The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament have just announced that they will reject the controversial treaty.

“Although we unambiguously support the protection of intellectual property rights, we also champion fundamental rights and freedoms. We have serious concerns that ACTA does not strike the right balance,” announced Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE group leader.

Verhofstadt said that ALDE continues to support multilateral IP enforcement efforts, but only those with a transparent, publicly discussed mandate. He added that ALDE shares the legitimate concerns of those who participated in the anti-ACTA protests in recent months.

“Civil society has been extremely vocal in recent months in raising their legitimate concerns on the ACTA agreement which we share. There are too many provisions lacking clarity and certainty as to the way they would be implemented in practice,” Verhofstadt noted.

One of the key problems raised by anti-ACTA activists is the way the treaty has morphed and grown since its inception. From its roots as a mechanism to deal with counterfeit goods, ACTA grew to encompass the unauthorized sharing of digital media online. This means that from targeting strictly criminal enterprises, ACTA now risks sucking in the man in the street. This one-size-fits-all approach is opposed by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats.

“Furthermore, ACTA wrongly bundles together too many different types of IPR enforcement under the same umbrella, treating physical goods and digital services in the same way,” said Verhofstadt. “We believe they should be approached in separate sectoral agreements, and following a comprehensive and democratically debated mandate and impact assessment.”

Yesterday the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said that ACTA may have unacceptable side effects on fundamental rights of individuals.

“While more international cooperation is needed for the enforcement of intellectual property rights, the means envisaged must not come at the expense of the fundamental rights of individuals,” assistant European data protection supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli said in a statement.

“A right balance between the fight against intellectual property infringements and the rights to privacy and data protection must be respected. It appears that ACTA has not been fully successful in this respect.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated

Source: Liberals and Democrats Announce Rejection of ACTA

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

Source: ACTA Battle Nears Climax in Europe

ACTA imposes significant requirements on the 30 or so signatories should they ratify it, none are yet to do so, impacting far wider than the commonly discussed aspects of file-sharing and media piracy. ACTA brings generic medicines into play. To some extent it dictates how nations should deal with trade-marks and patents. In the words of Australian Law Professor Dr Matthew Rimmer, ACTA “seeks to define and channel how nation-states enforce concepts of intellectual property.”

Australia’s lack of public and political opposition to ACTA stands somewhat alone in the international community, accentuated by limited local media coverage. The rare light shone on Australia’s role in negotiations during last week’s “Justice Standing Committee” hearing only came after the treaty had already been signed in October, 2011 – as was noted more than once by the handful of politicians present.

Senator Scott Ludlam, an outspoken supporter of Julian Assange and his Wikileaks organisation, seized the opportunity to grill the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade and other supporters of ACTA who presented themselves. If body language is anything to go by, the good senator was less than enthusiastic about the answers he received.

Later in the week, a very different group of people gave evidence, drawn from the ranks of concerned members of Australia’s academic community. Their testimony was largely negative, attacking ACTA on multiple levels.

Human rights expert Dr Hazel Moir, of the Australian National University, pointed to the role copyright monopolies played in drafting the secretive treaty and questioned their motives. “The music industry has a very rigid business model. They’re only prepared to sell certain things at certain times,” Dr Moir testified.

Some of the harshest language came from Dr Matthew Rimmer, an intellectual property law expert, also from the ANU. Dr Rimmer took aim at the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade’s role in negotiating the treaty.

“The Department [of Foreign Affairs & Trade] have been one of the chief advocates,” Dr Rimmer told TorrentFreak after giving evidence. “They’re conducting and running their own line on what should happen. I’m not sure that represents a wider government approach.”

Dr Rimmer questioned why other government departments had not been included in the treaty negotiations.

“There was a need for Treasury, Finance and the Productivity Commission to be involved. I also think the Department of Health [& Ageing] have been ignored … their concerns have not been raised.”

Those concerns include the impact ACTA may have on Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme – a government program that provides subsidised drugs and medicines to the entire population. Bans on the use of generic medicines could see massive blow-outs in the cost of the scheme according to Dr Rimmer. “There’s many real problems with the one department having soul carriage [of ACTA] that have simply been ignored,” he said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade has been lead by no less than three ministers since ACTA negotiations began in 2008. None have shown a particular public interest in the treaty, preferring the rough and tumble of internal party politics and visits to Afghanistan and Washington.

