As ACTA Gets Signed, Europeans Protest
Chris Richardson | January 27, 2012
At a ceremony in Tokyo, Japan, more members of the European Union signed ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), ratifying the treaty for the countries that signed it. However, because the European Union parliament has yet to weigh in, ACTA is not currently binding, as in, it’s not a “global law,” yet, anyway.
The European Union parliament, according to The Guardian, is scheduled to debate ACTA (pdf) this summer.
Procedural processes aside, it’s clear the treaty has a coalition of support as international governments race to apparently rescue the downtrodden entertainment industry, masked in a treaty of intellectual property protection. Speaking of masks, there has been some push-back from EU citizens in a number of areas, including Poland and France.
