ACTA Battle Nears Climax in Europe

enigmax
March 28, 2012
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The European Parliament’s international trade committee has rejected a proposal by David Martin, an MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position on ACTA. Martin wanted to ask the European Court of Justice for its opinion on the controversial anti-piracy treaty, but the committee decided yesterday that wasn’t needed and will now vote in June on whether to approve ACTA. Opponents of the treaty see the development as a victory.

In a February announcement, EU trade chief Karel De Gucht said that following discussion with fellow Commissioners, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The treaty, which is aimed at harmonizing global copyright enforcement globally, has largely been formulated behind closed doors and its critics fear it will only lead to censorship and surveillance of Internet users.

The plan was to ask the ECJ to look at ACTA and decide if it conflicts with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression and right to privacy.

Separately, David Martin, a UK MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position on ACTA, made a proposal to put ACTA before the European Court of Justice to get its opinion, but the committee decided yesterday that wasn’t needed and will now vote in June on whether to approve ACTA.

The European Parliament’s trade committee rejected the plan with 21 MEPs voting against, 5 in favor and 2 abstentions. This means that ACTA could now be put before Parliament in a matter of months. Had ACTA been immediately referred to Europe’s highest court, it would have meant a delay of one, maybe two years.

This, according to activists, would have dampened the momentum of their anti-ACTA work which reached unprecedented levels and Europe-wide protests earlier this year.

“Referring ACTA to the court is no substitute for the political procedure needed to check this agreement and determine democratically whether its entry into force is in the European interest,” said Pirate Party MEP and Shadow rapporteur on ACTA for the GreensAmelia Andersdotter.

“Only a democratic ratification process via the European and national parliaments is able to provide such a judgment, and we therefore welcome today’s decision to continue with this process,” she concluded.

ACTA will now be pushed through committees in the European Parliament during April and May and then to a final full Parliament vote at its June plenary session.

“If ACTA dies in European Parliament, then it’s a permakill, and the monopoly lobbies will have to start fighting uphill,” said Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge in a comment. “If ACTA passes, the same monopolists get tons of new powers to use, and close the door for the foreseeable future behind the legislators for a very necessary reform of the copyright and patent monopolies.”

After its existence was first discovered by the public in 2008 after documents were uploaded to Wikileaks, ACTA’s opponents now have just 10 weeks to pull out the stops.

This article has been updated to clarify the involvement of David Martin MEP

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Guest

Calm down…
and fuck ACTA…
- acta must go
  
  yea… let’s be smart and act wisely to….. fuck ACTA
  - thanks Guest for it
    
    free dotcom
John Space

OK, what can we do meanwhile?
- Momo
  
  Keep an eye on La Quadrature’s website for info on when to act and what to do.
  
  Soon we’ll also have IPRED 2 to worry about, and I can tell you now that that fight will be even more difficult than ACTA.
  - u know who……..
    
    good link Momo… but needs to be seen easier
    
    La Quadrature’s website Help FiGHT ACTA
    - u know who……..
      
      excuse the format misuse
  - Anonymous
    
    and no one has mentioned TPP again either. that’s ACTA with all the worst bits of SOPA, PIPA and all the other bills introduced to save an industry that has apparently been dying for scores of years, but has never been in any danger at all. in fact, it has never more profitable than now, yet ‘piracy’ is still killing it!
- #MayDay
  
  May Day 2012 will be a global event
  
  Take whatever actions you can to withdraw from participation in the normal workings of the economic system — by not working if that is an option, but also by not shopping, not banking, and not engaging in other “normal” everyday activities, and by joining demonstrations, marches, disruptions, occupations, and other mass actions.
  - http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole
    
    in the US it’s recognized as Law Day. Nicely done.
- Anonymous
  
  If you’re a european you can start mailing your MEP’s. You can find out where the protests take place and be there. Right now I think the ones who want to push ACTA are thinking the protests will all go away and the public forget.
  
  It’s up to us to show them differently.
Truth

So the EU Parliament is to vote on ACTA (AKA “The Monopoly Enslavement and Population Monitoring Agreement”, I love how they name these things) before any outcome or court decision from the European Court of Justice as to it’s compatibility with EU law. That sounds totally democratic to me, although thinking about it for for at least one second, I would not mind seeing the financial accounts and assets held by the democratically elected people involved, to see where the bribe money came from originally.
Anonymous

sorry for being thick here, people. is this another ploy by the proponents to eliminate any sort of public awareness or participation in ACTA and therefore prevent any further backlash via mass protests etc? if not, would someone explain to me why this is the route to go down rather than putting it before the EUCJ first? have enough bribes been thrown about so that it will be stated that there are ‘no conflicts with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression and right to privacy’? have the peoples rights been overshadowed enough now, in favour of private industries and corporations? have any investigations been done to see how the proponents of ACTA have/will benefit from it’s introduction? i hope so as no one seems to give a shit (in parliament, that is) about the negative effects it will have on ordinary people!
- Anonymous
  
