ACTA and the EU

On Thursday, 22 countries signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Tokyo, it was largely written by Hollywood.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/26/1746202/acta-signed-by-22-eu-countries

Shortly after the signing, the EU parliamentary chief who was in charge of this project resigned. ""I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly."

"As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands."

"Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications."

"This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this mascarade."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/27/026249/eu-acta-chief-resigns


So Hollywood is going to get SOPA one way or another. Now the entire world has the best government that money can buy.

Monster of the Week at Indie Go Go

I learned of this RPG on episode 122 of the Canon Puncture podcast, and it sounds like a lot of fun. The author, a New Zealander by the name of Michael Sands, has been working on this for several years and bases it on the Apocalypse World hack. The game, in short, is your own TV show along the lines of Buffy meets X-Files meets Supernatural meets Hellboy. Good enough for me! Episode 123 Rich talks about running MotW and finds it a very different experience than Apocalypse World and the impression that I get is that he thinks it's a good adaptation with many subtle differences to AW.

If you want in on the beta program, you need to support the Indie Go Go project, it closes at 11:59pm Pacific Time Sunday night. It is funded and will see print, but buying in now gets you additional material, PDFs, and a nice little bump to your karma for doing a good thing.

(I tagged it under Kickstarter as a group funding project rather than start an Indie Go Go tag)

A new Monty Python film?!

Cleese, Palin and the Welsh git are all signed, Idle knows about it but has not yet committed. The source article, Entertainment Weekly, does not mention Gilliam, but as they do mention Robin Williams voicing an animated dog, presumably Gilliam will be involved.

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/01/28/1340231/monty-python-crew-to-reunite-for-movie