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Just last month millions of Americans rallied to defeat SOPA and PIPA. However, something worse has crept in the back-door and may not be able to be repealed. In October 2011, President Obama signed an international agreement called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA.

What is ACTA?

ACTA is an international trade agreement currently being negotiated by the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as a few other countries, whose aim is to enforce copyright and tackle counterfeited goods (hence its acronym: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).

When sites like Wikipedia and Reddit banded together for a major blackout January 18th, the impact was felt all the way to Washington D.C. The blackout had lawmakers running from the controversial anti-piracy legislation, SOPA and PIPA, which critics said threatened freedom of speech online.

Unfortunately for free-speech advocates, these pieces of legislation are not the only laws which threaten an open internet.

Few people have heard of ACTA

Storyline: SOPA Controversy Explained

SOPA and PIPA: Just the Facts
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) have been making headlines, but what are they, exactly? Here are the facts.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act are getting more negative attention, as major websites such as Wikipedia plan to protest the bills with blackouts on Wednesday. Even Google will join the action, with a link on its homepage explaining why the company opposes the legislation.

What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto -- a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

New international version of SOPA seeks to create a transnational enforcement agency to make arrests and shut down sites that link to copyrighted material.

Proof that before SOPA and PIPA even get passed, it's going to fail.....

How SOPA/PIPA Can Affect You

The United States government has been facing an intense amount of pressure, mostly from the entertainment and computer software publishing companies for years to find some method of stopping the online piracy that is allowing people to own copies of their merchandise for free. This is of course understandable, nobody wants to see something they worked hard on to create something of quality be disrespected by people gaining access to it for free.

Given the history of ACTA leaks, to no one's surprise, the latest version of the draft agreement was leaked last night on KEI's website. The new version - which reflects changes made during an intense week of negotiations last month in Washington - shows a draft agreement that is much closer to becoming reality. Square brackets have been removed from many sections, leaving the core issue of scope of the agreement as the biggest issue to be resolved when the next round of negotiations begins in a few weeks in Japan. [...]