Do you remember back when the RIAA was suing random people alleging music piracy, only to end up publicly embarrassed because some of them were little old ladies that didn't even have a computer? We will soon be able to declare that chapter of legal history to be over: These poor little grandmas will have to knit their mittens behind bars, because future laws will straight up declare you guilty without needing to prove your innocence.

Apparently, pieces of some ?ber-secret international agreement called the ACTA ("Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement") have recently leaked. This shit, apparently intended to be enforced by an international organisation that doesn't answer to anyone, basically defines ways to stop the trade of counterfeit items. And internet piracy. Which is kind of ok, until you read the rest.

"A document leaked to the public in 2008 includes a provision to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide information about suspected copyright infringers without a warrant."
[...]
"Similarly, it provides for criminalization of copyright infringement, granting law enforcement the powers to perform criminal investigation, arrests and pursue criminal citations or prosecution of suspects who may have infringed on copyright. It also allows criminal investigations and invasive searches to be performed against individuals for whom there is no probable cause, and in that regard weakens the presumption of innocence and allows what would in the past have been considered unlawful searches."

Essentially, if they point their finger at you, your life will be turned upside down "just because" and you can't do shit about it.

"According to New Zealand ACTA aims to facilitate a "strong and modern legal framework so that law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, and private citizens have the most up-to-date tools necessary to effectively bring counterfeiters and pirates to justice." Areas for possible ACTA provisions include: criminal enforcement, border measures, civil enforcement, optical disc piracy, and Internet distribution and information technology."

They don't belong to any country. Therefore, they don't abide to anyone's laws and don't answer to anyone. You'll have nobody to complain to.

"[...]the proposed agreement would empower security officials at airports and other international borders to conduct random ex officio searches of laptops, MP3 players, and cellular phones for illegally downloaded or "ripped" music and movies. Travellers with infringing content would be subject to a fine and may have their devices confiscated or destroyed."

Yeah... fuck you. I'm still not going to bring my CD's along when going abroad. That's why I have my fucking MP3 player.

"[...] ACTA will make it harder for users of free operating systems to play non-free media because DRM protected media would not be legally playable with free software."

I'll never understand how these things come to be. The same way, DVD zones and everything else intended to malfunction or simply not perform its intended functions purposely is solely intended to fuck you. Money moves the world - sad but true.

There's more but I'm too lazy to copy or comment right now. But this should be enough. I've always said they're purposely pushing us back to the stone age, and every day I'm amazed that they have taken one more step towards that dystopian future in which most people will be labeled rebels, hiding and incommunicated, living of the land because a small group owns (and charges for the use of) everything.

Which reminds me of this vaguely related anecdote:
A few years ago I went with a friend to a see a band. We got first row, the stage was at arms reach with only a waist-high barrier. The show was great, the crowd were calm and we had a wonderful night. Then I was gifted a ticket to a second show, about a week later (alone, my friend was abroad). This time they put up a barrier twice as tall (as in, blocking the view for those in 1st row) and three times as far from the stage. I can only wonder why would they separate the audience from the band that much. I was dumbfounded, it's not like at the first show the crowd were throwing the chairs at the band or doing crazy shit like that. After all, this wasn't Metallica, it was... Joss Stone.

I always imagined the official answer to such a question would be in the lines of "hadn't we done that, you would have been able to see them!"

Of course. Then just charge for showing some live DVD and save the cost of carrying the band all around the world. I'll stay home, thanks.

Back to topic - The end. Too lazy to write more. Read yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
http://werebuild.eu/wiki/index.php?title=ACTA
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/24/1214239/Full-ACTA-Leak-On-Line
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/tags/acta/
http://activepolitic.com:82/blog/2009.12.04/ACTA.html

TLDR
More DRM and legal shit to fuck you.

Back to the future the stone age. Coming soon to your country!