Yeah yeah yeah. I know this isn't the right way to look at it, and is, in fact, very irresponsible and just not helpful. But whenever people talk about unauthorized copying of texts or music (known as piracy), invariably the expression “intellectual property” is used, and it makes me think about the unconscionable plunder going on. Somebody's I-pod, for example. Imagine archeologists of the future digging up an I-pod, dusting it off, and looking at each other with wild surmise. “Look at all the songs in here. This will tell us everything we need to know about the culture of the Ancient Americas. Listen to this, listen!”

...dzkkk...Forget about your boyfriend and meet me at the hotel room, you can bring your girlfriends and meet me at the hotel room....

“Incredible. But I wonder how it got here, in this treasure chest.”

“Oh, probably some pirate. The waters around here used to be lousy with them. They would get letters of marque, and then cruise the seas looking for rich intellectual booty such as this.”

You can read about ACTA onWikipedia. And then you'll probably want to check one of the sources there, for example, Wikileaks. But what do you find? The link doesn't work, because Wikileaks is suspending operations for a bit. That's normal, though.

Here's link to Free Software Foundation that hasn't been scrubbed yet.

Labels: ACTA, Buccaneers