Do something! This is a real threat! Why you should not ignore ACTA!

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The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, also known as ACTA, represents a plurilateral agreement conceived for establishing a series of international standards regarding intellectual property rights enforcement.What ACTA means for everyone is mainly a long list of restrictions, with legal standards that are not reflected by any democratic government, civil liberties or free market exchange.

ACTA was designed in order to establish an international legal framework, joinable by countries voluntarily, for the creation of a new independent governing body that would not be bound by any other international institution (such as the World Trade Organization or the United Nations).

The consequences of ACTA have been described so far as a countermeasure to the exponential increase in global trade of pirated copyright protected works and counterfeit goods. Therefore, the purpose of ACTA is to establish new international standards in order to minimize the effects of generic medicines, counterfeit goods and copyright infringement on the internet.

As for the history of ACTA and how it came into development, although ACTA first came into public attention in May 2008, ACTA was first developed back in 2006, by Japanand United States. In the next two years, three new formations joined for preliminary negotiations: Switzerland,Canada and the European Union. ACTA received proper public attention in 2008, when the official negotiations started. More and more countries joined in for the negotiations: Mexico,Republic of Korea,Australia,New Zealandand Singapore. Not only governments participated during these negotiations, a multinational corporations committee based in the US being consulted regarding the contents and the implications of ACTA. Conforming to the treaty, this ACTA committee can make all the amendments necessary without any judicial or public review being required in order to make the decisions legit.

After a couple of years of denied requests to disclosure treaty information regarding ACTA, in 2010 the participating parties made public the official version of the draft of 2010. As a resulting factor of this official information regarding ACTA, a conference was established, containing over 90 academics and public interest companies and organizations from around the world. The participants of the conference, after further analysis, concluded that ACTA represents a potential threat to numerous public interests, as well as concerns disclaimed by the negotiators themselves.

In October 2011 the ACTA signing ceremony took place in Tokyo, and states like Australia, Japan, Canada, United States, Morocco, Singapore, South Koreaand New Zealandended up by signing the ACTA. On the other hand, Switzerland, Mexico and The European Union attended the ceremony but didn’t sign ACTA, based on article 39 resembled in the ACTA, stating that signatures can be made until March 31st, 2013. The European Union have reached a decision regarding ACTA, and signed the treaty on January 26th, 2012.

Despite all the development of ACTA, there are still opponents (in forms of groups, companies and individuals) that oppose ACTA due to its secrecy of negotiations and the threats posed to the public interest. The Criticism started with EFF (the Electronic Frontier Foundation), this being the first group in a list followed by many others that oppose the ACTA. The EFF criticized the lack of public spotlight regarding the development of ACTA. Once the ACTA secrecy was lifted due to leaked information and later by official details, the list of those opposing the treaty rapidly increased, with Canadians worrying by the effects ACTA would have regarding the trade deals, the consequences of ACTA resulting in increased surveillance of activities (especially online activities), as well as increased searches of personal computers.

What ACTA means for intellectual property rights is: the Internet service filtering of various content, imposed liabilities for all websites that contain infringing content by ACTA standards and less privacy for all Internet users around the globe.

The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations have also been criticized for the exclusion of developing countries as well as civil society groups.

The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement’s threats to freedom and fundamental human rights

An open letter that has been signed by a long list of organizations (such as: Consumers International, The Free Software Foundation, ASIC, EFF and Free Knowledge Institute) insists on the fact that the current form of the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would restrict an imperative list of fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens in Europe, especially the communication privacy and the freedom of expression. It is strongly suggested that the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would inflict a culture of suspicion and surveillance.

Even though the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement’s details remain uncharted, documents so far indicate troubling aspects such as the lift of legal safeguards that were created in order to protect all Internet Service Providers (ISP) from the actions of their users, forcing Internet Service Providers to comply with privacy invasions. What’s more, ACTA is also designed to facilitate a list of privacy violations made by copyright or trademark holders against citizens that are suspected of infringement activities (with no legal process required).

The FSF has also published against the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the ‘Speak out against ACTA’ article presenting the negative side of ACTA, where free software is conceived as a threat rather than innovative. In its current form, ACTA would substantially affect the distribution of free software via P2P, file sharing or torrents, which are currently the main distribution lines for large amounts of software. Also, users that have free operating systems would be extremely restricted (would not be able to play media tagged as non-free, mainly because DRM protected data is bound to become illegal and not accessible via free software).

In 2010, the European Parliament took a vote, resulted in the acknowledgement of ACTA’s threats, certain changes being recommended.

Requests of disclosure regarding ACTA were made by a long list of interest groups; groups that urged to disclose the negotiations of ACTA, with no results so far.

Information so far points out that although ACTA’s purpose may be noble, its restrictions and limitations threat many civil rights and it may change the world’s view when it comes to communication and information, as well as freedom of expression and even communication privacy.