Lawsuits Filed In Colombia To Challenge Local Version Of SOPA

from the bad-laws dept

You may remember that, a couple months ago, Colombia rushed through its own version of a SOPA-like copyright law. The details were particularly horrifying. Last fall, the US and Colombia signed a “free trade agreement” (FTA). Tragically, like many FTAs put together by the USTR these days, it included something that’s the very opposite of “free trade”: a requirement to put in place extraordinary protectionist measures in the form of expansive copyright laws. In order to be in compliance with the treaty, Colombia had to pass some really bad legislation. Its first attempt, a few months earlier, failed when the public spoke up. However, in April, President Obama came to visit Colombia on a very high-profile trip. In order to make him happy, the Colombia government rushed through a ridiculously bad copyright bill, making it law with almost no public discourse. Not surprisingly, the bill is terrible.

Thankfully, two Senators have now filed lawsuits challenging the law, saying that it violates privacy rights and limits freedom of access to information. Oh yeah, and it violates the Colombian constitution. The serious problems with the bill had been raised with the Colombian government prior to it passing, but in their rush to make Obama happy, apparently they didn’t care.

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Comments on “Lawsuits Filed In Colombia To Challenge Local Version Of SOPA”

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7 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

they were trying to stop Obama from authorizing an all out air and ground strike against Columbia, on behalf of the RIAA, because someone had been seen downloading the latest US top 40 albums! unfortunately, they didn’t know who it was as an IP address doesn’t identify a person in the next State, let alone the next house, as has been stated in court, so to make sure, they introduced this law as a blanket to cover everyone!

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