Neelie
Kroes, the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda has said that the Anti
Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) , signed by almost all EU member states –
but not all – is likely to follow the US’s SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) into
the dustbin of failed legislation saying “We have recently seen how many
thousands of people are willing to protest against rules which they see as
constraining the openness and innovation of the internet” adding “there is a strong
new political voice, and as a voice for openness,
I welcome it even if I do not always agree with everything it says on every
subject … we are now likely to be in a world without SOPA and ACTA”. ACTA is currently
awaiting review by the Court of Justice and EU Trade Commissioner Karel de
Gucht had urged the EU Parliament to delay any formal ratification of ACTA
until that happened, but it now looks like the whole process has stalled as
member states (even those who had previously signed up) lose the political will
to move the Agreement forward.
In the USA,critics of the U.S. government's antipiracy efforts have new
ammunition to support claims that authorities are too eager to do the bidding
of copyright owners. The Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Bureau (ICE) seized Dajaz1.com, a music blog, in November 2010 and then held
onto it for more than a year before returning the domain to the owners having repeatedly
failed to produce evidence that the site had violated copyright laws. Now the
EFF has picked up on the story blogging "The whole story is, in a word, appalling …. U.S. taxpayers and their
representatives have an object lesson, if one were needed, in why the
government should not be granted new IP enforcement powers and why we need to
reconsider the inclusion of copyright infringement as a basis for civil seizure
and forfeiture."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57428362-93/critics-say-feds-riaa-too-closely-linked-in-music-site-seizure/
What if ACTA were to rubber stamp practices that were already in effect? Notably, per its Art. 36(11) (1 Oct. 2011 draft), coordinating criminal enforcement across borders? Why not revise the treaty to make these procedures more transparent? Squelching the treaty merely drives the snake back into the grass.
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