EU Council balks at releasing secret ACTA papers
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- Not to belabour the point, ACTA is short for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and, “If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas, what would they look like? This is pretty close,” p2pnet quoted Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) counsel David Fewer as saying.
Now, the EU Council of Ministers refuses to release secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents, says the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) which wanted the documents made public to enable “parliamentary scrutiny”.
If the EU Council again refuses to release the secret documents, the FFII can take the case to the European Court of Justice, it says.
But, it notes, “An earlier case on transparency of EU legislation took 6 years. By that time ACTA may long have entered into force.”
However, Wikileaks has a downloadable copy.
Undermine vital consumer interests
Dan Glickman (right) runs Hollywood enforcement unit the MPAA which, “fully supports this and other US government efforts to promote the protection of intellectual property around world,” said the p2net story, quoting him as saying:
“It is unfortunate that other groups are attempting to derail the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement through scare tactics and false information.”
He was referring to the fact more than 100 international public interest organizations were, and are, demanding officials from Canada, the United States, Mexico, the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, all of which are negotiating ACTA, publish immediately the draft text of the agreement.
“Secrecy around the treaty negotiation has fueled concerns that its terms will undermine vital consumer interests,” said CIPPIC.
Signatories include: CIPPIC, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, The Canadian Library Association, Consumers Union (USA), Electronic Frontier Foundation (USA), Essential Action (USA), Global Trade Watch (USA), Public Knowledge (USA), Australian Digital Alliance, Consumers Union of Japan, IP Left (Korea), Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) Campaign for Essential Medicines and National Consumer Council (UK).
Giving patent trolls the means to extort companies
After the Council’s refusal tocooperate, the FFII filed a confirmatory application for the EU Council to review its position as allowed by Article 7(2) of the regulation dealing with public access to such documents, says the organisation, continuing »»»
ACTA’s secrecy fuels concerns that the treaty may give patent trolls the means to extort companies, undermine access to low-cost generic medicines, lead to monitoring all citizens’ Internet communications and criminalize peer-to-peer electronic file sharing.
The EU Council refuses to release the secret documents stating that disclosure of this information could impede the proper conduct of the negotiations, would weaken the position of the European Union in these negotiations and might affect relations with the third parties concerned.
The FFII reaffirms its application stating that the legislative process in the EU has to be open. If the agreement will only be made public once all parties have already agreed to it, none of the EU’s national parliaments nor the European Parliament will have been able to scrutinise its contents in any meaningful way. To prevent this from happening, it may be necessary to renegotiate ACTA’s transparency.
The FFII “confirmatory application letter” questions ACTA’s secrecy in no uncertain terms, it says, stating »»»
The argument that public transparency regarding ‘trade negotiations’ can be ignored if it would weaken the EU’s negotiation position is particularly painful. At which point exactly do negotiations over trade issues become more important than democratic law making? At 200 million euro? At 500 million euro? At 1 billion euro? What is the price of our democracy?”
The Canadian government released documents under the Access to Information Act that provide additional insights into the secretive nature of the negotiations.
If the EU Council again refuses to release the secret documents, the FFII can take the case to the European Court of Justice. An earlier case on transparency of EU legislation took 6 years. By that time ACTA may long have entered into force.
Ante Wessels, FFII analyst, says: “We do not have so much time. The only solution we see is that the parliaments of Europe force the Council to publish the texts by making Parliamentary scrutiny reservations.”
for Christmas – Wikileaks runs ACTA proposal, May 24, 2008
p2pnet – Hollywood steps up for ACTA, September 22, 2008
FFII – EU Council refuses to release secret ACTA documents, November 10, 2008
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November 11th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Several groups have tried to get the ACTA documents. While it all sounds so plausible about guarding the process from corporations trying to steal the march through patenting, given the past examples of this sort of closed door processes leads one into strong doubt.
For a while the one about broadcast carriers having their own copyright granted through the act of the broadcast was also very secret. One thing we can be sure of, it is not being hidden out of sight for no reason. They are more concerned that if the knowledge were known that in each country their own populations would be putting pressure on killing support for it or wanting to make needed changes. This is exactly how Bush got many of his own little pets through. Limit the time to respond in vote, limit the time to even read what the proposed vote is for, title it something that wraps it up in a flag or kids name, and push it on the public as a done deal. Having seen that method used so long, is it any wonder that I or anyone else is highly skeptical about the outcome of any such secret planning for any treaty expected to be globalized across the world?
Don’t even mention in the same sentence nor paragraph, that the copyright industries, their past actions in all countries around the world is deeply involved with this and all of a sudden it takes on a whole new aspect. I would suspect that it will have to be issued in the next few months, prior to the new president taking office here or it is liable to be shot down. This is the last grasp effort for what I hope is a stoppage of the excessive reign they’ve had of having their lobbies heard, bills formulated over them, and rubber stamped through the legal machine. I am hoping we might have a swing in the pendulum towards a more saner copyright rather than the draconian one we have seen supported time after time to date.
November 12th, 2008 at 9:45 am
bal balh blah?
ya could break up paragraphs and hit that famous enter key?
oh summed up , if it takes 6 years to get the documents then they need ot know we mean literal business.
OUR FORE FATHERS DIDNT FIGHT THE NAZIS to have a bunch a facists ( see musilini quotes about what facism to him was)
to have a bunch a dweeb stiff suits take out rights away.
As the new signs around peterbourgh ontario say “eggs a farmers choice”