Australia’s ruling Labor Party and conservative opposition have a long standing history of combining their numbers to pass treaties and agreements driven by the US State Department – as ACTA is.

Australia’s role in negotiating ACTA has been near invisible, both locally and internationally. Transparency in the process has been non-existent. Mainstream media coverage has been negligible. Expert local voices have been ignored.

Should Australia ratify ACTA, it will sign up to a treaty negotiated in secret by a single, questionably-lead government department with parliamentary hearings held after the fact and outcomes that could be felt across the legal and policy landscape of the nation. Such a process runs counter-intuitive to how a modern liberal democracy operates.

About The Author

Myles Peterson is an Australian Journalist & Writer.

Source: The Department For ACTA

ACTA, a treaty aimed at harmonizing copyright enforcement globally, has been mired in controversy from its inception not least since its formulation has taken place behind closed doors. Critics fear it would introduce more online censorship and increased surveillance of Internet users.

“We are planning to ask Europe’s highest court to assess whether ACTA is incompatible – in any way – with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and information or data protection and the right to property in case of intellectual property,” said De Gucht.

During the past few weeks protests against ACTA have swept across Europe, with citizens taking to the streets in several major cities. De Gucht said he understands why people are worried.

“I share people’s concern for these fundamental freedoms. I welcome that people have voiced their concerns so actively – especially over the freedom of the internet. And I also understand that there is uncertainty on what ACTA will really mean for these key issues at the end of the day,” the trade chief said.

“So I believe that putting ACTA before the European Court of Justice is a needed step. This debate must be based upon facts and not upon the misinformation or rumor that has dominated social media sites and blogs in recent weeks.”

De Gucht insists that ACTA will not lead to the censorship or closing down of websites and will not hinder freedom on the Internet or freedom of speech, but said that the referral to the European Court of Justice would help “cut through this fog of uncertainty.”

So far the ACTA agreement has been signed by 22 EU member states, but several countries including Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria and Czech Republic have backed away (at least temporarily) from ratifying the agreement following the recent protests.

Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States signed ACTA last October, leaving acceptance in the European Parliament and EU member states as the final hurdle before it goes into effect. The Court of Justice’s view on ACTA’s compatibility with EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms will be key for many lawmakers.

Previously researchers concluded that ACTA does indeed violate human rights. Whether the Court of Justice will reach a similar conclusion has yet to be seen, but in two previous rulings on anti-piracy filters the court placed the rights of the general public above those of copyright holders.

Source: European Court of Justice To Examine ACTA For Rights Breaches

The EU followed in the footsteps of Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States, who already signed it last October. This brings ACTA a step closer to passing, but individual EU member states and the European Parliament still have to ratify the treaty later this year.

To prevent this from happening, hundreds of thousands of people across the world are taking to the streets today, and millions more are expected to do their part online. In Europe demonstrations are being held in more than 200 cities, the largest in Sofia, Bulgaria, with 10,000 participants.

These staggering numbers amount to the greatest offline protest against any type of copyright legislation, ever.

Although ACTA has been discussed for four years already, it is only recently that the public got involved on such a broad scale. In part, the increased attention for ACTA has been sparked by the historic SOPA/PIPA protest last month, where Wikipedia, Reddit and many others blacked out their websites.

Thus far the anti-ACTA protests, which started in Poland a few weeks ago, haven’t been without result.

Several countries that were intended to ratify the treaty, have put their decision on hold. Poland was the first to cave in, followed by Slovakia, Czech Republic, Latvia, and yesterday Europe’s largest economy Germany backpedaled as well.

Within the European Parliament, whose members will vote on the ratification ACTA later this year, there is also a healthy resistance. In a guest article for TorrentFreak, parliament member Marietje Schaake urged fellow politicians to not let copyright law repress innovation.

“ACTA must not be passed. Let’s focus on reform to allow for the opportunities of the internet to bloom, instead of allowing outdated business models to limit the free market, and to criminalize audiences,” she wrote.

Today’s demonstrations (videos) show that there’s a massive opposition against ACTA, and that hundreds of thousands of people are willing to take to the streets to defend a free and open Internet.

Those who want to take action against ACTA but can’t join one of the demonstrations, can write their representatives through the Kill ACTA site.

