ACTA (The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is the Trade agreement on fight against a counterfeit)

As will pursue pirates

ACTA provides creation of a large international control system for copyright compliance.

• Employees of customs services in the countries, signatory ACTA, acquired the right to examine notebooks, a MP3 players and cell phones of people regarding storage in them pirated content^[1].

• Besides, all countries should enter practice according to which copyright owners will be able to demand from providers of removal of any content violating copyright, also without the need for providing convincing proofs of the fact of piracy.

• It is supposed that ACTA will costitute the requirements to Internet service providers including disclosure of information on activity of users. ACTA provides introduction of global practice of "three warnings" according to which fayloobmenshchik will be disconnected from the Internet after three warnings of that they stopped downloading non-licensed content through Network. At the same time, for disconnection from Network judicial permission or even convincing proofs of fault of the user will not be required for the authorities. If providers will not begin to disconnect the clients from the Internet, the fault for illegal actions of users will lie with them.

Countries participants

The international agreement ACTA can become effective, only if it is ratified by 6 of 11 signatory, among them:

• The European Union (refused signing in July, 2012),
• Australia,
• Canada,
• Japan,
• South Korea,
• Mexico (refused in 2012),
• Morocco,
• New Zealand,
• Singapore,
• USA and
• Switzerland.

Australia and Switzerland can refuse. Even in Japan where, actually, there took place agreement signature, in July, 2012 review a position on it. There are no doubts that failure of European Parliament from ratification of ACTA will strengthen fluctuating in determination to refuse participation in the agreement.

History

Conditions of ACTA were discussed by the parties more than three years. During preparation of ACTA his developers refused to publish the preliminary text of the agreement including at the request of legislators of the countries who were offered to join it.

2011: Eight countries signed the agreement

On October 5, 2011 it became known that the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea signed ACTA (The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is the Trade agreement on fight against a counterfeit), very contradictory agreement directed to fight about piracy in Network and the IT field.

The agreement was drafted in the closed order with participation of Australia, the European Union countries, Canada, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Morocco, Singapore, the USA, Switzerland and Japan. Negotiations on the maintenance of ACTA were conducted since 2006 outside the existing specialized international organizations (such as UNESCO, World Intellectual Property Organization and others) where representatives "the countries - violators of copyright" have access.

Negotiations on an occasion of this agreement were held in strict privacy - any organization did not receive any official data from the countries participating in negotiations concerning the text of future agreement.

Representatives of the USA expressed the approval concerning signing of ACTA. "As well as many other problems which we face in global economy today any government cannot solve alone a problem of world piracy and a counterfeit. Therefore signing given the agreement is the act of a joint initiative and determination in the international fight against theft of intellectual property", - said Mariam Sapiro, the deputy of the US Trade Representative.

The countries of the European Union, Mexico and Switzerland which also participated in discussions of ACTA though did not sign the agreement at an official ceremony in Japan, however "confirmed the invariable firm support and readiness to sign the agreement as soon as possible", Arstechnica reports.

2012: Protests in Europe and failure to accept ACTA

In January, 2012 the European Commission and 22 State Parties of the European Union, including Great Britain, signed ACTA.

• On February 11, 2012 tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of the cities in Europe. The international trade agreement on fight against counterfeit products (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ACTA) which is going to ratify the European Union was the cause for discontent.

Performances in Germany, Poland and Holland were the most numerous. In Germany more than 25 thousand protesters took to the streets. In Sofia, in Bulgaria, - 4 thousand people, in Bucharest - about three hundred, in Berlin - more than 2 thousand, in Munich - about 16 thousand human. Demonstrations also took place in London, Warsaw, Prague, Vilnius, Bratislava, Paris, Brussels, Dublin and other cities.

According to BBC, protesters claim that ACTA considerably will reduce an opportunity freely to express the opinion on the Internet. At the same time supporters of the bill insist that the agreement does not make any changes to current laws and only protects the rights of authors against the background of active development of piracy on the Internet. They emphasize that they during discussions always supported openness of the principles of the agreement.

Pressure from inhabitants of the European Union, generally youth, forced to wait a little with agreement signature Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, BBC writes^[2].

"Three European states consider the possibility to refuse agreement signature", - Jim Killock, the chief executive of Open Rights Group, the non-profit British organization supporting freedom of information on the Internet commented.

"It shows that politicians only now really began to study it", - Killok concludes. On Friday, February 10, 2012, Germany also announced that it postpones signing of ACTA, intending to hold "additional discussions".

"The dispute goes today that ACTA contradicts the principles of democracy, - Killok claims. - The document lacks in-depth examination, it sets dangerous restrictions which can turn back censorship on the Internet, with an opportunity to block users and to put pressure (upon Internet service providers), forcing to exercise supervision of copyright". Some activists compare such supervision (function introduction of "The big brother") to communist regime.

The movement opposing acceptance of ACTA is also widely supported by members of the hacker Anonymous grouping who took the responsibility for cracking of many websites of the ministries and departments, including web pages of the Polish prime minister, BBC adds.

In parallel with fight against ACTA many materials in media were devoted to the bills "About Counteraction to Online Piracy" (Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA) and "About protection of intellectual property" (Protect IP Act, PIPA) which intended to accept in the USA. Their acceptance is postponed also in view of mass protests, including from such large companies as Google and Facebook.

As a result in many countries refused the solution to support the bill. The section of ACTA concerning digital rights which, according to Protestants, gives to the states the chance to force Internet service providers to perform police functions in relation to the subscribers became a stumbling block.

• In April, 2012 the anti-counterfeiting agreement was criticized by the European supervisory authority of European Data Protection Supervisor monitoring respect of the right to the protection of personal data of citizens by the organizations. According to the statement of EDPS, large-scale "wiretap" of the Internet and numerous violations of the right of individuals to confidentiality could become result of ratification of ACTA.

Thus, the European Parliament was declined more and stronger rejecting the agreement. The European Commission which is responsible for negotiating under the agreement on behalf of the European Union, asked the European Court of Justice to state the opinion on ACTA.

• In July, 2012 the European Parliament resolutely rejected the odious Trade agreement on fight against counterfeiting: 478 voted against, 39 — for. This result expected many around the world, it means that ACTA will not become the law in the European Union or in any states entering it. Just before vote the European People's Party tried to achieve its transfer, however this attempt failed.

Source: Tom Morris/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

The organizations for protection of digital freedoms call a rejection of the anti-counterfeiting agreement the enormous victory for citizens which became a result of the coordinated campaign against ACTA.

Parliamentarians were perturbed that negotiations on the agreement were conducted in the conditions of privacy and became property of the public only after the publication of the early draft copy in Wikileaks in 2008.

Criticism

The agreement of ACTA which conditions were discussed by the parties more than three years and which will be open for signing by other states till May, 2013, caused and causes more than contradictory responses of the public and severe criticism from human rights activists worldwide.

Rashmi Rangnath, the representative of the human rights Public Knowledge group, called this agreement "explicit attempt to impose laws of the USA to other countries".

Before ACTA was exposed to intensive criticism from Free Software Foundation (Free Software Foundation), Fund of electronic borders (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and other organizations. ACTA threatens to make illegal the software which can be used for illegal access to digital content. It will mention the mass of the popular free programs available on such portals as SourceForge today. Besides, acceptance of ACTA will lead to rise in price and unfairly high complexity of distribution of the free software in file exchange networks, such as BitTorrent, experts consider.

Notes