ACTA negotiations

[chuck]

Not sure if this is strictly a world issue - but it's one that could affect all of us, so I'll plonk it here.

The 8th round of the ACTA negotiations are about to start in NZ.

Rather than babble all about it - just go to Wikipedia and read the info there. It's kind of like DMCA/DeBill/S92 but really, really ugly and big and shit. Think Jaws 3D - but without the dodgy special effects.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement for establishing international standards on intellectual-property-rights enforcement throughout the participating countries.[1] Its proponents describe it as a response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works."[2] The scope of ACTA is broad, including counterfeit goods, generic medicines, as well as "piracy over the Internet".[3]

A document leaked to the public in 2008 includes a provision to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide information about suspected copyright infringers without a warrant.[4] A March 2010 leak included the proposed text for this provision.[5]

The negotiations for the ACTA treaty are conducted behind closed doors and are not part of any international organization.[2] In October 2007, the USA, the European Commission, Switzerland, and Japan first announced that they would negotiate ACTA. Since then the following countries joined the negotiations: Australia, Canada, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and United Arab Emirates.

In response to the negotiations starting up here in NZ this week, an open public meeting was had over the last 2 days, and the result of those meetings and discussions is the "Wellington Declaration"

Take some time to read it - it's not too huge - and please sign - it's open to anyone who uses the internet and all the associated tubes.

But it's not just about using torrents to get the latest episodes of "How I met your Mother" - it's about intellectual property in all it's forms. Software, medicine, biotech, written words, music, code....

[Sean]

Thanks for this info Chuck. As I've said before, I generally favor protection of intellectual property through copyrights, but I hope that any agreements reached about it are handled constructively and effectively for all. I'll read through the links you've provided soon...

[chuck]

One of the major issues is that the negotiations are all being done in secret - outside of the auspices of the WTO, the UN, the WIPO. None of the treaty documents have been released - except for a number of notable leaks.

I'll admit to not being totally up to speed on all of the details - but these are major issues - for content creators, for consumers, for anyone who uses the networks to connect to others.

IMO - they're issues that should be discussed in a transparent fashion - not just backed by the RIAA, MPAA et al - unless you get buy in from anyone who's going to be affected by it - it becomes unenforceable and 'bad' law.

And piracy will just go through the roof.

The Wellington Declaration has been put together by consensus - over a 2 day period - and it is clear and well written. The publicACTA folk have done damn good work. But this isn't only an issue for NZ - it's a global issue - and I hope others pick it up and put pressure on their own representatives.

[chuck]

And now the UK govt redefines what an IP address actually is.

Load up the tubes - I need me a static intellectual property address.



And they want us to trust them to actually look after this stuff?!

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by chuck

And now the UK govt redefines what an IP address actually is.

I feel so safe in their hands.