Update: ACTA Anti-Piracy Treaty Criticized by EU Parliament President.

Source: Massive Street Protests Wage War On ACTA Anti-Piracy Treaty

The dangers and threats of the ACTA treaty are shared by free-speech advocates and access to medicine groups alike. ACTA is seeking to deal with a number of widely differing issues, and hence does not do a good job at any of them. Additionally, there are serious concerns about the collateral damage that ACTA would cause.

Regrettably, concerns by businesses, NGO’s and politicians have not led to a better result. This is partly due to the intransparant way in which ACTA has been established and negotiated. As a democratically elected representative, I believe it is not the role of government to protect outdated business models, and I do believe it is our job to ensure democratic oversight.

Besides zooming in on the details of what ACTA will and will not do, taking a step back and looking at the broader picture is also important. As someone who advocates copyright reform, notably the harmonization of copyright laws in Europe, I do not believe stricter enforcement of outdated systems is helpful or relevant. Enforcement is not even possible in many cases, and not without violating people’s fundamental rights.

Yet there is a big push towards enforcing outdated legal structures of copyright by the entertainment industry. ACTA will lock any signatory country into a system of copyright enforcement, leaving the democratic process disadvantaged to enact necessary reform of our laws to suit the digital age.

The fast development of the information society and all the innovations we have seen in the last 15 or so years have changed the way we live. People can enforce their fundamental rights of access to information, and free speech with the help of the internet. Human rights violations are documented and shared across the world, and the way we access and share information and culture such as news, music and films has changed forever. Most copyright rules were developed for the printing press and codified internationally before radio had even been invented.

Some of the most important EU laws regulating the internet were established before social media and peer-to-peer sharing took off. The E-commerce Directive of 2000 and the Copyright Directive of 2001 were enacted without foresight of the new services which were developed over the last 10 years. Time and time again, it has been proven that the Directives and their national implementations do not suit the digital age that followed directly afterwards. The fragmentation of European copyright puts the EU, which is widely known for its wealth in culture, at a competitive disadvantage in comparison to the United States.

Copyright and E-Commerce need to suit the needs of the advanced information society we now live in. To enable a flourishing Digital Single Market in Europe, we need to analyse case-law of the last 12 years regarding the internet, hear from creators, innovators and consumers. If we want to serve consumers, artists and businesses well, we need to find a new balance in copyright. Every aspect of copyright needs to be discussed: the exclusive rights, limitations and exceptions, collective management, enforcement, etc. Only then should we discuss how to enforce the new found balance on the international arena, such as with ACTA.

ACTA must not be passed. Let’s focus on reform to allow for the opportunities of the internet to bloom, instead of allowing outdated business models to limit the free market, and to criminalize audiences. Additionally, health threats as a result of counterfeit medicine deserve a better solution than ACTA. Join me in voicing your concern with this treaty, so we can establish flexible copyright rules which are fit for the 21st century.

Source: We Need Copyright Reform, Not ACTA!

Although organizations such as the MPA(A), IFPI and the BSA announce press releases in public on a regular basis, much of the hardcore lobbying occurs behind closed doors. Today we present one of these backroom lobbying letters that the groups would rather keep to themselves.

The letter in question was sent to Jerzy Buzek, the President of the European Parliament, and deals with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In summary, ACTA paves the way for draconian anti-piracy measures to be introduced globally. The ACTA text was finalized last year, but the EU has yet to sign the agreement.

To fully understand the implications of ACTA, and to ask whether it is compatible with other European treaties, the European Parliament indicated that it would like to hear the opinion of the European Court of Justice.

However, this is not appreciated by the pro-copyright lobby, who want to see the agreement signed as soon as possible. In their letter they therefore urge the Parliament to skip the legal review and sign the agreement without asking further questions.

“We support ACTA and believe that this Treaty is important to protect Europe’s innovative and creative industries from unfair competition and consumers from fake and pirated goods in a globalised marketplace,” the letter starts.

But after the obligatory introduction it quickly moves on to the core message:

“While we welcome the prerogatives in IP and trade matters conferred to the European Parliament under the new Treaty, we are concerned that the procedure of seeking an Opinion from the ECJ will substantially delay the final adoption and implementation of ACTA and weaken the position of the EU vis-à-vis its international trading partners as a leader in proposing and supporting effective enforcement of intellectual property rights globally,” it continues.

