THE TRUTH ABOUT ACTA/SOPA/PIPA! IT'S GLOBAL!

My name is Bernhard Binder
I'm a freelance graphic designer and Illustrator, a creator that's supposetly proctected by ACTA, and I say "NO!" to ACTA!

I want to give the public, the elected officials and all the supporters of ACTA something to think about:

ACTA was created by the conglomerates because they fear to loose their market-position as the "middle-man" in the long run.
Because what is a publisher, a record label, a software company or a movie studio? A middle man between the creator and the customer. "Intellectual properties" like novels, articles, a program or a song get "sold" via a contract or provided by a service to a company. That company now owns and distributes these properties in forms of Books, CDs, Movies etc.
The Internet gives creators a platform to distribute on their own and can penetrate a global market really cheap and hassle free.
A journalist doesn't need a newspaper, because he has a blog.
A moviemaker doesn't need a theatre, a TV station or a DVD, because he has a youtube channel.

Everyone with a good idea has the opportunity to get wealthy.
I don't need to name you any examples because we all know what facebook is, and facebook was one of those good ideas.
I'm sure it makes a head of a movie studio sick that his movie, that cost a fortune to produce, has less viewers than an amateurishly shot youtube video of a cat on a keyboard. Of course there are other factors like the stock marked, investors, sponsors etc.

To not loose their relevance it's in the best interest of those giant corporations to make the distribution of "intelectual properties" for the creators and inventors as hard as possible. Cease and desist letters are sent without any research, names and wordconstellations are purchased as a whole, scientefic findings and mathematical algorythms aren't shared with the world so they can be taught at school or university, they get patented as "intellectual property".

That's the reason why ACTA/SOPA/PIPA etc are written in a nebulous fashion.  None of those treatys or laws define what "copyright" and "intelectual property" even mean. It has to be flexible so the plaintiff is never wrong.

Copyright violations and "piracy":
There are a lot of reports that prove that the same conglomerates that support ACTA/SOPA/PIPA made a profit off "online piracy". VIACOM with their website CNET hosted, tested, distributed and educated people to use programs like Kazaa, Bittorrent and Limewire for "illegally" downloading copyrighted media. The space for banner ads and even co brandings were sold to AOL/Time Warner, Disney, FOX etc.
Those programs were downloaded millions of times off of CNET. The profits must have been astronomical. (Websites like megaupload don't work "inside this system". That's why they get shut down)

Now since those conglomerates can see how many people use their programs for piracy, they have the attension of the lawmakers and the public. They talk about billions of dollars lost and cry crocodile tears. In the meantime they can portrait a common user who they almost literally put all the right tools in his hand as a dangerous criminal.
The nice side effect of piracy is the rising awareness of the intelectual property, or can you explain to me why we get swamped with sequels and remakes and they all make insane money? But like I said it's a side effect.
I don't think there is going to be a war on piracy. Some unlucky souls will get picked and displayed for shock value.

In reallity it's all about making "copyright infringement" a criminal act. A creator will have a hard time walking in a minefield of copyrights and distributing his ideas on his own. Without a warning his website and his business can get shut down. And who has the money or the power for a full blown lawsuit, when the business in question is in it's infancy?
Creators will have no other choice to sell their intellectual properties (in a lot of cases under their value) to the giant corporations. To uphold the status of the billionares and their function as the "middle-man". If an idea doesn't match the ideals of a corporation or get's put aside by blind ignorance, it dies.

I want to thank everyone for their time reading this text.
I ask all the people who fight against ACTA to hang in there. I still believe we live in a free and democratic world and we are not the puppets of the conglomerates.

For all my American readers who think ACTA is just the EU's version of SOPA, I must dissapoint you.
ACTA is a global treaty and the United States has signed it on October 1st 2011.
You also know what was happening in October of 2011? Some US representatives started getting vocal about SOPA again.
Why do you think all those direct download sites were shut down or are under investigation recently, when SOPA didn't pass?