What is the all this fuss about ACTA?

I have finally put myself to the tedious task of reading the ACTA treaty. My legal understanding is very limited. But from what I can understand and from commentaries by more knowledgable people, my hunch is that the treaty does not change the status quo in any significant way and that file sharing will continue. Therefore those claiming otherwise are doing a big disservice to the cause of internet freedoms. For any campaign based on misinformation is bound to lose any credibility.
What counts is the wording of the treaty and reading between the lines can give rise to conspiracy theories.

Neither do i subscribe to the views of those who think that democratically elected governments only exist to screw us up even if one must be wary of the pressures exerted by lobbies. I also believe that there is a sharp difference between the US way of defending corporations and the greater sensitivity to individual rights in the European Union.

That said I welcome the movement against ACTA for the simple reason that even if ACTA does not change the status quo, the status quo in itself lags behind the technological revolution which gave birth to the cyber commons. In reality what they are questioning is not ACTA but the enshrinement of obsolete and restrictive copy right laws in to an international treaty which does exclude non commercial file sharing but still speaks a language rooted in a tradition which only refers to right holders and ignors the 'commons'. So while any discussion must respect the basic facts and some of the slogans of the anti ACTA movement are misleading,it represents a legitimate social and political demand for a more democratic access to leisure and knowledge. What some consider to be piracy has contributed to greater access to knowledge. For example thanks to piracy, young people have become familiar to music they would never have heard if they had to pay for it. Many bands have accepted this reality and found other sources of revenue. Even more important than this is that this has given people a cyber identity in which sharing the goods of the commons is a vital component. But a no to ACTA only makes sense if this is tied to a call for a reform of copyright legislation. And as I argued before the cause is only harmed by false assertions and scaremongering
.All in all although acta is not evil it should be rejected as it does not recognise the the new commons.