In short, the pro-copyright groups argue that asking for a legal review at the European Court of Justice could hurt the EU because international partners (US, Japan, Australia etc.) would no longer see them as leaders in intellectual property enforcement. They advise the EU to leave the Court of Justice out of the process and simply sign immediately.

“Given the Parliament’s signal that it supports strong enforcement of IP provisions in the EU’s trade agreements, we hope that the European Parliament will give its consent to ACTA with no further delays,” the letter concludes.

The above is quite a bold request of course, and the 21 outfits that signed the letter are fully aware that it’s not something the public would like to hear about. This is probably the reason why none of the pro-lobby groups included or even referenced the letter in their frequent press releases. When trying to maintain a certain image, it seems that some things are better left behind closed doors.

TorrentFreak obtained a full copy of the letter (embedded below) of which excerpts appeared on IPtegrity earlier this week. According to the document’s metadata, the letter was not written by any of the pro-copyright groups but by Joanne Scobie of the lobby firm Policy Action, which is by itself telling.

Source: Leaked “ACTA” Lobby Letter Reveals Hollywood Pressure On EU

Many of the measures that were on the wish list of the RIAA and the U.S. Government have been scrapped along the way. What’s left is a treaty that enables governments to implement all kinds of anti-piracy measures, but forces none of the participating countries to do so.

One of the more controversial paragraphs, where countries would be obliged to impose secondary liability on Internet Service Providers for copyright infringements carried out by their customers, was removed earlier last month and didn’t return in the final draft. Previously, ISPs would be held liable when they failed to respond swiftly to ‘notice and takedown’ requests from copyright holders.

With regard to file-sharing, ACTA is not going to bring any immediate change to the laws that are already in place in most countries. Even camcording in movie theaters is not going to be criminalized, as it was in previous ACTA drafts.

None of the RIAA’s wild suggestions for ACTA have been implemented either. The music industry pushed hard for a mandatory three-strikes policy to disconnect pirates, but this suggestion never made it into the ACTA drafts. That said, individual countries are free to implement this and other measures on their own.

Many of the other paragraphs, including those related to DRM and border measures, are not as draconian as feared either, leaving room for fair use and other exceptions.

“Taken together, the Internet chapter must be seen as failure by the U.S., which clearly envisioned using ACTA to export its DMCA-style approach,” prof. Michael Geist writes in a brief analysis of the text. “Instead, the treaty leaves much the same flexibility as exists under the WIPO Internet treaties and opens the door to Canadian reforms to the digital lock provisions in Bill C-32.”

Despite ACTA being softer than expected, not all of the participating countries are happy with the final draft. The Mexican senate just voted in favor of pulling out, and the EU parliament remains skeptical.

Source: ACTA Anti-Piracy Treaty Not As Horrible as Feared

Bypassing U.S. opposition to the release of an official text, last night yet another draft leaked out, published by Knowledge Ecology International. The draft contains details on the round of ACTA negotiations which took place last month in the United States.

Notable in the 29 page draft titled ‘Consolidated Text, Reflects Changes Made During the August [Washington] DC Round’ are changes to Section 4 – Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Environment.

With the relevant texts having been removed from earlier drafts, it appears that countries will no longer be required to impose secondary liability for infringements onto their ISPs. Previously, ISPs would be held liable for the copyright infringements of their customers when they failed to respond swiftly to ‘notice and takedown’ requests from copyright holders.

Although dropping the ISP liability paragraphs could be seen as a step in the right direction, there are still various strict ‘anti-infringement’ measures in place. The countries that sign up to ACTA are being asked to provide relevant authorities with the power to order ISPs to hand over the identities of customers suspected of infringing copyright to rights holders on the presentation of a “sufficient claim of infringement”.

Countries are also required to provide “remedies to prevent infringement and remedies which constitute a deterrent to further infringement” along with enforcement procedures which address “technologies that can be used to facilitate widespread infringement”. Although the text is open to interpretation, it opens the door to all kinds of filtering systems that may be used to block websites which are deemed illegal, a measure that is high up on the ACTA wish list of anti-piracy groups.

Participants are further encouraged to “promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address infringement” while preserving “legitimate competition”, “freedom of expression, fair process and privacy”.