  You could very well wonder about that – the EU commission, hitherto one of the most fervent proponents of ACTA suddenly wants to send it to the ECJ and right after the protests die down the parliament decides to place ACTA on the front gurner? Time to take down names and ask hard questions of our esteemed MEP’s.
Peter

*giggle* Climax
- http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole
  
  Peter is another word for penis.
SneakyBeaver

This is not democratic at all…hello???? we are in fucking 2012
- Caladol1
  
  democratic? have you people seen the new in the last couple of year even the Geneva convention has been “circumvented”, democracy and human basic right’s are a thing of the past….
  - Mwhahaha
    
    Again with this myth that we’ve ever really had a real democracy.
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      The United States and most European countries did have true democracies in the past, albeit with some rights limited by the Constitution and things like the Magna Carta.
      The problem is that we have moved away from being angry with elected officials and threatening them with the loss of their jobs if they keep on whittling away our rights.
    - Anon
      
      Actually to CK
      
      Yep, there was a time when if you fucked off your voters you lost your job. Trouble is we are now living in times of I’m alright Jack and most people seem to think they’re alright.
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Anonymous

Should be interesting to see how that all turns out. Wow.
Anon-Works.tk
- B scared. Use my VPN
  
  Anonymity vpn spammer…GTFO
Anonymous

ACTA is a peculiarly threatening piece of legislation.

Copyright holders are discovering that their insistense that their claims to profits are on an equal plane (or perhaps supersede) the privacy or due process claims of average citizens under the constitution are being met with increasing derision within the judiciaries as these claims proceed through the higher level constitutional analysis which, after all, is the primary concern of appellate courts. This has adverse implications, not only for legal claims of individual copyright holders; but, concentrates public attention on the moral and social defects of the copyright regime itself.

With increased public scrutiny, the political arena is becoming every bit as challenging for them as the courts. Politicians need look no further than PIPA and SOPA to see the tsunami that’s coming to their offices.

Defenders of the previledges conveyed by the current copyright regime have understood the very real and very pertinent benefits of encapsulating their claims within the structures of national treaty. First, treaties are normally negotiated by executive authority of government as SOVEREIGN with little direct imput from average citizens. Hence, if you were trying to protect the business model of a legacy monopoly, you could do it from the top down with less exposure to public challenge and scrutiny, if you could pursuade the executive branch and congress to frame your rights as a treaty. Second, the content of treaties as SOVEREIGN obligations, once negotiated and ratified, enjoy great deference, both from the Supreme Court and from congressional review. In fact, there is a high priority to honor the terms of negotiated treaties as SOVEREIGN obligations even at the expense of changing domestic law to allow and follow compliance with treaties. Hence, if you want to protect a monopoly from citizens who are moving in the judiciaries and the legislatures to abrogate it, put its previledges into a treaty and then tell your constituents that current domestiv laws must be changed to accomodate sovereign obligations.

When we take the full measure of what ACTA is and why is has been created, we can not fail to notice what supposedly democratic politicians are doing through ACTA to damage their constituents in the service of monopoly copyright corporations.

The message is: Anyone who thinks that ACTA is one iota less of a threat than SOPA or PIPA has the situation precisely backward.

If ACTA becomes law, the next word you’ll hear from copyright holders will be CHECKMATE!
- Masa
  
  Or less harmful to humanity than Trans Pasific Trade Agreement to put it simply.
- http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole
  
  frankly, they’re pretty dumb in all of this, I don’t know why they never saw it coming.
  
  The response from the public to these heavy-handed big brother changes is as follows:
  
  innocent public citizens: “Fuck you! I haven’t even done anything wrong, why are you limiting my rights and freedoms?! Fuck off!!”
  
  filesharing pirates: “Fuck you! You can’t take my warez…..umm…I mean….save our rights and freedoms! Yeah!! What he said!”
  
  IOW, everyone’s against their greed, united, and they have no fucking clue why.
- Steve
  
  Before you know it, governments will censor our
  
  – Redacted by Department of Homeland Security –
  - Anonymous
    
    Sheer twaddle. You will always be allowed to communicate what you want as long as no one else objects to what you communicate.
    
    Sadly, this is what is being pushed by everyone who has a vested interest in people shutting the hell up about “fill-in-the-blank”.
    
