European Street Protest Against ACTA Draws Over 30,000
- Thread starter Hevva
- Start date
Hmmm, well I think this entire thing is a joke because the actual threats are nations like China and their piracy and knockoffs, especially seeing as those nations are effectively bleeding tons of money out of the rest of the world's economies through their actions.... which is another whole issue I've gone into before.
Basically, with the current economic crisis it's a joke to spend all this time and money trying to chase around kids who might be passing around copyrighted material for free... as wrong as it might be, when those resources would be better spent going after China and similar and quite probably preparing for a war which would actually make a differance even if would result in the deaths of hundreds of millions.
I won't go into my full position again (but it's probably archived in some other messages, as I've covered it recently), but basically I think way too much time and effort is being spent on this dog and pony show, as first world goverments try and pretend they are doing something to deal with IP issues, to avoid having to face the uncomfortable truth that these problems are not an issue that can be resolved without a lot of blood being put on their hands and the acknowlegement that modern, western morality in international matters has simply been beyond it's time.
In the end if things like SOPA, ACTA, and other bills get passed it means nothing. Sure the IPs are safer, but people lose a lot of freedom, and in the end very little extra money goes into the economy as those people prevented from stealing aren't going to go running out to buy the products in question since in many cases they probably didn't have the money to
begin with. People misunderstand the appeal of "free" it's sort of like a bunch of logo pens, you give them away for free, everyone takes one, you put them in a souveneir shop to sell and not everyone who would have taken one for free buys the product. Sure, computers are expensive but cumulatively someone who say pirates 40 games in a year isn't likely to have been able to afford their computer and buy all of those games.. etc... in the end very little will happen due to these bills other than making it easier for media industries to raise their prices and gouge the public while making it harder for others t compete (long story, I touched on this in a response I just wrote to The Jimquisition).
On the other hand if we were to act against China before it's military is totally built up, surround them with anti-missle systems so they can't get their missles out, sink their developing navy, blow up their coastal facilities, and then use the country as a munitions dumping ground while we see how quickly we can solve their overpopulation problem... we would see some results. China no longer knocking things off, and forgiving debt (which was never really a loan in the traditional sense, something else I've covered) and similar things would greatly affect things in a positive fashion for the western world. Of course having a hundred or more times the deaths caused by Hitler's holocaust is something people are too squeamish to do no matter the reasons. (before anyone comments in the sense of an invasion, understand something... police actions are stupid, as is fighting a land war in Asia. Hence why the US and it's allies wouldn't do that. Just take control of it's coastlines and unleash all these weapons we won't use for moral reasons... you know dropping weapons like Daisy cutters designed for wiping out towns and villages full of civilians ON towns and villages full of civilians, and leveling every building abover say 5 stories we can sight with cruise missles from thousands of miles away... there are all kinds of things like this... and if you know anything about US missle interception systems especially in light of what was said about Poland's base when Russia invaded Georgia, the odds of China ever getting missles to other countries now, never mind if we moved on them, aren't that good... but this is more or less irrelevent. Jus heading off arguements... I've covered this in more detail elsewhere, and it's at best a tertiary point here).
Interestingly I can't help but notice that France and Germany aren't on board here. Of course then again those are two of the nations I expect understand the situation better than most. One of the things costing the western world trillions upon trillions of dollars is nations like China knocking off drugs like Viagra and then selling the counterfeits under the price of the developers, which means they companies who created them don't get the money they should, and are not being taxed. The US and France have unbelievably crazy returns they should be getting from Viagra alone (Pfizers is a French company if I remember which is also heavily tied to the US as it does a lot of it's development here), Merck is a German company that is in a similar position but doesn't have any one product that can be pointed to the same way. In short it doesn't surprise me that they don't take countries wanting to make a show out of wasting money to chase teens around the internet and give music and game companies godlike control of the internet, especially seriously. The US has been pretty stupid in it's agreements so far, but I think France and Germany would in part prefer the situation be taken care of more seriously. To be honest, all hype aside (and comments about how they would never go to war) I'd imagine if the US went to war like I describe to leverage China and other robber economies France and Germany are two of the nations that would be right behind us given their huge levels of victimization by REAL IP/patent thefts and knockoffs.
Basically, with the current economic crisis it's a joke to spend all this time and money trying to chase around kids who might be passing around copyrighted material for free... as wrong as it might be, when those resources would be better spent going after China and similar and quite probably preparing for a war which would actually make a differance even if would result in the deaths of hundreds of millions.
I won't go into my full position again (but it's probably archived in some other messages, as I've covered it recently), but basically I think way too much time and effort is being spent on this dog and pony show, as first world goverments try and pretend they are doing something to deal with IP issues, to avoid having to face the uncomfortable truth that these problems are not an issue that can be resolved without a lot of blood being put on their hands and the acknowlegement that modern, western morality in international matters has simply been beyond it's time.
In the end if things like SOPA, ACTA, and other bills get passed it means nothing. Sure the IPs are safer, but people lose a lot of freedom, and in the end very little extra money goes into the economy as those people prevented from stealing aren't going to go running out to buy the products in question since in many cases they probably didn't have the money to
begin with. People misunderstand the appeal of "free" it's sort of like a bunch of logo pens, you give them away for free, everyone takes one, you put them in a souveneir shop to sell and not everyone who would have taken one for free buys the product. Sure, computers are expensive but cumulatively someone who say pirates 40 games in a year isn't likely to have been able to afford their computer and buy all of those games.. etc... in the end very little will happen due to these bills other than making it easier for media industries to raise their prices and gouge the public while making it harder for others t compete (long story, I touched on this in a response I just wrote to The Jimquisition).
