ACTA may be ratified

^{Photo via Associated Press: Meeting of the Polish Sejm}

While the whole world was protesting against the adoption by the US Congress of legislative initiatives by SOPA ( English ) and PIPA ( English ), the signing of the ACTA agreement has entered its final stage. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (a trade agreement to combat counterfeiting), on closer examination, is a much tougher initiative than the “triumphantly defeated” Internet community SOPA / PIPA. It is worth saying that the ACTA negotiations are conducted in the mode of heightened secrecy and the details are revealed literally drop by drop.

Although the name of the trade agreement would be logical to assume that we are talking about material objects, in fact, the agreement is equal to the law and imposes restrictions where wider in relation to intellectual property. There is quite a bit of information available on the topic, so I will try to present everything in a structured manner in a structured way.

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Before turning to the history and details, in order to increase interest, I note that ACTA provides for empowering customs officials to inspect any information carriers for the presence of counterfeit information : software, music or video.

The legitimacy and constitutionality of such a test (so far only in the USA) was approved by a decision of the federal court of appeal [ link ] of the 9th district of San Francisco in 2008. Encrypting files or a disk will not save - in the case of a “forgotten” password, entry into the country may be denied under any pretext.

The adoption of ACTA will also affect providers, which, according to the document, may be obliged to take measures to control subscribers and the content downloaded by them. However, compared with physical inspections, such consequences do not seem to be scary at all. Moreover, the “rule of three warnings” is already trying to make it work in some countries - after the third warning about copyright infringement, the provider must limit access to the Internet of the offending user.

However, unlike SOPA / PIPA, the action of ACTA is not limited to distant foreign countries - currently 22 European countries have signed an agreement, complementing the list headed by the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada and Mexico. The final chord, on January 26, was joined by Denmark, Latvia and Lithuania [ link ]. Estonia, having shown prudence, refused to blindly sign, bringing the matter to the discussion of the plenary session of the government [ link ].

In Latvia, the information has spread post factum in the form of a small note that Ambassador Peteris Vaivars, while on a working visit to Japan, signed the ACTA agreement on behalf of the government. The note was not published on all news portals and thrown at the bottom of the pages. Statements by officials that the draft agreement was adequately covered are not true.

Story

The European Commission and the governments of other ACTA member countries recognized their participation in the negotiation of the agreement only after the leak of the draft contract on WikiLeaks on May 22, 2008. On a subsequent request from human rights activists, a document was received that contained only the name of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, in which the entire text was filled in with black [ link ].

In the eleven rounds of negotiations that took place over two and a half years, even more participants were involved, as well as issues of civil law, border control and crime prevention on the Internet. However, even during the negotiations, the full text of the document was not available even to the European Commission. Under NDA, private companies had access to the text: Sony Pictures, Time Warner and Verizon.

The investigation

To date, the Poles are the only ones who responded to the promotion of ACTA, except for hacker groups. On January 25, more than ten thousand people took part in mass street protests in Warsaw. The Polish government said it did not intend to succumb to "blackmail" by the protesters. Prime Minister Donald Tusk noted that “the discontented had enough time to speak before the agreement was approved by the Polish parliament”, which, to put it mildly, is far from the truth, taking into account the previously described secrecy of the agreement.

The end of the epic will be March 31, which is scheduled for a hearing on the procedure for ratifying ACTA in the European Parliament. And if this happens ...

Instead of conclusion

So, the current edition of ACTA:

• Gives the right to border control to search personal belongings for copyright infringement. Order not required.
• Imposes providers and hosters in the responsibility to monitor compliance with the copyright of its subscribers and provide information on the first request. Order not required.
• Introduces criminal liability for infringement of intellectual property rights in all countries participating in the agreement, even if the legislation of a particular country does not provide for such liability.
• Introduces criminal liability for bypassing DRM by any means. Prohibits the distribution of any software that allows you to ignore DRM, even if it can be used for other purposes.
• It recognizes the lawful withdrawal and liquidation of any items with false trademarks without the right to receive compensation.
• Gives the ACTA management committee the right to issue addenda to the agreement, which enter into force immediately without consideration and ratification by the participating countries.

In the light of the foregoing, the legislative initiatives of SOPA / PIPA seem to be merely a maneuver designed to divert attention from a trade agreement endowed with the power of the totalitarian law itself.

References :

• Original text ACTA http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/i_property/pdfs/acta1105_en.pdf
• ACTA official website http://www.ustr.gov/acta
• English Wikipedia about ACTA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

Update:

• As opennet writes, “ACTA is a document that complements the current TRIPS agreement (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), which is binding for all WTO member countries. As is known, Russia officially joins the WTO already in the current 2012, and the latest amendments adopted signal the start of Russia's active work on synchronizing its legislation with the TRIPS standards, which will inevitably lead to a serious tightening of responsibility for copyright infringements. ” Thank you, das . Due to the lack of information on Russia, I considered it appropriate to insert this update.
• Latvia did swing at the organization of the protest. The preliminary date of the protest is February 13.

Upcoming : ACTA from the perspective of the provider; ACTA counteraction.