    And it only hurts us. Banning hateful speech and expressions of racism did nothing to remove racism – it only ensured that the people biased against asians/blacks/jews/arabs/gays/catholics/etc take painstaking care to dress, act and speak more correct than the average John Doe. While wrapping their agendas in think layers of populistic obfuscation.
    
    And that is why nearly every european nation now has closet nazis and ultra-nationalist isolationists stacking the aisles in their parliaments.
    
    Banning communication of any kind is simply lifting the corner of a rug and applying the broom. It doesn’t make a problem go away. It’s the same with CP. I’m all for protecting children from abuse but how is that served by spending all the resources on simply removing the evidence from public awareness?
    
    As for terrorism – let’s not even go there. The term has been so watered-down that today a “terrorist” in some eyes is apparently the mild-mannered accountant who sends a hundred bucks to what he perceives as humanitarian causes each year…
    - Tsunku
      
      hey i own the copyright to ‘Sheer twaddle. You will always be allowed to communicate what you want as long as no one else objects to what you communicate.’ how dare you use that in your communication! i will sue!
    - Anonymous
      
      @Tsunku
      
      Sue all you want, since I won the copyright to “hey”, “copyright” and “I will sue!” along with any derivatives thereof.
      
      However, in the spirit of good sportsmanship I will allow the use of the term “copyright” in the interest of “fair use” (to which I also hold the IP rights, btw.).
      
      Let the games begin.
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Anonymous

I see this as both good and bad news.

Had ACTA passed through the European Court of Justice then an extra 1 to 2 year delay sounds nice when we could still attack ACTA at the end. The best gain here is that the ECJ airing ACTA’s dirty laundry would provide a powerful document that other countries could also use to take down ACTA.

Not going this route means ACTA is not closely examined which is what we do need and could infact be to the gain of the Copyright Cartels who have worked hard to keep ACTA’s secrets hidden.

Then ACTA passing through the European Parliament is sure to get a good bashing but keep in mind that many MEPs are on the Copyright Cartel’s payroll. Due to the nature of the EU then it is very likely that ACTA will crash and burn.

What with large concerns over ACTA already spreading to other countries like Australia then in the end the United States may end up being the only country to ratify this INTERNATIONAL trade agreement.
- Anonymous
  
  there were large concerns in the UK over the NHS bill, but it still got passed, despite the enormous number of protests, the risks were not released to the public, even though they had been made available in 2010, the transparency in government negotiations wasn’t forthcoming either. if ANY government or a collective government (EU) want a particular bill or law passed, that’s what will happen. the people are nothing now. what always gets forgotten is, that without someone at the bottom clearing away the shit, even the top boys end up being deep in it. eventually they have to clear it up themselves!
  - Mwhahaha
    
    Well that’s what happens with the Tories in charge. Or Labour. Dammit.
    
    Find me an honourable politician.
    - Anonymous
      
      Look for the new breed. Check Rick Falkvinge on the TEDx talk, or check Crhistian Engström’s blog (One of the pirate MEP’s).
      
      Generally speaking, there ARE honest politicians. They are the people who voluntarily quit their jobs and took the leap into uncertainty, trying to champion causes without fully knowing where the next paycheck would come from. Visionaries and brainiacs with attitudes and courage.
      
      The problem is the politicians who were literally born into the established caste system and made a political career for twenty or thirty years without ever holding a regular job. This is where you find the spineless worms who have never had to make a tough decision in their lives worse than which bill they would get more brownie points with the party to support.
- Anonymous
  
  I see this as “all bad” so far. The timing is…interesting.
  
  The commission has always been the ones most heavily pushing ACTA. Now they want to send it to ECJ?
  
  Or do they? If they intended that, why hasn’t it already been sent?
  
  I’m guessing the commission simply mentioned ECJ in order to get the protestors off the streets and are now waiting for the hubbub to die before they ramrod ACTA through parliament. Preferably in a way which ensures there’s no possibility the parliament will reasonably vote it down.
Krosis

*Waits for the shittiest generation in human history to die out*
- Mwhahaha
  
  And that’s what your kids will say too
  - http://gene-poole.tumblr.com Gene Poole
    
    They’re right.
    
