I thought that SOPA and PIPA were bad pieces of legislation, but then I learned about The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
From Wikipedia:
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement.[1] ACTA would establish a new international legal framework that countries can join on a voluntary basis[2] and would create its own governing body outside existing international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations.[1][3] Negotiating countries have described it as a response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works."[2] The scope of ACTA includes counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet.[4]
You might want to watch this:
This too:
Basically, ACTA is a global version of SOPA or PIPA made through a treaty. Like SOPA and PIPA, ACTA was made behind closed doors. This is another reason why I am supporting OPEN for it's process. OPEN is not designed by lobbyists and has the potential to create a reasonable solution to balance freedom of speech and copyright protection. In order for that to happen, but we will have to work on staying informed on SOPA, PIPA, OPEN, and especially ACTA. We need to draft such bills more openly and fairly. Moreover, we will need to send a message to the rest of the world that problems like this shouldn't be resolved behind closed doors. Saying no to SOPA and PIPA is not enough. We will have to stand against ACTA as it exists and call for an alternative that is more functional.
There is the websited that is dedicated to fighting ACTA.
This isn't much about ACTA here, so I'll have to devote an occasional diary towards its development. Also, I'm still working on my next OPEN diary, which deals with its criticisms.
3:18 PM PT: I found some more information on ACTA.
Here is the English version of ACTA. It's in a Canadian PDF and it was finalized on April 15, 2011.
To protect electronic rights management information,16 each Party shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly performing without authority any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any copyright or related rights:
(a) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information;
(b) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast, communicate, or make
available to the public copies of works, performances, or phonograms,
knowing that electronic rights management information has been
removed or altered without authority.
For the purposes of this Article, rights management information means:
(a) information that identifies the work, the performance, or the phonogram; the author of the work, the performer of the performance, or the producer of the phonogram; or the owner of any right in the work, performance, or phonogram;
(b) information about the terms and conditions of use of the work, performance, or phonogram; or
(c) any numbers or codes that represent the information described in (a) and (b) above; when any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a work, performance, or phonogram, or appears in connection with the communication or making available of a work, performance, or phonogram to the public.
I searched the treaty for a definition of what a "phonogram" is, but I couldn't find one.