To: European Commission President José-Manuel Barroso:

As citizens concerned about the content and the process of the ACTA agreement we call on you to instruct the European Court of Justice to do a full assessment of its threats to our rights and freedoms. The precious values set out in the EU treaties and charters must not be diluted or compromised to benefit large companies.

A l’attention de José Manuel Barroso, Président de la Commission européenne:

Nous, citoyens préoccupés par le contenu et le processus de négociation du traité ACTA, vous appelons à charger la Cour de justice de l’Union Européenne de conduire une évaluation complète des menaces qu’ACTA fait peser sur nos droits et nos libertés. Les valeurs qui nous sont chères et qui figurent dans les traités et chartes de l’UE ne doivent pas être diluées ou compromises au bénéfice de grandes entreprises.

Sign this petition from Avaaz to ensure our victory upon those who wish to censor the Internet!

Signez cette pétition d’Avaaz afin d’assurer notre victoire sur ceux qui souhaitent censurer Internet!

Ce coup de colère émouvant de Henri Grouès, dit l’Abbé Pierre, est plus que jamais d’actualité. Il interpelle les décideurs dans leur conscience.

voicesofearth:

occupyallstreets:

BitTorrent Giant BTjunkie Shuts Down For Good

BTjunkie, one of the largest BitTorrent indexes on the Internet, has decided to shut down voluntarily today. A combination of legal actions against fellow file-sharing sites and time-consuming projects have led to the drastic decision that takes out one the main players in the BitTorrent landscape.

Founded in June 2005, BTjunkie has been among the top BitTorrent sites for more than half a decade.

The site was never involved in any legal action, and to keep it this way the site’s operators decided to shut the site down for good today. The following message was posted on the BTjunkie homepage yesterday:

“This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!”

Talking to TorrentFreak, BTjunkie’s founder said that the legal actions against other file-sharing sites such as MegaUpload and The Pirate Bay played an important role in making the difficult decision. Witnessing all the trouble colleagues got into was cause for a lot of worry and stress, and those will now belong to the past.

That said, BTjunkie’s owner still thinks there might be a future for other BitTorrent sites.

“I really do hope so, the war is far from over for sure,” he told TorrentFreak.

While BTjunkie was never targeted directly by copyright holders, the site was reported to the US Trade Representative (USTR) November last year. Both the RIAA and MPAA listed the torrent index as a ‘rogue’ site that facilitated mass copyright infringement.

BTjunkie is also one of the search terms censored by Google because it’s piracy related, alongside The Pirate Bay, RapidShare, uTorrent and others.

As a result of the decision to shut down BTjunkie, one of the top 5 torrent sites with dozens of millions of users a month is no more. Judging from previous shutdowns like that of TorrentSpy, users will quickly find a new home at other sites.

Nonetheless, it’s the end of an era.

Source

Sonofabitch.

occupyallstreets:

Bulgarian MPs Wear Guy Fawkes Mask to Protest ACTA

A number of Members of the Bulgarian Parliament protested Thursday and Friday against the singing of the controversial international ACTA agreement.

On the initiative of the blog “Open Parliament” and following the example of their colleagues from the Polish Parliament, they agreed to wear the mask of Guy Fawkes, symbol of the global protest against ACTA, and to have their picture taken with it.

The MPs say they support copyright laws, but oppose ACTA over its possible turning into an instrument to limit freedom of speech, to control internet use, and to turn into an obstacle for the exchange of information and knowledge online.

On January 26, the Bulgarian government signed in Tokyo the international ACTAagreement, vowing to make downloading content similar to forgery of brands.

22 out of the 27 EU member states have signed ACTA, along with countries such as the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Switzerland.

In order to become effective in Bulgaria, ACTA must first be ratified by the European Parliament and then by the Bulgarian Parliament, which is expected to happen no earlier than June.

Source

(via occupyallstreets)

Shutting down the internet. Someone is taking a big risk.

Réduire l’accès à internet. Il y en a qui sont pas mal “suicidaires”.

*Voir plus bas pour la version française*

Last week, 3 million of us beat back America’s attack on our Internet! —- but there is an even bigger threat out there, and our global movement for freedom online is perfectly poised to kill it for good.

ACTA - a global treaty - could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties — even prison sentences — against people they say have harmed their business.

Ce lien est pour la version anglaise. Pour la version française, le voici:

http://www.avaaz.org/fr/eu_save_the_internet_fr/?cl=1534786635&v=12261

La semaine dernière, 3 millions d’entre nous ont repoussé l’attaque des États-Unis sur notre Internet! Mais un danger encore plus grand nous menace, et notre mouvement mondial pour la liberté en ligne est prêt à tout pour le neutraliser pour de bon.

L’ACTA, un traité mondial, pourrait permettre à de grandes entreprises de censurer Internet. Négocié en secret par un petit nombre de pays riches et de puissantes entreprises, ce traité mettrait en place un organisme de l’ombre anti-contrefaçon permettant à des intérêts privés de surveiller tout ce que nous faisons en ligne. Il leur donnerait aussi la possibilité d’imposer des sanctions très sévères - allant jusqu’à des peines de prison - contre les personnes coupables selon eux de nuire à leur activité.