    To say nothing of the dinosaurs in power who have no conception of the internet, we’re the generation of pussies that are standing by, whining on said internet instead of rising up en masse and putting a stop to all this bullshit. We’re definitely no better.
    - Anonymous
      
      We understand what the fuck is going on but the old media & dinosaur politicians don’t want to hear it.
- Anon
  
  Sorry your the shittiest generation previous generatiosn have fought wars for our rights
Anonymous

I am really hating my Country of the USA.We are run by Corporations and they are pushing all this ACTA Shit on the World.
Revolution is in the Air.
- Neflyte49
  
  Make it happen, please NOW!!!
  - Mwhahaha
    
    You first, we’ll all be there in 5 minutes. We just have to tie our shoes.
- The guy
  
  You and me both, along with a great deal of like-minded fellow US american citizens.
Gu357u53r

I image the RIAA & MPAA to be like Steve Brule. http://video.adultswim.com/check-it-out-with-dr-steve-brule/doctor-to-pirate.html
- Joevndo2
  
  Tim and Eric awesome show!!!
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foff

I don’t really understand Acta. I don’t see what good it can possibly do. Counterfeit goods are not or should not be in the same category as pirated digital works. Counterfeit goods require a significant financial investment to produce so in this case there is clearly a criminal intent. Most of these goods come from China or asia where the originals are manufactured. China makes a show of destroying such goods to promote it image from time to time but in reality embraces counterfeiting. Acta won’t change this.

Uploading a digital file there is virtually no cost an no criminal enterprise is contemplated. No one who uploads anything makes money or does it for money. The Copyright orgs want to continue to control distribution but without complete control of the internet that is no longer possible.

Pharmaceutical companies wants to keep tight control on medicines as pills they produce for fractions of pennies can retail for $1 or more per pill. Counterfeit medicines in Asia is a big problem. I would never trust cheap asian medicine, one time I has a valium that was of asian origin and it did nothing compared to the real deal. I am not sure why acta is granting powers to pharmaceuticals over generics. Once the patent expires there should be no control unless the medicine is labeled as the original.

I hope acta does not pass as this smacks of one world government philosophy. Every country ought ought to be free to decide on their own how to control these things.
- Anonymous
  
  ACTA is exhibit A when it comes to obfuscation and a very good case study in how you successfully push obviously catastrophic legislation through a government.
  
  First of all, ACTA’s current version is complex and extremely dull. If you read it until your eyes bleed all you’ll find is a lot of roundabout talk about how dull-sounding agrements and regulations should be implemented. You will obviously never find some paragraph stating outright “All your internets are belong to us”.
  
  1) Any treaty being pushed hard by vested interest will never be formulated reasonably or fair to all parties involved. Indeed, the working assumption must always be that whatever party pushed for the treaty will pitch for as much as they think they can get away with. Politics in that regard is high-level haggling where the vendor is of the most unscrupulous kind.
  
  2) Anything objectionable will be hidden by several layers of linking and obfuscation. I.e. in the case of ACTA you won’t find much in the main text or amendments which seems “unfair”. However, there are multiple references to other dull-sounding paragraphs in less important directives – directives that are bureaucratically created without parliament input and wouldn’t normally have much weight except that thanks to ACTA they are suddenly backed by the full executive importance of a global trade treaty.
  
  3) Slippery slope by combination. Combine the above steps with another obfuscation. In referred-to directive I you may define what “commercial piracy” is and that may sound reasonable indeed.
  In referred-to directive II on the other hand, you find a redefinition of “commercial” to include, say, indirect gains. Advertising, or as part of another legal service.
  In referred-to directive III you may find a few sentences buried in a thick volume f paragraphs which radically redesigns how you define the term “not for profit”.
  
  4) If all else fails and some nitpicker takes apart the carefully constructed amendments, settle for simply solidifying in stone the parts of the existing criteria. ACTA, liberally interpreted, even assuming no under-the-table horseplay will obviously at a minimum ensure that copyright reform can ONLY go in one direction – towards longer protection periods. Where previously nations could set their own standards, once ACTA hits it will take another global treaty to move copyright in any other direction than towards more lockdown.
  
  End result? Disastrous effects but the national governments are still able to say that “nothing will change as an outcome”. This is like saying that nothing will change for the worse merely by removing the seatbelts and brakes in a car. As long as you don’t actually drive the car you’re right as rain.
  
  And this is fundamentally how any bureaucracy works.
Anonymous

when push comes to shove, i wonder how many MEPs are going to have the balls to stand up for the people. given the position he is in, perhaps Rik Falkvinge can get a list going and post here on Torrentfreak so that the people know which ones actually give a toss and which ones sail us down the river, again!
Anon

Do the UK have a Pirate Party?
- Fredrika
  
  For almost three years.
  
  http://www.pirateparty.org.uk
Fantasy

“If ACTA dies in European Parliament, then it’s a permakill”
That’s Falkvinge’s permaphantasy.
- Anonymous
  
  No, if ACTA dies then it’s basically dead. That we will see the same statutes pushed under a different name a year further down the road is another point entirely. We’ll be on these barricades until the current IP interpretation lunacy collapses completely.
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Joevndo2

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
Anonymous

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