According to an analysis by Michael Geist, the anti-circumvention (DRM-breaking) provisions are still on the table.

“There is general agreement on a broad provision that largely mirrors the WIPO Internet treaties in calling for ‘adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures.’ If the obligation were to end there, the provision would simply ensure that all ACTA countries establish anti-circumvention rules, with all the flexibility that WIPO allows,” Geist explains.

However, the United States wants to go further – time will tell if they get their way.

Source: ISP Liability For Infringement Nuked, ACTA Leak Reveals

This April, nearly two years after the first ACTA draft leaked out, the negotiators caved in and decided to release a redacted draft to the public. The draft itself didn’t bring much news, as nearly all information had been revealed via the leaked documents. However, some had hoped that the negotiators would be more open about the results of future meetings.

Unfortunately, this hope was soon shattered as the ACTA negotiations continued outside of the public eye. Yesterday, it became clear that even elected representatives at the European Parliament are not allowed to share ACTA-related information with their voters.

Following the latest round of ACTA negotiations in Lucerne, Switzerland, the Commission’s negotiators came to the European Parliament to give an update on ACTA’s progress. True to the secrecy surrounding most ACTA meetings, the gathering was closed to the public.

Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom was also invited to join, and at the meeting he asked if this secret setup also meant that he wasn’t allowed to share any of the information with the public.

“At first the Commission seemed unwilling to answer this question with a straight yes or no, but after I had repeated the question a number of times, they finally came out and said that I would not be allowed to spread the information given,” Engstrom explains.

Since there is little value in being informed on something you can’t share with others, Engstrom saw himself forced to leave the room. “I then left the meeting, since I am not prepared to accept information given under such conditions in this particular case.”

Like many others, Engstrom fails to see the benefit of keeping information from the public. “There is no sensible reason why the ACTA negotiations should be carried out in secret, or why Members of the European Parliament should not be allowed to discuss information about ACTA with their constituents,” he said.

“In a democracy, new laws should be made by the elected representatives after an open public debate. They should not be negotiated behind closed doors by unelected officials at the Commission, in an attempt to keep the citizens out of the process until it is too late.”

Even worse, according to Engstrom the secret ACTA meeting violates the Lisbon Treaty which states that the Commission should fully inform the European Parliament. With a secret oral meeting without any documents being handed out, this is certainly not the case, the Pirate Party MEP argues.

“That is disgraceful,” Engstrom concludes.

Source: Pirate Party MEP Forced To Leave ACTA Meeting

The ACTA Chapter 2 Criminal Provisions document (.pdf) stated that “each party shall provide for effective proportionate and dissuasive penalties” to include “imprisonment and monetary fines”.

“The ACTA agreement, by its opacity and undemocratic nature, allows criminal sanctions to be simply negotiated,” commented Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net. “The leaked document shows that the EU Member States are willing to impose prison sanctions for non-commercial usages of copyrighted works on the Internet as well as for ‘inciting and aiding’, a notion so broad that it could cover any Internet service or speech questioning copyright policies.”

As noted by Zimmermann, the ACTA text includes proposals to apply criminal sanctions to “infringements that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain”. There are suggestions that “financial gain” could simply be obtaining anything without paying.

However, it seems that at least one country is showing a reluctance to go along with suggestions that file-sharers should feel the full weight of a criminal court. The UK Government has now said that it feels that criminal sanctions are an inappropriate way to deal with this type of copyright infringement.

“Acta should not introduce new intellectual property laws or offences. Instead, it should provide a framework to better enforce existing laws,” a UK Intellectual Property Office representative told ComputerActive.

Currently, personal-use file-sharing on a non-commercial scale is almost always considered a civil offense in the UK. However, there have been exceptions. In the case of the OiNK uploaders (who actually uploaded very little indeed), their cases were heard in a criminal court and they ultimately received fines and community service orders. This proves that when powerful enough people get involved, it’s trivial to escalate an offense way above its standing.

That said, it would be ridiculous to have small infringements dealt with by the criminal courts as a matter of course, so hopefully the UK Government stands strong. Jim Killock, Chief Executive at the Open Rights Group said the Government now needs to make its opposition to these proposals both public and clear to the US and EU.

