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ACTA Anti-Piracy Treaty Criticized by EU Parliament President

actaFollowing the massive protests against ACTA yesterday, EU Parliament President Martin Schulz criticized the treaty on national television.

“I don’t find it good in its current form,” he told ARD.

The president added that the balance between copyright protection and the rights of Internet users is “not adequately anchored in this agreement.”

Together with the individual EU members states, the European Parliament has yet to ratify the controversial anti-piracy agreement.

Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States, already signed ACTA last October.

The comments from the EU Parliament President are shared by many experts, including professors Douwe Korff and Ian Brown who examined ACTA’s compatibility with human rights.

“Overall, ACTA tilts the balance of IPR protection manifestly unfairly towards one group of beneficiaries of the right to property, IP right holders, and unfairly against others,” they concluded.

“It equally disproportionately interferes with a range of other fundamental rights . This makes the entire agreement, in our opinion, incompatible with fundamental European human rights instruments and -standards.”


Anti-ACTA protests in Sofia yesterday

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  • Anonymous

    hopefully that should bury this abomination.

    time to prepare to fight the next one

    • Anonymous

      The battle over ACTA is not yet over by a long way and no one but us can kill it.

      Most Governments are seeking to delay ACTA and not to completely kill this nasty trade agreement. The main desire there seems to be to pass ACTA through the European Court of Justice. While in many ways this can seem a good step to add an Internet rights focus to do this would also delay the European Parliament vote on ACTA from June this year to about March next year.

      That can also be seen as a delaying step to pass ACTA once the post SOPA anger has died down. This seems a more valid reason because ACTA has already been agreed Internationally and now no one can modify this trade agreement further when there is only accept or reject.

      Still the ECoJ is a nice step to air the shame of this agreement for all the World to see which can aid protests in other regions. Also the EU running a bill through the ECoJ is a common step to take when they want to kill off this bill trailing off a long list of human rights violations in the process.

      So I think we can welcome a move through the European Court of Justice which would rip ACTA’s guts open.

      We at least have some good news for now when both The Economist and The Financial Times are already writing ACTA off as being as good as dead already…
      http://www.economist.com/node/21547235
      http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a52f57ec-533d-11e1-aafd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1mCtY2k8c

      • http://falkvinge.net/ Rick Falkvinge

        ACTA was made by lawyers, for lawyers. The European Court of Justice is made of the exact same kind of lawyers.

        Don’t fall into the easy trap of betting ACTA on the European Court of Justice. It’s not wrong because it’s illegal, it’s wrong because it’s immoral and evil.

        • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

          It’s also illegal by numerous European Union precepts…… it shouldn’t have even gotten this far.

        • Anonymous

          I can’t argue with that one when being passed through the European Court of Justice has always been suspect when it is too late to modify this trade agreement now.

          I spy one happy politician who just had over 200,000 people march in all 27 EU member countries in the name of the political party he founded. I am not surprised that Germany quickly folded in light of these huge protests when they have been losing ground to the Pirate Party of Germany.

      • http://twitter.com/erikqj Erik Q.J.

        If it’s ever passed, we can also expect ACTA to be brought before the European Court of Human Rights. While not all European countries are signatories of the court, a ruling against a passed bill would pose a major embarrassment for the entire EU parliament, as well as for the individual countries of the EU and several non-EU European countries who are signatories. Lower courts, such as the European Court of Justice, would also be embarrassed. It would probably be seen as an embarrassment for several non-European countries as well. Countries that are signatories are bound by any and all rulings of European Court of Human Rights; for these countries it takes priority over all other courts.

        All in all, that’s a lot of embarrassment to go around, and I expect that it will cause careful consideration by all instances involved.

  • http://twitter.com/samclark1 Sam Clark

    As an Australian living in Germany who attended a rally yesterday I am dumbfounded as to why this isn’t being protested in places such as Australia and the USA. Sure these countries have already signed, but as the agreement is still yet to be ratified it is far from too late…

    • http://www.facebook.com/BareKatze Elisa Barber

      I organized a protest in my town, in the USA yesterday. Many people in my country may not know about ACTA, but there are many who do, and we are fighting just as hard.

      • http://twitter.com/samclark1 Sam Clark

        Glad to hear it!

      • http://twitter.com/erikqj Erik Q.J.

        Good to hear!

        Obviously, I already know that there are many Americans objecting on the Web, but a bit of RL action is more likely to get attention where it counts. Even if they aren’t as strong as protests in some other countries, the opposition in the US has considerable weight, simply because of the central role your country plays. Also, if you keep it up, who’s to say that the protests in the US can’t grow to major proportions?

    • Lol

      they only know what their local/national news tells them. obviously the media wouldn’t tell them about ACTA, because the media IS ACTA!

  • Pingback: Anti-ACTA protests hit high gear across EU – New Zealand Herald - End Of Internet » End Of Internet

  • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

    Here’s a selection of pix from the protest in Glasgow, Scotland – including “Babies against ACTA” :)
    http://www.turboimagehost.com/album/59725/acta_glasgow_2-2012

    • Anonymous

      The most interesting sign I saw read “Filter your coffee and not our Internet” :-)

  • brudda

    The problem is that the US has made a lot of money available to Europe to help with their debt/banking crisis. I would say that this puts Europe in a position of weakness instead of strength. It would be very surprising if the EU parliament doesn’t ratify ACTA.

