In Defense of ACTA, the Unjust

Abdullah Naeem

From the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement to its retaliation in the shade SOPA, CISPA and PIPA, things seem to be in a roller coaster these days. The Anonymous group must have a lot on its mind. If that was not enough, out emerged ACTA! Shadowy hands from these copyright infringement laws grab a butler as he converses with his elite master.
Samar Lmith: “The masses have no imagination. They are blinded by idiotic vanity.”
Servant: “Yes, sir”
Samar Lmith: “SOPA was a jolly good scare my fellows devised. We had support from my friends and donors in Hollywood. These masses and their outcries have all my sympathy. Bah! I don't understand why Google did not have our backs.”
Servant: “Sir, the bill should not have been especially sanguinary – digits are too precious to shed. It should not have started off with such inane startling. I'm afraid labelling a rogue is out of fashion.”
Samar Lmith: “Precisely so. Copyright infringement would have been splendid. I'm glad ACTA was done in secrecy, behind the eyes of the masses.”
Servant: “I beg your pardon?” 
Samar Lmith gives a look of incomprehension
Servant: “What’s ACTA?”
Samar Lmith: “Oh. ACTA? I see. Well, it’s a trade agreement against fraudulent copying. Patents will be strictly protected. If you buy a CD and even if your friend gets to hear it for a jiffy, you’re both criminals by law.”
Servant: “Copyright infringements happen all the time, sir.”
Samar Lmith: “We need not worry. That has been disposed of by constant surveillance and strict punishment. Now, musicians and journalists are not the only one who will rejoice – this patent protection goes beyond. The scientific community can have their ideas protected and locked away.”
Servant: “With all due respect sir, that is the death of research! What about the industry?”
Samar Lmith: “Why, buffoonery must stop! We must protect our products!”
Servant: “Well, we can still post our photos online.”
Samar Lmith: “If it does not contain any copyright material”. Mr. Lmith smiles, triumphantly. “Otherwise, it's the end of your account, your internet and you'll be fined, liable to $150,000 per infringement and sent to prison. Do you see what has been done to Richard O'Dwyer?”
Servant: “So, I'm wearing a Calvin Klien tee, have a coke in my hand and an Adidas cap and post in on facebook, I will have to pay $450,000 and still have my internet and Facebook lost to oblivion? What on earth is going on?! Invasion of privacy, the death of freedom of information and speech, strict punishment, unbelievable censorship, strangling a neutral network–”
Samar Lmith: “Enough! There will be no more misuse! These copyright laws have been internationally harmonised! It has already been enacted globally!”
Servant: “Sir!”
Samar Lmith: “Privy is a sin in politics. You didn’t think why you couldn’t view some videos online in your country? And why privacy policies have been constantly changing everywhere? You didn’t notice megaupload being down either, I suppose.”
Servant: “It is high time that a belief in freedom to information be campaigned. This is why we must have a free network foundation with an infrastructure that is owned and operated cooperatively by the whole humanity, rather than corporations.”
Samar Lmith: “Bah. Their petty cries will be diminished. There is always information that has to be kept in the closet. In our case, it has to be copyright material.”
Servant: “Piracy, sir, actually helps the producers. I wouldn’t waste money testing music for my taste or buying a book that I would throw away the very next day. An idea of it is all we ask. Besides, Hollywood makes no sense in screaming, either. Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, which he called the kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video but he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture. Because of Edison’s patents for the motion pictures, it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North American east coast. The movies studio therefore relocated to California and founded what we today call Hollywood. They circumvented such rights!”
Samar Lmith: “These pirates are stealing! The industry will die if they don’t silence and control their competitors.”
Servant: “That just shows that the masses no longer need them. Freeware, free music, free books and free documentaries are communal. There is the added advantage of having a more honest view on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.”
The servant was sacked. People witnessed him shouting about a movement scheduled on the first of May, by the name 'Occupy'. He also joined the Anonymous group, later.