Protests worldwide last February offered the right pressure to delay the full implementation of the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (aka ACTA) but the war is far from over. While the American counterpart is fighting the new CISPA law, here the ACTA is less than 30 votes away to be passed in the EU Parliament.
New demos are being planned worldwide for 9 June. Eastern Europe is expected to have massive protests as in previous February, also France, Germany, Denmark amongst others are organizing demos.
In UK demonstrations are being planned for London, Birmingham, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Chelmsford, Glasgow and Liverpool and more cities are expected to join in. Here the protest will fight not only ACTA but also the Digital Economy Act that was passed in the last days of the Labour government. This Act is legally forcing Internet Service Providers such as Virgin, BT and Talk Talk to block access to websites that facilitate copyright infringement such as Pirate Bay. In addition users that are found to be illegally downloading copyrighted material will be included in a blacklist, which in the future might mean they will be cut off from any Internet services.
For an explanation of ACTA see ScHNEWS. No matter if this law is right or wrong, regarding author rights, it is being done without any participation of the civil society, it will limit our freedom and access to information, and is an attack to one's privacy.
Stay informed on : http://june9.org.uk/