    • http://twitter.com/erikqj Erik Q.J.

      There have been no gifts given. All loans have either come through international bodies like the World Bank, or at market rates. In addition, the US has purely selfish interests in the welfare of European economy. There’s no reason to expect the EU to pass ACTA due to any sense of debt to the US.

    • http://twitter.com/erikqj Erik Q.J.

      There have been no gifts given. All loans have either come through international bodies like the World Bank, or at market rates. In addition, the US has purely selfish interests in the welfare of European economy. There’s no reason to expect the EU to pass ACTA due to any sense of debt to the US.

      • PlatinumC

        And besides, US owes a shitload amount of money as well ( mostly to China though)

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=683894463 Anonymous

    “Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States, already signed ACTA last October.”
    Am I the only one severely depressed by this? Why did we only hear about this when the UK had to sign the trade agreement? Why didn’t we hear about it in October?

    • Oli

      Because, as always, the UK has to stand up to something evil while America just kinda goes ‘ehh, maybe later.. oh fine, if you insist on making a noise, then I suppose we have to as well..’

      And yes, I just compared ACTA to the Nazis. What what, pip pip. Good show, old boy.

  • aldaris

    The usa is behind ACTA fuck you usa fuck you ACTA

    BULGARIA

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

    I just have to wonder… Why is it that no matter where you are in the world, the politicians are the ones that seriously need to be reminded about the rights they’re supposed to protect?

    • Bob

      Well here’s your answer: Money. Money in the form of politcal payoffs fuels everything. If you think for one second that any government or politician represents anything other than their next trick (they are whores afterall).
      then you are sadly mistaken. The usa is lost. Government by the people for the people no longer exists. It is simply government for large financial interests and their lawyers.

  • OutrageMcMurderspree

    The bills are relentless and forever.
    Unlike my life, your life, or theirs…

    A cranium is a cranium no matter who owns it.

    Who says democracy made us equal?
    Death, the ultimate leveler.

    The fear of retribution, not the ballot count, is how they should govern themselves.
    How they will.

  • Pingback: El presidente del Parlamento de la Unión Europea critica ACTA | Tecnocápsulas

  • Jim123

    fuck them acta passing law making incumbent motherfucking cocksucking cunt niggers
    truth and peace shall prevail

  • Erp

    I still haven’t found an answer to my question. Since most people have paid in some form or another (TV licence, buying CDs, Vinyl, downloads) a payment to the artist to hear their music being performed, doesn’t that pay the copyright fee. What copyright does Sony and the others hold? Is it of the piece of plastic itself? Do they have a copright on my MP3 version which I have produced from the copyright-paid vinyl version, I have just learned to copy onto my machine? I don’t understand what it is that SONY “owns” – the right to reproduce (everytime I play a record, a CD or an MP3 version)? the right to copy from one to another format (but I have already paid to the artist the copyright fee in one format, does that not carry over to another format? Why didn’t they prosecute users for copying from cassette tape to cassette tape? Videotape to videotape? Is it somehow more illegal to copy from video to AVI files?
    It strikes me that SONY and the others have defined, in law, their rights and are now imposing them on others, when the rights they claim have never legally been established. If I lend you a vinyl record to play on your record player, do I breach copyright and should I pay SONY a copyright fee? Why is it different to “lend” you any MP3 file or DivX? And don’t these challenges have to be established in each jurisdiction that SONY-Warner, etc. are laying down their claims?

    • PS London

      From what I know (in the uk at least) Sony would own all copies of the music, by purchasing a cd/vinyl lp etc you are essentially buying a licence to personal replay of the copyrighted material on the cd. Anyone that recorded a song from the radio onto a cassette and then played that cassette to some friends or lent it to a mate would be infringing. Fortunately that was shown to be an unenforceable load of balls, but I have no doubt that if it had been possible, the labels would have attempted to make everybody pay for every single instance.

      Check out the UK copyright websites for more:
      http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy.htm
      http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

      What I don’t understand is how come it’s ok to go to a nightclub (a public space) and be charged for entry and dancing to a DJ playing copyrighted material. The DJ has performer’s rights but I guarantee they won’t have the right to publicly play all the tracks used over the course of 2 or 3 hrs and I’m fairly sure the record labels aren’t going round to all the clubs in the world, monitoring what music is being played and demanding payment from the clubs and DJs for every single song! It’s all horseshite..

  • Mmacleod8111

    What makes you think that this has anything to do with music/dvds etc.

    THIS IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS INTERNET CONTROL
    WORLD POWER

    This MUST be fought!! MUST BE FOUGHT

    and you can bet your bottom dollar OBAMA is behind it!!

    Dont blame the American people they are being fkd as well as everyone else
    Their lives will be controlled along with everyone else

    WAKE UP European court FIGHT this this step towards WORLD DOMINANCE

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