Mexican Senate Unanimously Votes To Remove Mexico From ACTA Negotations | Hacker News Reader

Mexican Senate Unanimously Votes To Remove Mexico From ACTA Negotations

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101 pointsgasull19 comments

I'll share a funny anecdote with you:

Both Prodigy (Carlos Slim, richest man in the world's ISP) and Yoo (second largest ISP, property of Televisa) advertise their bandwidth service saying "You can download a song or a movie faster".

The funny part is that legal online music services are almost non existing (there's the iTunes Music Store, but it's use is not widespread and no streaming services) and there's absloutely no way to buy or rent movies legally.

So, it's implied that with ISP's bandwidth offer you can bittorrent and rapidhare way faster.

I always hear about these types of agreements and wonder what the opinion of the respective nations peoples are.

The people don't care.

However, that's just the way I like it. Why? Because it doesn't target the businessmen, but the consumers.

Angry consumers mean Switching. Switching mean market share. Market share mean money.

I am like the small new publishing house in the 19th century. These publishing house make their living from legal piracy of British literature. You know what? It was a boon for the American public. The American people can learn how to read cheaply. The price are mere cents in America as opposed to dollars back in Britain. It was excellent public policy.

You know who don't like it? American writers. You see, British literature dominated the literacy market. So they get out-competed instead.

Well, of course, I don't sell pirated software on the side. The analogy ain't perfect.

Sure, the media giants are enemies of liberty. However it doesn't mean that they are smartest cabal in the world. Far from it.

I forgot to inform you at least that I know Charles Dicken do want copyright.

However, some British authors are making a killing off the American publishers, sometime even more money than they were paid in royalty rate for years.

I'm sure that if the people had a say (ahem, or should I say pooled their money to influence politicians in the same way lobby groups do), these agreements would be much more reasonable than they are now.

I am sorry but the people pool their money way more than the lobby groups do. It is just that taxes are taken for granted and they should not be.

Yeah but lobby money is specifically targeted at directing politicians' attention at specific issues.

Tax money is redistributed into government services and spending. Yeah, it pays the salaries of the politicians, but it's clearly not the same as lobbyist money.

Since the Internet is not as widespread in Mexico, I'm pretty sure most of the population have somewhat different priorities.

Actually these days Mexico is a fairly well developed country with decent internet penetration.

But drivingmenuts said "Since the Internet is not as widespread in Mexico [...]"

Even Mexico's own numbers (by AMIPCI) show Internet usage at 27.2% of the population vs the US's 77%. This is even lower than the ITU's estimate of 43.5% penetration for Albania.

Stats: http://www.internetworldstats.com/

Mexico's population is over 100 million people. That is what gives it a seat among the big world economies in spite of having low per capita economic stats.

How many Albanias do feet inside Mexico City alone?

Yeah I was about to say, Mexico is not 3rd world by any metric.

As long as you ignore the "thousands of people killed each year by drug cartels which the police and military are unable to control" metric

Mexico is the 14th largest economy in the world. Drug cartels are not the only thing happening there.

What? I don't know what the metrics are to define what world a country belongs to. But unless our corrupt politicians pay somebody I think we well deserve to be in 4th or 5th world :P

Yea, but are those in power still looking for handouts if you want to stay out of trouble?

What are you talking about, drivingmenuts? We're Internet addicts!

Also, I think this was a good decision from the Senate. The country has made some serious strides towards true Freedom of Speech during the last decade.

Its non binding folks..means absolutely nothing..

Non binding, sure, but hardly meaningless. Currently ACTA is in the negotiations stage. Mexico's congress has the power to reject treaties, so this resolution means that no matter what is negotiated it will not be accepted by Mexico.

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