[Foundation-l] ACTA analysis?

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 2:47 AM, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello Kim,
>
> Geoff asked me to prepare the following summaries of ACTA and OPEN with
> the understanding that it only represents some preliminary research to
> support the ongoing community discussion. You can find the research here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/ACTA
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/OPEN_Act
>
> I encourage the community to update or correct these pages as they see fit.
> In my personal opinion, the Wikipedia articles are not completely up to
> date on ACTA (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement), so the
> community may also wish to improve those articles as we learn new
> information.
>
> ACTA is complicated because it is a treaty, not national law. It may or may
> not be implemented the same way in every country, and its impact will
> depend on a country's existing national law. My initial research was
> primarily focused on U.S. law, but many of the problems in ACTA will apply
> elsewhere. In the spirit of collaboration, your input and improvement is
> encouraged!
>
> Here are some highlights:
> * ACTA is already signed by many countries, but a country can withdraw with
> 180 days notice.
> * The anti-circumvention provisions are similar to the DMCA, but possibly
> worse.
> * The final text of ACTA is not as bad as the previous drafts.
>
> Importantly, my research does not represent an official legal opinion from
> the Wikimedia Foundation. It may contain errors and may be incomplete. You
> should know that the legal department can only represent the Wikimedia
> Foundation on legal matters, so this is not official legal advice to the
> community.

The community can fork.And If it cannot, WMF is a colossal failure wrt
to its stated mission statement.
l



-- 
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]