Editorial - The ACTA Proposal and it’s lasting effects

As an internet user and film fan, I was deeply disturbed to read about the recent news that leaked out of a meeting in Korea earlier this week.

And that is classified negotiations in regards to global copyright agreements, normally as far as I know they depend on local laws in regards to copyright and as long as the content has not been sold by the person copying it for their own use, then law officers are powerless to do anything about it as technically, they haven’t really broken any laws.

But if this new treaty is signed by world governments from places like Australia, Japan, Canada and the US to name as examples then they would be obliged to enact “three strikes” laws in which if you’re accused of infringing copyright, you’re internet access will be cut off, even if the accusation turns out to be completely bullshit.

Now again, this did disturb me as I feel that Hollywood studios who simply refuse to adapt with the times in fear of losing their profits (not that they’d lose much anyway as if it can be gotten legally at the right price, people will go for it) have no right to judge my private internet connection, hey I condemn online piracy and pretty much every disc, tape, whatever has been legally bought but I can understand why people do it for these reasons:

1. People simply don’t have the time to do stuff like this, I talked to some friends about the issue of online piracy recently and they sympathized as well when I told that they do long hours, sometimes working from 8am to 6pm and after that, you would feel so exhausted that the last thing you would want to do is go to a cinema.

2. Even if people had the opportunity to do that, most people also work Saturdays and their Sundays are already taken by having to clean their house, do the grocery shopping, pay the bills, scrub their toes and so on and so forth, so again most people I know probably won’t have the time and/or money to travel to a cinema to see a film.

3. And lastly, there’s also the issue of the pricing, now I don’t consider myself a great supporter of the video game industry here in Australia for two reasons, first there is no R18+ rating for Games and as a result, games have to be toned down to get the MA15+ rating and second, games are just too expensive, ranging from the $100-$120 mark on average, which for my money is simply too high for most games.


But it’s doubtful that most studio executives would care about such matters as they want the world to revolve around them and to stop all of the progress we’ve made over the last 10 years because they’re too scared of change, well I’m sorry but there can be officially be no going back to the ways things were before the internet existed as the medium has opened up the world in a way we could never imagine in terms of communications, distribution, financial opportunities and educational methods.

Treading on this in a big way will have very dire consequences for the world economy and may even threaten the chances of economic recovery as one of it’s biggest assets would be shut down because of Hollywood studios wanting more money, well this to me is totally unacceptable and must be fought at every possible turn or these studios will get their way and turn the internet into another broadcast medium and that is NOT what it was designed for, it was designed as a service like the post office and telephone networks and we must fight to keep it that way for the good of all mankind.