BLOGS: Sign the PublicACTA Wellington Declaration!
Cory Doctorow discusses the Wellington Declaration drawn up by PublicACTA. It starts
The participants at the PublicACTA Conference of 10 April 2010 respectfully submit this, the Wellington Declaration, to the parties negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), for their consideration during the Wellington round of negotiations.
Cory comments:
The Declaration says that copyright treaties should preserve the flexibility to make unauthorised use for purposes consistent with the public interest, from criticism to education; it says that privacy should be protected in copyright law, rejecting the principle that we should all be spied upon in case we are infringing on copyright; that web-hosts and search engines should be protected from liability rather than charged with policing their users; that DRM is not part of copyright and shouldn’t be in a copyright treaty; that Internet access is a human right and that disconnection from the net for accusations of infringement is disproportionate and unjust; and that damages for infringement should be reasonable. It asks that criminal sanctions for copyright be reserved for genuinely criminal acts, non casual sharing…
I’ve signed it. I think we all should.
Cory Doctorow
Kevin Townsend 