Mexican Congress votes to reject ACTA

The Mexican Congress has passed a bill rejecting ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA was negotiated in secret, and, despite the name, is largely concerned with extremist copyright measures allowing for (and even mandating) expanded surveillance for copyright infringement, easier seizure rules, and easier Internet censorship.

Now, the question is whether or not the Mexican executive branch will try to ignore the will of Congress on this issue and sign ACTA anyway.

Mexican Congress Says No To ACTA (Thanks, Xeni)

• [Tzctboin]

  The Mexican President can’t enact legislation that has been voted down by congress, even if the President himself proposes the legislation.

  It is the same in the case of international treaties like this one, where the upper house of the Mexican congress has the last say.

  If the President tries shome shenaningans to please USians and megacorps the Mexican Supreme Court would get involved and most likely torpedo such nonsense (not too bad for what lots of US media try to portray as a failed state, isn’t it?)

  All this is quite important, because it gives safe haven for sane access to creative material in Spanish worldwide.

• [Jalek]

  They don’t want to pay to enforce company claims on ideas?

  I wish other governments weren’t so eager to spend their people’s money to make a few rich.

• [humanresource]

  Excellent. The only other developing country/fig leaf for bloated Western IP middlemen among the signatories is Morocco. ACTA itself is a fall-back strategy for these groups, who can’t get their agenda accepted at the multilateral IP bodies anymore (WIPO and WTO).
  A lot of people on this site seem to believe that the biggest bastards in the corporate sector always win, but outside the USA that’s just not true. Even in America, there are substantial challenges to that agenda in the IP arena – hence the deceitful labeling of this treaty as a mere “agreement”, and thus not something to be submitted to congress for debate and approval.

  • [Scarecrow Repair]

    I have a completely different attitude. I consider almost all that the IP corporations want to lock up to be tedious pablum, and considering that fences have two sides, I wish them well in their endeavour to fence themselves off from the rest of the world, where real music and literature thrives because of sharing. Let Disney have its pasteurized Grimm and Rudyard Kipling and whatever else they wish to steal — they can only reduce its vitality, that is all they know how to do. The rest of the world will get along fine without them. The original lives on, and for the most part, those who steal and let steal have the most fun and the best fans.

    Let those who are afraid of raw reality hide in their corral of factory dreck. The rest of us will ignore them.

• [Layne]

  Hola mi amigos!
  Esta mi nuevo compilación de los “chiptunes” – ‘Tipo de los Bloops’. Inspirado de Señor Davis’ “Tipo de Azul”.

  **Ahora, con el arte del CD original, cortesía del señor Jay Maisel!**

  Cristo, lo que es un pendejo!