Actor Atlas

See The Guardian - Global Development (Feb. 3, 2012).

See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/graphic/2012/jan/26/how-africa-tweets-portland

http://storify.com/ajstream/acta-questions-and-comments

See this website http://www.laquadrature.net/en/ACTA for an overview of ACTA related news and opinions, and http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Against_ACTA for a list of documents or public statements against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Further resources included in a Tweet Chat with EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes (January 30, 2012, 15:00-15:40). Check out #askneelie on Twitter.

• EU Commission Propaganda on ACTA about a document in defense of ACTA published by the European Commission “10 Myths about ACTA“.
• OPINION on the compatibility of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with the European Convention on Human Rights & the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (by Dowe Korff and Ian Brown, Sept. 2011)
• to be completed

Will we find answers in this letter: Over 75 Law Profs Call for Halt of ACTA (October 28, 2010),

referenced in Meet SOPA's evil twin, ACTA (CNNMoney, January 26, 2012).

A link to the statement explaining the position of Kader Arif's (MEP).

The Avaaz.org petition seems to have all the answers, yet where is the evidence for their statements?

One example: A shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body?

…and already more than one million signers.

In the Avaaz.org petition this committee is called a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties — even prison sentences — against people they say have harmed their business.

Source: ACTA: The new threat to the net (Petition).

Before signing the petition, perhaps also check its other claims against 10 Myths about ACTA?

… and this is before ACTA is effective?

Taking into consideration the lessons and proposals highlighted by Yochai Benkler, in his article Seven Lessons from SOPA/PIPA/Megaupload and Four Proposals on Where We Go From Here (January 25, 2012) one could ask these questions:

• Does ACTA distort the traditional copyright law, balanced by courts under due process constraints?
• Does ACTA contribute to sucking more of the flow of the networked economy (an economy that has control-resisting tradition) in to the enforcement vortex?
• Does ACTA undermine the freedom which the Internet makes possible?
• Does ACTA contribute to ''criminalization with its own internal bureaucratic logic'': functionaries whose professional success is measured by (a) how threatening we think Counterfeiting and Piracy is, and (b) how many large prosecutions they are able to bring.
• Does ACTA threathen the traditional law of contributory copyright infringement (principle) as the Supreme Court laid it out in the Sony Betamax case: as long as the technology has substantial non-infringing uses, its creator would not be held liable for the fact that users were also using it for infringement?

• What does the re-emergence of the possibility of a truly engaged citizenry after decades of the rise of lobbying and money mean for ACTA and its implementation by its Parties and their trading partners?

PS. Text of SOPA and comments on it are at SOPA (in the Actor Atlas).

The article by William New, Intellectual Property Watch (23 January 2012) identifies three factors, and provides evidence for them:

• industry-owned music download services expand and gain acceptance,
• anti-piracy efforts take hold in some countries, and
• internet intermediaries join in

ACTA Why You Should Support It

For further details, see http://www.lusakatimes.com/2012/01/20/zambia-lands-k450bn-grant/ and http://www.devex.com/en/blogs/the-development-newswire/zambia-wins-uk-development-grant

See http://www.facebook.com/DigitalAgenda and ACTA.

Seven Lessons from SOPA/PIPA/Megaupload and Four Proposals on Where We Go From Here (January 25, 2012)

New Yorker's Ken Auletta with ex-US CIO Vivek Kundra (October 14, 2011).

See the article by Liz Dwyer (January 18, 2012) at GOOD Education.
It includes references to a Concerned Educators Letter to Congress.

Here a Khan Academy video explaining SOPA and PIPA: http://www.khanacademy.org/video/sopa-and-pipa focussing especially on:

• an explanation of the overall approach of the acts: how to involve service providers within U.S. jurisdiction to enforce U.S. Laws for foreign websites;
• the broad interpretation given to the term ''Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property,'' (Sec. 103 (a));
• the act first, think next approach in the enforcement of orders;
• the way of dealing with possible misrepresentation by plaintiffs.

Guinea: New Review of Mining Contracts Can Bolster Development (Revenue Watch Institute, January 20, 2012)