By: Nikita Sorokin, Thousand of Poles took to the streets on Thursday to protest their country’s accession to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a document that has already been signed up to by the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and South Korea. ACTA envisages the introduction of international standards in the field of protection of intellectual property. Polish internet users fear that the Agreement will tighten Internet censorship and infringe on their online freedom of expression. In a separate development, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was debated US Congress earlier this month. Experts say that both documents, which are very much alike, may well ride roughshod over the Internet and its users’ interests.In Poland, hackers attacked government websites, in a show of protest against ACTA, while in the United States, lawmakers had to put SOPA on the back burner after Google and Wikipedia reacted angrily to the document. In an interview with the Voice of Russia aired on Thursday, Yandex press secretary Ochir Mandzhikov argued that if adopted, SOPA could significantly change the balance of power between copyright holders and Internet companies. He added that SOPA could also affect the Internet and would make it possible to use a country’s national legislation in relation to those Internet users who fall under other jurisdictions. Tags: internet, Commentary, SOPA, Society, World, Читать далее, Source: Voice of Russia.