Source: UK Rejects ACTA Calls To Criminalize Illicit File-Sharing

When it comes to copyright policy, there appears to be only one set of people the government is willing to listen to, and that’s the copyright lobbyists groups. Groups that don’t represent the creators as much as those that manage the creators; the middlemen. And so it is with the attendees of today’s meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden, whose political career – like many US politicians – has been partly funded by pro-copyright groups, came out to say that he is offended by the “flat unadulterated theft” some call piracy. A bold statement, but not really that surprising when you take a look at the one-sided list of attendees.

There are no consumer groups, no technology companies, and few representatives of the artistic creators themselves. There are plenty of are representatives of middlemen companies though. Companies that make their money from managing, distributing and promoting, tasks that are increasingly being made obsolete with technological progress.

We’re talking about the likes of Sony’s Michael Lynton, who on behalf of an industry that’s having one of it’s best ever years, plead poverty less than two months ago. And Edgar Bronfman, head of WMG – you remember, the company that claimed copyrights that aren’t theirs.

What will have been on the agenda? Well, probably no items on how factually inaccurate the recent CBS piece was, or how anti-piracy studies would be improved with the release of supporting data. Instead, it will be the likes of future anti-piracy laws such as ACTA, and questioning the ability to introduce similar legislation to France and the UK.

Not that we will find out though, as apparently the press has been kicked out. Perhaps, like ACTA, this is a national security issue too. After all, who says terrorists don’t download Die Hard films for training purposes?

Source: US Holds Ridiculously One-Sided Anti-Piracy Roundtable

While the public is denied access to drafts of the controversial agreement, lawmakers continue to receive input from anti-piracy lobbyists such as the RIAA and MPAA. Today, the 6th round of ACTA negotiations have started in Seoul, South Korea, where representatives from the U.S, the European Union, Canada, Australia and several other countries will discuss the treaty’s content.

As happened previously, parts of the document have leaked out to the public and they reveal that the agreement’s scope is even more far-reaching than previously expected. The Internet chapter of ACTA has very little to do with counterfeiting, but adopts many of the same policies that anti-piracy lobbyists have been calling for.

Among other things, the ACTA draft calls for a global three-strikes policy to disconnect alleged file-sharers from the Internet, without solid evidence or a court order. If ISPs won’t do so, they will be held liable for the copyright infringements of their customers.

Similarly, all participating countries have to adopt a ‘notice and takedown’ policy where copyright holders can request ISPs to remove infringing materials, again without having to provide solid evidence or proof that they actually own the copyrights. When ISPs don’t comply with the requests they will be held liable, which means that they will be seen as pirates themselves.

Unfortunately, all parties involved in the negotiations refuse to make the ACTA plans public, effectively preventing any constructive input from the public. Yesterday, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) petitioned President Obama to change this situation and be transparent about the agreement that will affect millions of people. Until that happens we can only fear the worst.

Source: Secret Anti-Piracy Treaty Turns ISPs into Pirates

It almost seems they are actively blocking the public from having their say, while in contrast they continue to receive input from anti-piracy lobbyists such as the RIAA and MPAA. However, as time progresses more details about ACTA become public, largely thanks to Wikileaks.

With the most recent draft that leaked a few days ago, another piece of the puzzle is completed. The leaked draft covers a wide range of issues which are impossible to cover in one article, so here we focus on the damages section. In this section, it is explained how copyright infringers should be compensated by those who share copyrighted content.

It starts as follows:

1. Each Party shall provide that:

(a) In civil proceedings, its judicial authorities shall have the authority to order the infringer of intellectual property rights to pay the right holder.

(b) In determining the amount of damages of intellectual property rights, its judicial authorities shall consider, inter alia, the value of the infringed goods or service, measured by the market price, suggested retail price, or other legitimate measure of value submitted by the rights holder.

This basically means that the courts should be allowed to make those who share copyrighted content pay compensation to the rights holders. By itself this is not that groundbreaking, but combined with point (b) it means that the RIAA, MPAA and others pretty much have a carte blanche for the amount of damages they want to request.

But it gets even worse.

2. At least with respect to works, phonograms, and performance protected by copyright or related rights, and in the case of trademark counterfeiting, in civil proceedings, each party shall establish or maintain a system that provides:

(a) pre-established damages
(b) presumptions for determining the amount of damages

In the footnote of paragraph 2b it is detailed that the damages should be equal to the number of infringed goods, multiplied by the profit that would have been made if the infringement had not taken place. The “would have been sold” part is crucial here. Is every copyrighted file shared to be considered a lost sale or will there be another formula to calculate the claimed loss in sales?

