedom and the section on trade agreements at Infojustice.org.

More quality analysis is needed, but these websites are worth following for troubling questions and reasonable solutions regarding IPR enforcement.

Freedom and justice for all.



Ralf Grahn

P.S. Between the global issues and the national level, the European Union shapes our digital future and online freedoms. Is your blog already listed among the more than 900 euroblogs aggregated by multilingual Bloggingportal.eu?