Self-described geek rapper Dan Bull, who achieved Internet fame last year with a song criticizing singer Lily Allen for her stance against file-sharing, is back with “The Death of ACTA” (“D.O.A.C.T.A”). The song addresses the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the proposed international agreement governing international property right law which has in its past drafts alarmed the EFF and other web freedom and privacy groups due to its potential impact on the free flow of information online and its potential to allow unprecedented monitoring of users and ISPs.
As you can guess, Bull is not a fan of ACTA: he tells TorrentFreak that “Filesharing and piracy will carry on as before – the law is always one step behind technology. The only thing ACTA will do is stifle innovation and communication. How could sites like YouTube and Flickr exist if the owners of those sites are held liable for everything their users upload? It’s like saying that Bic is responsible if someone writes a death threat using one of their pens. It’s a load of bollocks.”
Sample lyrics from the song:
Only rapper to be called a thief without stealing
Download an MP3 for free, these people hit the ceiling
I’m just a citizen that’s teaching you a lesson
for restricting my freedom of expression
How can ideas be possessions when they’re freely replicable?
Hence unapplicable property laws are reprehensible
Didn’t Jefferson express his opinion on the matter
when he said inventions shouldn’t be given a patent
What happened to that thinking, we’re stuck in a pattern
where the people with everything are keeping everything from us who haven’t
(via Boing Boing, Torrent Freak)
