[Update: As commenters have kindly pointed out, this is about more than Europe. Countries as widespread as Canada, Japan and New Zealand are already behind it, and the United States have had involvement (what a shock!). This one's got us all by the balls.]
SOPA and PIPA have been (at least temporarily) put to bed in the United States, but the slippery slope is soapy indeed, and Europe's taken notice. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has been hiding in the shadows, waiting to inflict itself upon Europeans, and it's just as bad as anything proposed Stateside.
As with SOPA, the purpose of ACTA is to needlessly reinforce existing rules. Unlike SOPA, it's far more obfuscating (it wasn't written by a dumbass desperate to impress his Hollywood friends) and a lot of it was developed in total secrecy.
Critics of ACTA warn that it would kill freedom of expression online, and create an atmosphere of paranoia and surveillance. Existing due process could be bypassed as rights holders go directly after suspected copyright infringers with new powers that allow them to violate their right to privacy. The Free Software Association also says that the creation of free software will be threatened, especially free operating systems, which will not be allowed to play DRM-protected content.
It's a nasty little bill alright, made all the more insidious by how much has been hidden from the public since 2006. We should all be keeping eyes on this one, because it's just as big a threat as SOPA ever was, if not bigger.
Contest:
8:00 AM on 01.23.2012 | 
This worries me more than SOPA, as the UK is notorious for trading liberty for security. I fear this may actually come to pass.
So, how are those underground internets coming along?
While publishers are involved, they're on the tech/softwware/social side of things and I think in the long run they'll turn around. Members of the MPAA and RIAA, however, will never change and its time for he game studios underneath them to become targets of boycotts.
Thankfully, a lot of them are just still in licensing shit, but there are big media outlets like Warner Bros. that have become part of the gaming industry. I'm inclined to show mercy toward Grasshopper - as Lollipop Chainsaw is just published by Wb, but I will never be buying a WB-owned game IP ever, ever again. No Batman, no Mortal Kombat no Scribblenauts, no Lego Batman 2 and so on. Fuck 'em.
Aliens: Colonial Marines? Sorry, no. And the list goes on. Its actually rather easy for me to boycott licensed games as they're usually shit anyway.
This cycle just has to end.
Give us credit, the US government bursts into a bar and loudly declares it's going to kill everyone, the European government plants dynamite around the saloon before quietly saying "Oh no, the saloon" and then detonating it.
@KtMack23
Megaupload's removal has nothing to do with video games at all is why. The only relation is that people may have downloaded games from there, but I don't think that's enough for Jim to talk about it.
labelling this as "coming to Europe" would be misleading, no?
the US government bursts into a bar and loudly declares it's going to kill everyone, the European government plants dynamite around the saloon before quietly saying "Oh no, the saloon" and then detonating it.
Complete. Global. Censoration.
I think you may be right.
INTERNET, MAN THEM!
Paragraphs are, after all, intended to separate ideas.
Aliens is owned by Fox, Gearbox is developing and 2k is publishing. Take Two is thier parent company and Scarlett killed the butler in the study with a revolver.
the US has already signed the acta.
I liked the last line of the bill though - "We'll lodge this bill to a country with an even more incomprehensible language!"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/acta-is-here.ars
Well considering the amount of Europeans who joined America in telling SOPA/PIPA to fuck off since it would screw the whole internet, not just you folks across the Atlantic, I don't think banding together and fighting this will be a problem. The problem will be that our leaders couldn't give a shit.
ACTA isn't just a threat to Europe, it's a threat to every nation that's signed it, including America.
This bill also goes directly against the lisabon treaty, all laws must be crystal clear and shown to the public, this fucking sigourney of a bill was being shoveled underneath the tables by USA.
Don't you fucking touch my europe,we already have it bad here as it is.
Fucking hollywood & co....raze them to the ground.
If we could just do exactly the same thing with SOPA, by which I mean the black out we could beat this thing down as hard as we did with SOPA.
ACTA BLACK OUT!
Europe is not a country....it's a continent
Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement