ACTA negotiations — final round
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- The Department of Foreign Affairs has issued a release that provides an update on the most recent round of ACTA negotiations (the release will be mirrored by other countries).
It reports that governments met last week in Paris to continue ACTA negotiations.
In addition to the three issues addressed at earlier meetings (international cooperation, enforcement practices and institutional issues, as well as criminal enforcement), Internet issues were now added to the mix.
The release notes that governments are aware of the concerns with the lack of transparency in the process and plan to discuss the matter further (presumably when they next meet in Morocco in March 2009). Transparency does not require discussion, it requires action.
This is quite clearly an intellectual property agreement (not a trade agreement) with negotiations that are conducted in secret to avoid the spotlight and possible objections from developing countries and civil society.
The time has come for Canada to stand up and say that this is wrong and that it will not continue with the process until it meets appropriate standards of transparency.
Michael Geist
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist[at]uottawa.ca and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca.]
Says the official government release »»»
Discussion on the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) continued in Paris, December 15-17, hosted by the European Union. Participants in the discussion included Australia, Canada, the European Union, represented by the European Commission and the EU Presidency (France), Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States (alphabetically ordered). EU Member States also attended the meeting.
The meeting was opened by French Trade Minister, Mrs. Anne-Marie Idrac, who reaffirmed the strong commitment of the EU in favour of intellectual property rights (IPR), against counterfeiting and piracy, and called for constructive and ambitious negotiations.
Participants reaffirmed their commitments to negotiate an agreement to combat global infringements of IPR, particularly in the context of counterfeiting and piracy, by increasing international cooperation, strengthening the framework of practices that contribute to effective enforcement, and strengthening relevant IPR enforcement measures themselves. This meeting was the fourth in a series of negotiations to discuss proposals concerning different aspects of the proposed agreement.
The discussion focused on international cooperation, enforcement practices and institutional issues. Participants also continued previous discussions on criminal enforcement of IPR. They also shared information on approaches to fighting IPR infringements on the Internet. Participants made steady progress in these discussions.
Participants shared the results of consultations that had been held with their respective stakeholders and noted the interests expressed by stakeholders in receiving more information. Participants agreed on the importance of transparency and on holding further discussions on sharing additional information with the public.
Starting in June 2008, participants have intensively discussed various text proposals for ACTA and built a strong foundation for further work on all aspects on the proposed agreement. Participants discussed the schedule of future negotiations and meeting again in Morocco in March 2009. They confirmed their intention to conclude the agreement as soon as possible.
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, recently, going on »»»
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.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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December 19th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
hrm sounds like these politicians are acting in a non democratic and treasonous way.
Perhaps we should string them up like Mussolini was and piss on them.
Ironically with a downturn in the economy you want people to pay MORE for things.
YA know eh that piracy cant exist if the price midel and profit margin are low enough.
Thats what happens when you create a GLOBAL economy
We never asked for it you did it.
THEM. NOT US.
and ya know whats more funny….ya know why the riaa backed down it wasnt fear of losing lawsuits.
It was the shift in tone that sounded to me to becoming a bit more how shall we say IN YOUR FACE MR FANCY PANTS attitude that might have go tthem really worried.
ya want a war over the net you got it
-acdc modified
the cyber army stands ready to defend the rights and freedoms of regular people everywhere , regardless of race, creed, or nationality , and despite idiot govts that are closed minded and short term gainers and bad planners.
WE THE PEOPLE SAY JUMP OFF
December 20th, 2008 at 2:51 am
“hrm sounds like these politicians are acting in a non democratic and treasonous way.”
That’s the state of the pseudo democracies with inhabit today. It’s evident that around the world, citizens are becoming increasingly disturbed by the elite few who rule our nations and how they are merely puppets for big business and private interest groups; one could call it an oligarchy, rather than a democracy, as we have little say once a party is voted into government (Mugabe is a typical example, and Hitler’s German Nation party is another). The redistribution of power back to the people through referendum and consultation is a necessary step to eradicate this reprobate system of administration. We only have to look to party contributions to see a form bribery and corruption, which are even approbated by the legal system.
December 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
and agreed what they do fear and rightfully so is people like me with the ability to gather large sets of people together in common cause.
They fear me cause i can speak truth and its a awful sad day when people trust me the hacker more then they do the govt isn’t it.
As to jon’s site getting banned by av software well join the club of free sites my friend.
They only want sites they can be paid off to visit.
How do i know half the virus alerts on hacker tools are faked?
because a guy like me has the original tools and guess what, HOW the hell can some new virus be part of a tool that’s 5 years old. It cant unless they get it banned in fashions like that cause they fear the freedom such tools bring us all.
They cannot win.
December 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Scott aka chronoss2009 we are now watching all your postings and tracked your IP to 269 Perry. Cease and desist our your internet will be terminated next.
December 21st, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Maybe Anonymous should take on the MAFIAA and their agents in much the same way
they’ve been taking on $cientology.