ACTA rapporteur denounces ACTA mascarade | Hacker News Reader

ACTA rapporteur denounces ACTA mascarade

laquadrature.net

120 pointswwwhizz18 comments

So... he washes his hands of the whole affair after his job is done. Wouldn't it have been more effective to have exerted some influence on this process or leave it to spare his delicate moral sensibilities before it was too late?

"ou du peu de protection qu'il offre à nos indications géographiques". -> "or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications."

Does anyone have a better translation of that phrase in context? I'm curious what it means. My best guess is a reference to the idea that different EU members should be allowed to have somewhat different rules, but that seems like a bit of a long shot. I'm thinking this is a technical political term that didn't come over well.

I believe he is talking about trademark-like terms that designate the provenance of certain products, for example Cognac as opposed to brandy. For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d%27origine_contr%C...

Yes, this is it. In Europe, this is something very important. For example, you can only name Camembert a Camembert cheese coming from the area around the Camembert village. As customers, it allows a quick check: this is the cheap "like" version, this is the real one as they have a European label on the packaging too.

Ah, yes, that does make more sense. Thank you both.

Was `rapporteur' his actual English language title, or is there a better translation? It seems to correspond to the sponsor or original author of a bill.

Yes, but only because English shamelessly ripped off the term from French. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rapporteur

English partly developed out of French (specifically Anglo-Norman French) following the Norman invasion in 1066.

Besides, it was French that shamelessly ripped off Vulgar Latin (re + portare, "to carry back")!

Sure, some of English is based on French, and there are a few words taken unmodified. But when it comes to legal terms, Norman French was used by lawyers in English-speaking countries for centuries. As a result, ideas and terms from French law are just taken wholesale by English-speaking legal systems (including grammar and syntax very foreign to English). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_French#Survivals_in_modern_...

'S what I just said. From your link: "It [French] was used in the law courts of England, beginning with the Norman Conquest." If the average person habitually used legal terminology the way they use words like, say, "toilet," the Frenchness of those words would be completely inconspicuous.

A more proper adjective for the way in which English "rips off" other languages would be aggressively, rather than shamelessly.

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

"mascarade" is masquerade in English; this isn't a very good translation.

It has been corrected, if you see anything else wrong with the translation, you can edit it, it's a wiki…

Well, they did what they could. La Quadrature Du Net is a French site that also publishes in English. We should be glad that we could learn about this development.

They're a good bunch, and i'm sure they'd be happy if someone sent them a better translation. They're one of the most sensible groups of people fighting for freedom in europe, so please support them in any way you can.

One problematic fact for trying to fend off this legislation is probably that google and wikipedia will likely not "go dark" for non-US proposed legislation.

The Italian Wikipedia was blacked out for such a proposal earlier. The rest of the European Wikipedias could do the same.

So.... I dont understand. Is he about to publish something?

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