The EU parliament has finally decided not to ratify ACTA in Europe.
ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), currently enrolled in the
USA, was supposed to be the death of democracy and a, mildly expressed,
hidden way to allow the USA to control worldwide how piracy is handled.

The initial idea of ACTA was to protect intellectual goods and ideas that stand behind products such as pharmacy products, trademark products, goods that are protected by patents and suject to being copied by 3rd party companies not paying usage fees or patent right fees.

It got under fire when the counterfeit section should have been expanded by an internet section.

Things like, Hadopi (in France) and the three-strikes-rules should allow companies of media goods (MPAA, GEMA, RIAA and others) to punish users for illegally downloading such material without being audited before. Website owners should have been liable for their content (even uploaded material from third-party users). The incrimination of potentially every user was the final gramm that let the scale tend to a direct “No”.

478 parliament members have voted against the enrollment of ACTA in Europe, 39 voted for it, 168 have not voted at all.

The signal is clear. As far as ACTA is trying to introduce censorship to the world and literally incriminating every internet user, it would not stand a chance in Europe so far…