If this paragraph ends up in the final version of the agreement the participating countries are encouraged to come up with a standardized fine for copyright infringers based on lost profit. The way we see it this could easily lead to a situation where file-sharers face thousands of dollars in fines if their IP-address is found sharing a popular movie or music album.

The damages section of the ACTA draft continues with the following paragraph that suggests giving rights holders full control over how they want to be compensated.

3. Each party shall provide that the rights holders shall have the right to choose the system in paragraph 2 as an alternative to the damages in paragraph 1.

This is even more absurd. It basically means that the RIAA and MPAA will have the right to come up with their own damages formula, where they will probably cite one of their own studies to legitimize asking for exorbitant amounts of damages.

Even though this leaked ACTA text is just a draft, and many member states have suggested it should become less extreme, it is crystal clear that the legislation is heavily skewed towards the rights holders. The rights of the public, their privacy and the general criticism on the claimed “loss in profit” because of illegal downloading are all completely ignored.

Source: Leaked ACTA Draft: More Power to the RIAA

At this stage, little is known about ACTA, but what we do know is that the RIAA has put forward some radical proposals. One of their suggestions was to force ISPs to become ‘copyright cops’, ordering them to filter out pirated files on their networks, and making the ISPs liable if they fail to respond to the demands of copyright holders. That, in addition to the request for an official crime unit to track down and bust alleged pirates.

Most governments that have commented on the ACTA negotiations have refused to reveal any information about its contents, but were quick to refute rumors. According to the New Zealand government (ppt), ACTA is aimed at commercial piracy only, and no one has to be worried about getting their iPod through customs. Nevertheless, they also stress that “draft versions of the text will not be made available.”

According to the FFII, all this secrecy goes against EU regulations, and in response they have filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against the EU Council for concealing ACTA documents. “Making agreements to keep texts secret goes much further than allowed. The Council deliberately obstructs access to ACTA documents,” FFII analyst Ante Wessels commented. FFII requests that the documents should be made public. Alternatively, the EU could withdraw from the negotiations, they say.

Bottom line is this: we don’t know what the plans for ACTA are, and it is impossible to remedy this since requests for information are denied at all levels. There is no good reason to keep them secret either, other than to prevent the public and other institutions voicing their opinion on the proposal before it is signed. Convenient perhaps, but not very democratic.

Source: EU Conceals Anti-Piracy Treaty Documents

One of the crucial questions is how “bad” the agreement will turn out to be. We reported earlier that ACTA might allow “competent authorities” to “search iPods” without the need for a complaint from a rights holder. The most absurd ACTA suggestions we’ve seen so far come from the RIAA, with a strong focus on the liability of ISPs.

The RIAA’s wishlist was published several weeks ago, but hasn’t received much press (thanks Brokep). There are several scary suggestions in there though, and if the RIAA could have its way, the Internet would be turned into a virtual police state immediately.

Let’s highlight some of the RIAA’s suggestions regarding online copyright infringement, mostly targeted at ISPs. You can read the document in full at Keionline.

Require internet service providers and other intermediaries to employ readily available measures to inhibit infringement in instances where both legitimate and illegitimate uses were facilitated by their services, including filtering out infringing materials…

The RIAA wants Internet providers to spy on the files that are transferred by their customers and check them against a reference database of “fingerprints” to check whether the files are infringing copyright. The IFPI, RIAA’s international counterpart tried to convince European lawmakers to do the same a few months ago.

Require Internet service providers or other intermediaries to restrict or terminate access to their systems with respect to repeat infringers.

Many countries have looked into the possibility of disconnecting file-sharers from the Internet, often gently pushed by anti-piracy lobbyists. France was the first to present their idiotic “3-strikes” law earlier this year, allowing anti-piracy outfits to police the Internet. The RIAA wants to see such legislation implemented worldwide of course.

“Establish, adequately fund and provide training for a computer crimes investigatory unit.”

A crime unit to track down and bust pirates, sounds like a great idea. The RIAA is vague about what such a unit is supposed to do as they already send thousands of takedown notices a year themselves, even to network printers. Perhaps they will use the funding and education to come up with harvesting techniques that actually work?

