[rickmb]

The headline is misleading. There are still several national parliaments that need to ratify this (there appears to be a majority against in the Netherlands at the moment), and it has to go through the EU parliament.

The EU parliament is notoriously allergic to these kind of secret backroom shenanigans and corporate manipulations and is eager to prove its democratic value. This is an excellent opportunity to flex the little bit of political muscle it has.

[hastur]

The title is not exactly misleading. ACTA is first signed by the executive branches (foreign ministers or ambassadors), and this is what happened today in Tokyo for most EU nations.

Then ACTA will be ratified by the EU Parliament (i.e. the legislative branch).

Then ACTA will be ratified by national Parliaments. (Where necessary - most likely in all EU countries. A little different story in U.S., where Obama can just put it into law by executive order, because treaties that don't change U.S. law don't need to be ratified by Congress.)

The ratification in EU Parliament is what really counts, because 80-90% of ACTA text applies to EU law, and only a fraction applies to national law. (The latter primarily with regards to criminal prosecutions, which obviously are strictly national jurisdiction.)

[rickmb]

National parliament ratification is also not a mere formality. The EU cannot afford to be divided at this moment, or have the mood in member states turned against it even more.

Ironically, rejection by the EU parliament would save the EU a lot of internal headaches. Which is why you could very well see members of parties that support ACTA on the national level reject it in the EU parliament.

Political games: they can tell the US and their copyright mafia friends they've signed it, and the rejection by EU parliament was out of their control...

[skrebbel]

I really hope you're right about all this. Still wondering why there's no SOPA-style outbreak in any EU country but Poland. Maybe because we all, like me, just sit and wonder?

[handelaar]

> there's no SOPA-style outbreak in any EU country but Poland.

Greetings from Ireland, where we've spent the whole week kicking the government's arse over a nasty bit of Record-Company-Felching, and a Dáil debate was just forced onto the agenda not 15 minutes ago during an emergency discussion.

http://stopsopaireland.com

Oh, and I note that the largest consumer-facing site in the country just did this: http://boards.ie

[nfg]

As a matter of interest what have boards done? I'm abroad on a mobile and it's displaying as normal for me?

[Macha]

It displays the same message that is in this thread as an overlay, blocking out the home page: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056530490

[Historiopode]

This is not surprising, since ACTA is still months away from being effective and news concerning its dangers and shortcomings are only now starting to be visible.

However, there is also another, perhaps major, issue: the tech sector is just not as large or impactful as in the US (or, at least, this is the public perception): no community hub such as Silicon Valley, very few dominant businesses, very few startups and VCs capable of flexing their muscles.

I fear that if we are unable to get major US companies to protest ACTA, such legislation might simply slide past unseen by most.

[skrebbel]

Most EU countries have a multiparty system with somewhat less buyable politicians than the US has in exchange, though. This might help. After all, why else did it take so long for ACTA-ish laws to show up at all?

Or maybe I'm just naive (I like to believe that most of our politicians are selfish and stupid, but not corrupt) and missing something.

[hastur]

There are no outbreaks in other EU countries, because the media don't write/talk about ACTA. So the societies are completely ignorant about ACTA's existence.

In Poland, some mainstream media had the balls to talk about ACTA, which coincided with high-profile "hacking" attacks on govt websites. This lead to a sudden spread of public awareness. And when the kids heard that free downloading of mp3s, movies and porn is threatened, they took to the streets. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3502200)

And how did the media learn about ACTA in the first place? That's still a bit of a riddle to me. Certainly some active NGOs, like the Panoptykon Foundation, and enlightened individuals, like Piotr Waglowski (a lawyer of some fame in the digital community) have contributed by constantly pesking the govt about ACTA.

[skrebbel]

Well, for instance in the Netherlands, we have a lobby organisation called Bits of Freedom, who are basically an EFF but less Linuxy.

They are usually rather capable of causing a somewhat decent ruckus when nasty stuff happens, and they usually quickly get the support of at least the liberals and the far-right-conservatives (who are pretty consistently in favour of free and open internet though nobody understands why).

Still, nothing about ACTA. Thanks for laying out the Polish case for me though.

[hastur]

Obviously, Bits Of Freedom didn't bother to do much about ACTA.

[toyg]

The start of the negotiation process was formally acknowledged in various diplomatic venues, as it usually is for these treaties: for such large negotiations the bureaucracy is huge (the days of Molotov-Ribbentropp are long gone), so people knew something was going to happen.

Then negotiators tried hard to keep any interested NGO and independent parties from getting access; inevitably, their interest was piqued even more, and leaks started to appear, as they always do when Evil Stuff is in the works.

I'm pretty sure people like Cory Doctorow were banging the drums about ACTA years ago.

[hastur]

Yeah, but who hears Cory Doctorow, when he writes on his blog, which is read only by geeks.

The problem is breaking through to the wider public, to the mainstream media. We managed to do that in Poland.

[hastur]

I never said national ratification is a mere formality. In fact, you can count on a huge debate in Poland (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3502200).

I was just saying - even if a national parliament rejects ACTA, 90% of ACTA will still affect that country as a EU member.

And yeah, I'm very hopeful too about the EU Parliament.