Over 1 Million Views for “NO to ACTA!” Video! Now, take Action!

Paris, 04 November 2011 — “NO to ACTA!”, the video published by La Quadrature du Net last week, has been viewed more than one million times. It has become the top rated and most viewed this week in Youtube’s “News & Politics” section. Such an impressive welcome illustrates how crucial of a responsibility lies between the hands of the Members of the European Parliament with their upcoming vote on ACTA. It is also an encouraging step towards defeating this dangerous agreement —an effort requiring a broad mobilization among citizens.

With more than 1 million views in less than one week (600k on Youtube and almost 500k on La Quadrature du Net’s mediakit), the “NO to ACTA!” video became an instant hit: #1 Top Rated, #1 Most Viewed, #2 Top Favorited and #5 most Discussed this week on Youtube’s “News and Politics” section! It also reached #52 Most Viewed and #87 Top Rated this week for the whole of Youtube!

“Such impressive figures and honours reveal profound interest from citizens in protecting their freedoms online against illegitimate and anti-democratic attacks driven by governments. Members of the European Parliament cannot ignore the critical impact of ACTA on our lives and on a Free Internet. We must make them understand that it is their duty to protect us against ACTA by rejecting it through their upcoming consent vote”, says Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesperson of the citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net.

Several procedural steps are ahead¹The International Trade (INTA) Committee of the European Parliament is the main committee working on ACTA. The Legal Affairs (JURI) and Development (DEVE) committees, as well as the Civil Liberties (LIBE), Industry (ITRE) committees will first vote on their opinions. The latter will be sent to INTA to influence its final report. See ACTA’s procedure file (which still needs to be updated with LIBE and ITRE opinions): http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=5924982, before the final consent vote. Members of the European Parliament have an historical occasion of ultimately defeating ACTA, sometime in early 2012²Exact date is still unclear, the earliest possibility seems to be mid-January. Every citizen is encouraged to take action and participate to this effort.

“If everyone who watched this video sends a letter or makes a phonecall to the Members of the European Parliament, we would win against ACTA. But there are many ways of taking action: informing about ACTA by spreading the video and analysis, building information material, contacting our elected representatives, etc. Our imagination and our energy will make the difference.”, concluded Zimmermann.