Kroes Throws in Towel on ACTA

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/05/04/kroes-throws-in-towel-on-acta/?mod=google_news_blog

by jimlast • 14 years ago

131 29 14 years ago

blogs.wsj.com

Thats great. But I smell a slight of hand trick here. Lead the audiences attention away while you stuff cards down your sleeve.

Stay wary, stay vigilant.

jmonegro• 14 years ago

I agree. This cat and mouse game between lawmakers and the people is quite exhausting. If it isn't SOPA, it's PIPA, CISPA, ACTA... and they'll just keep coming until one of them makes it into law.

I think we should be focusing our power into pushing for legislation that prevents these kinds of bills to be passed, rather than fighting them off time and time again.

rhizome• 14 years ago

This headline strikes me as a cynical (if not undemocratic) attempt to push acronym fatigue.

anigbrowl• 14 years ago

It's rather obviously one between the rightsholders and other people, with lawmakers as the playing pieces. It's just that the it's a lot easier for rightsholders to write large checks and buy the representation they want. Like all marketing, election campaigns are very capital-intensive.

Retric• 14 years ago

The only way to limit what congress can do is with a constitutional amendment. Anything else, and they can just overwrite it.

gouranga• 14 years ago

So true.

Wait for the next "think of the children" legislation...

Joakal• 14 years ago

TPPA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Strategic_Econom...

http://pirateparty.org.au/2012/03/04/pirate-party-australias...

But USA changed the program to exclude public submissions: http://pirateparty.org.au/2012/04/05/tppa-negotiation-farce-...

nodata• 14 years ago

(s/slight of hand/sleight of hand/)

terhechte2• 14 years ago

The conference where she delivered the speech was at the re:publica in Berlin (http://re-publica.de/12/). I've seen her talk in entirety on Friday, and I was deeply impressed with her opinions. Usually, when politicians (particularly older politicians) talk about Internet topics, their opinion is mingled with half-knowledge and the hope to enslave the internet and make it a read-only thing. However, Kroess' speeach was fantastic and it made me almost happy to see such a level of understanding of the importance of the internet, and the questions, dangers, and opportunities it raises for the future to come, in a politician. Especially someone who has such an important position in the EU.

bOR_3• 14 years ago

She's great (or at least the dutch think she is), and did a good job as well when she was commissioner on competition, handing out some big fines to business cartels. see

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a854010e-dd84-11db-8d42-000b5df106...

I think we first were a bit disappointed that she was no longer keeping businesses on the straight and narrow, when she moved from competition to the digital agenda: it seemed like she was rearranged to a position where she would be less dangerous. In retrospect, that impression might have been wrong, and she might have just decided that keeping the digital world from being corrupted (by roaming fees, broadband prices, copyright agreements) was a more important thing to go after now than business cartels :-).

fauigerzigerk5• 14 years ago

I wasn't so happy about her work as competition commissioner. They went very far in the direction of price fixing. For instance, the EC tells telcos what to charge for roaming even though no one can claim that the telecom sector isn't very competitive. It's cut throat actually.

speleding• 14 years ago

I agree she is awesome (I'm biased as being both Dutch and liberal myself) but it is important to note that the reason she can speak so frankly is that she is on her last term. (She has said she is too old to stand for re-election next term)

terhechte2• 14 years ago

Addendum, here're a couple of her positions that I remember. (Caveat, as it happens with human memory being prone to error, there may be wrong facts):

- She's absolutely for Network neutrality especially on mobile devices

- She's against censoring the internet since it's far too valuable to modern democracies

- She even went so far and flew over to an eastern-european country that wanted to impose internet censoring laws and convinced them to hold back.

- She said that we need to make sure to protect children that surf the internet but without any kind of censorship. Especially she said (and I found that impressive) that children in road traffic aren't safe either, but that does not mean that we should forbid road traffic. Instead parents have to take care and be responsible, and she said the internet has to be handled similarly. I found that impressive because 'protecting the children' is usually the main argument of choice when a politician tries to undermine or censor the internet.

- She stated that she's urging all european countries to increase the amount of internet users they have. She stated that she finds it deeply shocking that, i.e., Italy had only 41% people who ever used the internet (here, the number might be the other way around, I don't remember anymore), and that we need to make sure that more people use it as soon as possible.

She said more but I can't remember it anymore.

(Edit, added list items)

novalis• 14 years ago

Amazing that it ends with:

"The controversial agreement, which opponents say was conducted behind closed doors, aimed to fight against counterfeiting at international level through greater co-ordination of anti-counterfeiting measures and tougher enforcement."

WSJ is a great place for propaganda and framing it wrong.

cnbeuiwx• 14 years ago

CISPA is way worse and its backed by 800+ massive corporations:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/cispa-supporters-list-800-c...

So they can talk all they want... its still the same kind of thinking in the system. Dirty old men wanting to get more power.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

Way to go, Europe and elsewhere! Don't let Hollywood screw you over like they continually screw us over in the States.

Kroes Throws in Towel on ACTA

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