If you're an "ends justifies the means" kind of guy, then this stuff doesn't upset you. But it upsets me.
How is it different how ACTA got negotiated and signed and how copyright policy in general is being negotiated and enacted? How is ACTA less democratic than stuff like life+70 years and big scale filesharing prohibition and mass lawsuits?
Democracy is generally completely shut out of any decision regarding copyright. This stuff is and always was decided _completely_ in shady backroom deals behind closed doors for the sole benefit of special interests and then enforced against the majority. It has zero connection to peoples will, the natural sense of right and wrong that should be basis of any law, especially laws broadly enforced against the people. I dont think there was ever a case on this planet where any population was actually allowed to vote on "intellectual property" in general. The idea behind it, the decision making process and the enforcement has always been purely autocratic, from the top down, like this thing called democracy never happened.
> How is it different how ACTA got negotiated
> and signed and how copyright policy
This was decided by the Slovenian government and by the
parliamentary committee for EU matters, and before that,
Slovenia was for quite some time involved in
coordinating the agreement. [...] Back then, the
Slovenian media did not demonise this decision to the
same extent as they now demonise my signature.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3542774
I am generally 10000x more likely to trust 'tzs on issues of IP law than I am to trust the prevailing sentiment on HN.
Perhaps more to the point: what a boring article. How much more interesting would it be to see a rebuttal of the conventional wisdom around ACTA? Instead, the entire article is just a genuflection, interesting only if you personally care about this particular politician, stultifying otherwise.