Dear MEP,
I urge you to vote no on ACTA and to communicate its severe problems to your colleagues. ACTA’s vague language locks us into obsolete copyright and patent laws, preventing democracies from updating their laws to unlock new economic and social opportunities. It criminalizes harmless remixes by ordinary users if they achieve ‘a commercial scale’ (art 2.14.1) which many amateur videos do on sites like Youtube. And it criminalizes legitimate websites by making them responsible for user behavior (‘aiding and abetting’ art 2.14.4). Worse, it permanently bypasses the democratic process by empowering the ‘ACTA Committee’ to ‘propose amendments to [ACTA]’ without your approval. (art 6.4)
In other words, it’s impossible to know what you’re voting for!
The global movement against the US law SOPA showed that internet freedom is a crucial issue which belongs in the legislative process of each country. You should view ACTA as an attempt by a handful of companies to circumvent the democratic process, and you should vote against it.
Thank you. Please reply if you have any questions.
/ Fredrik Wendt, Göteborg, Sweden