Establish liability against internet service providers who, upon receiving notices of infringement from content provides via e­mail, or by telephone in cases of pre-release materials or in other exigent circumstances, fail to remove the infringing content…

It gets even worse for ISPs. The RIAA wants to hold them responsible for the alleged copyright infringements of their customers. They even came up with a 24hour deadline. It’s interesting to see that they focus on pre-release material, the same strategy the IFPI and BPI used to take down OiNK.

…in the absence of proof to the contrary, an Internet service provider shall be considered as knowing that the content it stores is infringing or illegal, and thus subject to liability for copyright infringement…

Guilty until proven innocent, that makes sense. Of course, ISPs should know what files their customers store. The RIAA wants to ditch the “safe harbor” the DCMA created, making them responsible for the copyright infringement of their customers.

There is much more, but we suggest everyone reads the entire list of suggestions, it is entertaining and scary at the same time. Let’s hope that the politicians who are drafting the agreement will use their brains, instead of blindly accepting such proposals.

Source: RIAA’s Anti-Piracy Trade Agreement Wishlist

“ACTA” is basically an attempt to criminalize the Internet, thus allowing a virtual police state to occur by the selective prosecuting of crimes. In short, it’s an international treaty, or hopes to be, that will greatly increase already draconian copyright measures, in a poor attempt to appease the copyright and patent industries.

The proposal is based on the assumption that ‘intellectual property rights’ (a term used nine times on the first page of the proposal, and 24 times over the entire 3 ½ page document) trump personal privacy, data protection, probable cause, and lots of other important principles in western democracies.

The measure which has received wider publicity is the so-called ‘Pirate Bay killer’. At the end of page two, there is a list of things that should be included in a signee’s legal framework, and in the section about criminal sanctions it states “significant willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright holder (e.g., Internet piracy)”. Think non-profit, personal use file-sharing.

Of course, this could go two ways, as the MPAA, for instance, has been guilty of ‘Internet piracy’ in the past, with it’s university toolkit.

Worst of all though, are the following two points speaking of “establishment and imposition of deterrent-level penalties” and “ex-officio authority to take action against infringers”. It is argued that the current level of penalties aren’t harsh enough (“people are still doing it, so they’re no deterrent”), so there should be room for harsher punishments. Combine this with the ability to prosecute without a rights holder complaint, which means that people could be liable for millions, or imprisoned (they are talking about CRIMINAL enforcement) for sharing Steal this Film, or Paulo Coelho’s books. So, these people actively want you to share would have no say in any such prosecution.

There are some other pure gems proposed, such as “ex officio authority for customs authorities to suspend import, export and trans-shipment of suspected IPR infringing goods”. Given that copyright law is so complex and convoluted, and that judges make mistakes in the cases they hear, this is worrying.

Unsurprisingly, the US patent office is backed up beyond belief and dominated by patent trolls that wait until a successful business is established, before pouncing to clean up. This would mean the death for any new and innovative products, or art. If that wasn’t bad enough, there is a further provision for rights holders to prod customs officials into suspension. Thus, a company can make an allegation, forcing a competitors products to be held in limbo until sorted.

Protest has been swift. TorrentFreak occasional contributor Jamie King wrote on his own blog: “In the form that it currently appears to exist, ACTA would ratchet-up further the rights of Hollywood and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) at the expense of all of our civil liberties. It provisions to criminalize information use practices currently allowed under U.S., European, and international law are completely disproportionate to the ‘problems’ it claims to address.”

Andrew Norton, chairman of the American Pirate Party was much less restrained: “The very existence of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) , be it in policy or just planning, sends one definite message to people around the world; Corruption is rife in the interested countries. There can be no other reason for yet another ‘intellectual property’ (itself a misnomer) law aimed at protecting business interests and expanding government intrusion into the private affairs of it’s citizens, in the name of ‘protection’.”

Of course, the other area most affected by this would be whistle-blower sites like Wikileaks itself. The owner of any leaked document can claim copyright infringement on its publication, and have it pulled. In this, ACTA is a very effective censorship tool. For some reason, though, this aspect has not been widely reported, or even mentioned.

Source: Proposed Treaty Turns Internet Into a Virtual Police State