On the other hand if we were to act against China before it's military is totally built up, surround them with anti-missle systems so they can't get their missles out, sink their developing navy, blow up their coastal facilities, and then use the country as a munitions dumping ground while we see how quickly we can solve their overpopulation problem... we would see some results. China no longer knocking things off, and forgiving debt (which was never really a loan in the traditional sense, something else I've covered) and similar things would greatly affect things in a positive fashion for the western world. Of course having a hundred or more times the deaths caused by Hitler's holocaust is something people are too squeamish to do no matter the reasons. (before anyone comments in the sense of an invasion, understand something... police actions are stupid, as is fighting a land war in Asia. Hence why the US and it's allies wouldn't do that. Just take control of it's coastlines and unleash all these weapons we won't use for moral reasons... you know dropping weapons like Daisy cutters designed for wiping out towns and villages full of civilians ON towns and villages full of civilians, and leveling every building abover say 5 stories we can sight with cruise missles from thousands of miles away... there are all kinds of things like this... and if you know anything about US missle interception systems especially in light of what was said about Poland's base when Russia invaded Georgia, the odds of China ever getting missles to other countries now, never mind if we moved on them, aren't that good... but this is more or less irrelevent. Jus heading off arguements... I've covered this in more detail elsewhere, and it's at best a tertiary point here).
Interestingly I can't help but notice that France and Germany aren't on board here. Of course then again those are two of the nations I expect understand the situation better than most. One of the things costing the western world trillions upon trillions of dollars is nations like China knocking off drugs like Viagra and then selling the counterfeits under the price of the developers, which means they companies who created them don't get the money they should, and are not being taxed. The US and France have unbelievably crazy returns they should be getting from Viagra alone (Pfizers is a French company if I remember which is also heavily tied to the US as it does a lot of it's development here), Merck is a German company that is in a similar position but doesn't have any one product that can be pointed to the same way. In short it doesn't surprise me that they don't take countries wanting to make a show out of wasting money to chase teens around the internet and give music and game companies godlike control of the internet, especially seriously. The US has been pretty stupid in it's agreements so far, but I think France and Germany would in part prefer the situation be taken care of more seriously. To be honest, all hype aside (and comments about how they would never go to war) I'd imagine if the US went to war like I describe to leverage China and other robber economies France and Germany are two of the nations that would be right behind us given their huge levels of victimization by REAL IP/patent thefts and knockoffs.
Dexter111 said:Uhm... where did you get those numbers exactly?Hevva said:
It was more like 200.000+
In Germany alone there were like 100.000 people.
Official police numbers for Munich were 16.000 people and Berlin 10.000...
Btw. I've been keeping a thread about the whole thing updated here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.339993-ACTA-Protests-Worldwide-11-02-over-2-100-000-signatures-on-the-petition
And the next round of protests are apparently planned for 25.02 so everyone that missed the last ones can go
Partipant counts are all over the place - some sources even had Munich as low as 1,000 protesters. So I aggregated Reuters and the BBC since they tend to be pretty reliable numbers-wise; though supposing there were 26,000 between Berlin and Munich, where were the other 74,000? I could imagine Freiburg and Cologne being pretty angry but their marches weren't significant enough to make up the numbers. Still - there were at least 30,000 people on the streets, which is a decent turnout.
Also new protests! According to Googlemaps my city (Aberdeen, Scotland) had a total of one protestor over the weekend. It's so strange - nobody in the UK seems to care, maybe because they have faith the European Parliament will just banhammer this thing in June. The only people I've even heard mention it are two Polish friends from Poznan (where the protests all started) who were raging about it before Christmas. Hrm.
If I'm ever going to rally against anything, it'll be Guy Fawkes masks.
I'm so fucking sick of that pretentious symbolic bullshit.
As for ACTA... Yeah sorry, I don't really give a shit.
I'm so fucking sick of that pretentious symbolic bullshit.
As for ACTA... Yeah sorry, I don't really give a shit.
Especially since Fawkes' goal was to end the slightly more egalitarian Protestant revolution in England by restoring Catholic domination.Casual Shinji said:
We'd probably be living in a facist police state if he had succeeded.
Damn kids need to read some fucking history books.
You and me both, comrade.chstens said:
Anyone else get a Nazi vibe from all this pushing of copyright laws?
I'm just tired of seeing that fucking thing everywhere.Daystar Clarion said:
Like anyone who adorns their face, clothing, or website with it is suddenly making some highly important statement.
No, it's just kinda pretentious and shallow.Dexter111 said:
These days you could get people to follow your rally against the Moon being white as long as you slap a Guy Fawkes mask on there.
"Look, one those mask thingies from V for Vendetta. It must be, like, really important!"
Actually, you can try to get citizenship anywhere in the EU and then just move around as you like. For example I don't think getting citizenship in Romania is that hard (not sure about it though). If you have that then "Hello Schengen Treaty" and welcome to GermanyAC10 said:
Well, I'm fairly certain that my aunt has the geneological records somewhere (it's her hobby), and my last name is of German origin, so...iniudan said:
Yeah, still wouldn't want to move there. Too much censorship in games.