Should we be worried about the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – ACTA

• Posted by Phil Stirpe
• on 30 January 2012

26th January 2012 was a significant day. Not because it was my 49th birthday (I’m sure your cards are in the post) but because that was the day that the European Union and others signed up to the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – ACTA. Something that had my angry 17 year old ranting through the birthday meal. He was incredulous that I hadn’t heard of it. He and his fellow Media Studies students are really quite concerned.

Now it usually takes me a while to form my opinions as I need time to think things through and consider the various aspects.

So the gist of the matter is that the American congress and now other governments around the world are keen to take the internet in hand. And reign it in.

There. That's two equestrian references and I have hardly started.

For a fuller explanation of what the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - ACTA is all about, why not try Wikipedia?

At first glance, this is about trying to place controls on the way the internet is used and to make ISPs more accountable. The headline topics are to do with piracy. i.e. file sharing sites where you can find anything you like from illegal copies of music and movies to pdfs of technical books and cracked software.

Time to fly my colours from the mast.

These filesharing sites are for the technically literate, what car boot sales are for those who are not. There will always be people who are content to buy 'knock off' goods and yet would not consider themselves to be criminals. You hear of prison inmates distinguishing themselves from the 'lowest of the low' i.e. those who steal from old ladies. I'm sorry but a thief is a thief.

Now I am in my late 40s and so probably a bit crusty but as someone who wrote a computer game published by EA in the 90s and undoubtedly had his royalty cheque adversely affected by some hacker who felt justified in ripping off and selling/sharing copies, I think I am entitled to my opinion. Furthermore I spent several months writing a training course that was blatantly ripped off by a computer training company. Fortunately they are now out of business.

Incidentally some months ago I was at a function and when I mentioned that I was soon to begin writing a WPF course , a guy openly offered me a copy of WPF 4 Unleashed off the flash drive in his pocket. I bought it off Amazon instead.

So I have no problem with governments taking steps to curb the proliferation of piracy on the internet.

The internet has run unhindered for several years and many wonderful things have come of it. Lots of bad things too. That is true off all technologies.

I do not subscribe to the doom merchants warning that the internet will come crashing to its knees nor do I fret about loss of liberty and invasion of privacy.

Like all business, in an unregulated sector it is a free for all and a lot of business gets done much of it dodgy. But in time, regulation comes and things settle down. The clever and honest entrepreneurs flourish.

So what if the file shares get shut down and you can no longer download music, films books?

So be it. it was fun while it lasted but now everyone is tech savvy, let's do something else.

Look I have just spent two months getting my wife and her business into the cloud. She doesn't need to 'download' anything anymore.

What she needs is in her cloud.

So why not have music, video etc stored in the cloud?

Why must you download your 'own copy' when you can have unlimited access to high quality content from any device.? After all, if you have downloaded content onto a device and then your device is stolen (bloody thieves!) you will have to do it all over again.

I'm thinking IJukebox. Nah. Let's just call it the Widget.

You don't download anything because all of your gadgets can just pull stuff, music. video, books etc from the cloud.

A couple of companies can licence the material legally so the copyright holders are happy. Consumers then access it through their device and the company finds a way of making it pay.

Advertising is pretty common but think of all of that valuable data.

What do you watch, what do you listen to? what do you read?

Don't give me the big brother nonsense. It's going on already.

I bet Amazon still have a record of me window shopping assorted books of erotic black and white photography a couple of years back that I didn't dare order?

I went to a wedding in Italy last year and spent the morning walking around Montecatini Terme. A pair of designer riding boots in a boutique window caught my eye. They were powder blue and made of snake skin. Absolutely incredible! The next day, a guy approached me in a bar (this isn't going where you think it's going) and he said "I see you liked the boots". He was the boutique owner and had seen me through the window admiring the boots. So he had 'logged' me as someone who was either a fashionable equestrian gentleman or a "friend of Bruno's". Either way, someone who didn't seem put off by the £1200 price tag.

As for intrusion and big brother monitoring all of your emails. Come on. isn't that going on already?

I betcha if I typed a few choice words about what I planned to do to whom with which implement in what room some eyes would turn to the activities of a possible nutter living on a small farm in Burnley.

If ACTA does go through and the fileshares and in turn any web sites or ISPs involved in illegal activity are brought to book, this will not be the end of the internet despite what my angry 17 year old and his media studies group believes.

He/they even came close to suggesting that the Mayan prophesy might actually come to pass.

And do you know what? If it looks likely to happen, the net shuts down, the world can't cope and descends into anarchy, I'll just start stock piling, get a few more chickens and a couple of pigs. We'll be fine!

Note to self. I'll need to build a bunker for when the pikies come up the hill to take what's mine! Nice little project. I'll be ready.

Come to think about it, I'll better give the Puredeys an oiling.