Hi,

Yesterday Polish government among others has signed ACTA. There is a rumor here - about a meaning of this. Young people are protesting on the street... To tell the truth no one here in Poland understand quite well all the consequences..Some are obvious.. But there are worries that ACTA will influence much more than only virtual internet reality..
In a rather unwelcome way....It is said that some medicine now freely available and which are cheap substitute of some others drugs after ACTA will have to disappear from a market... Our government all preparation for signing ACTA did in secrecy...We have no idea what to expect...

Any explanations are very welcomed

From wiki it says:

Comment:

If Copyright Protection was only socially and morally sound --it would not need any protection from congress at all. Copyright is not right --it is wrong; neither is it a matter of right --because curtailment of education is wrong.

Copyright is wrought from selfishness.


Comment:

Japan and Germany are the main suppliers of medicine to the third world. They don't want to lose their clout of monopoly in this field. They need ACTA to maintain their giant money-making. But the poor people wanted "fair prices" of medicines so they need "generics" a brandless medicine where you exactly pay only the formulated ingredients not the name of the brand. ACTA is not good for the poor, offensive to basic human freedom, and it promotes social injustice.

Comment:

Of course they should be excluded because developing countries and the third world are the profitting targets of the big copyright entities. Developing countries are the prey to the selfish giant crocodiles. Developing countries and the third world should not support ACTA. Simple equation.

And finally here is a report:

"Rapporteur's resignation

Kader Arif, European rapporteur for ACTA, resigned from his position on 26 January 2012 denouncing the treaty "in the strongest possible manner" for having "no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, [and] exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in [the] assembly," concluding with his intent to "send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation" and refusal to "take part in this masquerade."

If you'd written a book, I bet you'd want to be paid for it!
There are two points here. Firstly, anyone who diagnoses their own condition and prescribes for it has a fool for a doctor. And anyone who thinks that drugs they buy on the internet are going to be the real thing may get a nasty surprise. According to the WHO, "Fake vaccines killed 2,500 during a meningitis epidemic in Niger in 1995. Eighty-nine children died in Haiti the same year after swallowing paracetamol cough syrup that had been made with cheap, toxic diethylene glycol. In Nigeria in 2003, three children died during open-heart surgery because the adrenaline and suxamethonium, a muscle relaxant, used were fake." According to the National Crime Squad, "Fake antibiotics have been intercepted that are made of talcum powder, as well as birth-control pills made of rice flour. Other ingredients have ranged from floor polish to rat poison."

In the case you have enough money. It is easy to compare prices with incomes. In a core sense the meaning of that is that the knowledge
should be paid. Do you want to know how the Universe was created? Pay for this. "High prices" of the knowledge are one of the main
obstacles of a development.

I don't think (maybe I am wrong) that the fake medicines are subject to ACTA. This situation is a criminal. I am sure here in Poland
the existed law treats such "fakes" very seriously. Without ACTA.

Dave,

I have written and I have spoken out of my profession for free. A lawyer's pleading on hard cases can cost a thousand dollar per page, and hundreds of dollars in court appearances: all these I have done many times for free. As to how many pages in legal arguments I have written to that I have no record, but certainly they have to be more than a thousand pages now --far better than a mediocre book written about fiction or anything that cannot lift a finger to defend basic human right and render acts of charity. If you have not done it yet then you have the privilege to do the same in your walk of life. Before I became a Gnu/Linux user I thought there were only few of us who believed that scientific knowledge (technology and education, as well as justice) should be open and free. But reading from the list of names under Help>Credits in many software I was happy that a great number of men and women hold the similar faith and practice for the benefit of humanity.

This is not a thread to discuss the pros and cons about copyright, this is about ACTA per se: a bigger crocodile to say the least. I do not want to argue with anyone about copyright. But as an old man, let me rather invite you to meditate on the importance and the joy of giving up something freely that others may enjoy and progress themselves; for it is out of that value, you are now running your Salix and Fedora.

Selfishness comes to us in many ways; but charity overcomes it in every which way.

Hope this helps.

mm

NOTE: This is the proper homework for every government: to protect the welfare of the constituents, not to get preoccupied in protecting the interests of few by copyright protection!

Read what an actual successful book author has to say about this:
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2012/01/2...rate-my-books/

BTW, if you haven't read any of Paulo Coelho's books, you should. I'd recommend starting with "The Alchemist" (it's one of my favourites).