Poles Take anti-ACTA Protests to the Streets

It fossilizes a framework of copyright laws that was created before the Internet. Each country that signs ACTA commits itself to preserving the existing system of intellectual property protection, which many consider to be antiquated and out of touch with the digital world. It ensures that no alternative ideas for managing intellectual property will arise in those countries, which is of course the goal of the United States government and the rightsholders that lobbied for this treaty.

In addition to limiting the flexibility of individual countries without giving them anything in return (other than a pat on the back from Uncle Sam), ACTA contains a number of vague provisions that could lead to more stringent IP regulations. For example:

"ordering the alleged infringer (...) to provide information on any persons (...) involved in any aspect of the infringement" (notice the broad scope)

"endeavoring to promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address trademark and copyright or related rights infringement" ("encouraging" ISPs to "voluntarily" cut off users?).

ACTA also contains provisions that go beyond what is currently law in many of the countries that are about to sign it. For example, it introduces broader anti-circumvention laws that are currently in effect in Poland. It also provides that prosecutors must be able to act out of their own initiative (ex officio) on copyright cases -- even if the rightsholder does not complain.

Protests are big in Poland because they are very poor and 90% of people downloads everything from the Internet. Deleting Pirate Bay, Rapidshare. Youtube and Megaupload would stop most people from accessing any cultural goods: music, films, software.

Unlike India etc, average Pole has enough money for good PC or notebook and good internet connection, but not yet enough to pay for software.

Nobody uses Steam or Itunes, paying for software is just laughable. Except for businesses - they must be legal.

I'm sorry, but this is just a load of bullshit. GDP per capita in Poland is 46th in the world (comparing to 127th position of India), it has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, and one of few that were immune to the recent economic crisis. If you want more information, you can find it on the web[1].

It's true that in the early nineties, just after the fall of communist regime, intellectual property wasn't regulated and piracy was sprawling, but a lot has changed since then.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Poland

What have you been smoking?

Poland is far from poor. Actually, these days it's quite a stretch to call it a "developing" economy.

Yes, majority of young people download infringing content from the web, except:

1) The same happens in many richer countries, like US or Spain (with percentages just a bit lower)

2) These very same people also buy content, when it makes sense.

All of my friends (who play PC games at all) use Steam. Nobody uses iTunes, because it was launched just a few months ago in Poland, so everyone is used to getting music by other means. (A lesson for Apple not to withhold products, because people will find their own way and render the "proper" channel obsolete.)

And saying "Deleting Pirate Bay, Rapidshare. Youtube and Megaupload would stop most people from accessing any cultural goods: music, films, software" is just plain insulting and retarded. I guess in your book there's been no culture to speak of in Poland before broadband Internet? ;)

That's plain BS. When I was in Warsaw in December and iPhones were everywhere. During the holiday season I saw tons of people buying legitimate non-pirated music, movies, and games at stores like EMPIK. In fact after the new year when I went to buy some albums it was hard to sort through what was left on the shelves because so much of the stock had been cleared out and made a mess of in the holiday buying rush. It's true that a lot of people in Poland may be income limited due to low wages, but I think making it seem like everyone there pirates everything because that's the only way to get it is totally wrong.