I've been away for months, but I wanted to come back to post this, which is the site's 50th post.For now ACTA is no longer a threat and I want to thank every single protester, social media information sharer, and anti-ACTA activist for helping to make this a reality. For now ACTA is gone, and that's the good news.
The bad news is that the US government is still using copyright as an excuse to attempt to regulate the internet, and it's looking like things are only going to become more Orwellian from here. Legislation like CISPA is still a threat and there are articles detailing how the FBI wants to put backdoors on sites like Facebook. On the surface that might seem like a good thing, but hackers that want the same data for malicious purposes can use those same back doors.
There is also talk of how they want to isps to log every url that is accessed by every internet user which is a massive invasion of privacy to say the least. Media companies with their outdated business models want to make sure that people don't pirate their media and this incredibly invasive method is the only thing they could come up with. Supposedly it is a six-strikes system where initially internet connection speed will be throttled, then more severely throttled, then cut off completely.
There seems to be a never ending parade of legislation geared towards curbing piracy through means that invade the privacy of internet users. Honestly I think a much better approach would be if the media companies could embrace technology instead of trying to fight it. Then we could focus on real issues like recovering the economy.
There is good news though. We are moving in a direction where more and more artists are using websites like Kickstarter to fund projects without going through a record label, or publisher. In the end I'm not sure if cooler heads will prevail and we'll get our privacy back, or if we'll be living in some sort of 1984-esque society, but for now ACTA has been defeated and for that I thank you.
