ONLINE CONTROVERSY
standards from their own laws and tried to put as many of them as possible into ACTA.”
Cahn goes one step further. He says: “I truly believe
that international cooperation strategies and,
through this treaty, various if
necessary, coercion, countries that don’t have these types of remedies available will decide to adopt them. In any event, this agreement will ultimately lead to international cooperation against what is thoroughly and profoundly a global problem.”
It was “clear from the start” that ACTA was meant for developing countries, says Hinze. “Since ACTA standards are,
purportedly,
already in the laws of many ACTA negotiating countries, the logical conclusion is that ACTA was intended to force changes in the laws of countries that were not part of
negotiations,” she adds. “ACTA standards are likely to be a requirement of
future US
bilateral trade agreements, and used as evaluation criteria in the annual Special 301 report published by the Office of the US Trade Representative.”
ACTA and Europe
European countries won’t have to change their laws significantly if they sign up to ACTA, says Schneider. “Clearly, the standards of ACTA are well below the current European law.”
For example, ACTA contains a provision on the information that a rights holder can obtain from an infringer or an alleged infringer. That right of information is optional under the Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights (TRIPS) agreement, but ACTA makes it compulsory. It also expands the list of information that a rights holder can request.
Schneider says: “This ACTA standard remains below the EU standard set out the IPR Enforcement Directive. The directive allows a rights holder to ask for information from an alleged infringer, but it goes one step further because it also allows a rights holder to ask for information from any other person who contributed to the infringement on a commercial scale, including persons found in possession of infringing goods or persons who provide services used for the infringement.
“Under the directive, this right of information applies not only to the infringer, but also to intermediaries and service providers. If you take that as an example, ACTA stays far below the threshold that we have in Europe. So there’s absolutely no need for changes there.”
www.worldipreview.com Opposition to ACTA heightened in the
aftermath of protests against SOPA and its sister bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
Te anti-piracy legislation would have allowed the US Attorney General to seek injunctions against foreign websites that profit from piracy and counterfeiting, to increase criminal penalties for traffickers of counterfeit medicine and military goods, and to improve coordination between IP enforcement agencies in the US.
But US Congress postponed its consideration of SOPA—effectively shelving the bill—aſter
represented, which is why the actions against SOPA unfolded. Fundamentally, it proposed (and mostly in a somewhat grey fashion) a reworking of the basic function of the free and open Internet. We were alarmed about the lack of information in the legislation. Who would make the decisions about illegal content? Content owners? Private business? Te Department of Justice? And perhaps most problematic, the laws were developed with no real appreciation about how millions of people use the Internet today.”
The protestors’ detractors have accused them of misunderstanding SOPA and some have as gone as far as to say that attacking SOPA was tantamount to supporting IP theft. But the Wikimedia Foundation dismisses these notions.
the
Walsh says: “Our community did understand what SOPA represents, probably because they know how our projects work so well, and why it’s possible for our projects to exist. They exist, and Wikipedia thrives, because information can flow freely on the web. Because users from all parts of
the world can collaborate
in real time. The project works because it is not censored. Because it’s hosted in the US our project and its participants are protected by
Our community understood this threat, and the millions of readers who took
action on January
18 expressed their views and shared their beliefs with their elected representatives.”
Wikipedia and Google took part in an online protest against the legislation in January. It remains to be seen whether other US legislation, such as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, pick up where SOPA leſt off. Te power of protest could be worrying for supporters of ACTA who fear that the agreement could be derailed, despite its differences from SOPA.
In protest against SOPA, Wikipedia instigated a 24-hour blackout. Visitors to its English- language website were greeted with a black page and white text that said “imagine a world without free knowledge”, as well as links to more information. Jay Walsh, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, a non- profit organisation that operates the online encyclopaedia, says the decision to protest against SOPA was not taken lightly.
He says: “Our legal team and our community of volunteers basically saw the threat that this
As for being misinformed, Walsh
says that websites such as Wikipedia help to educate Internet users about legislation, including SOPA. “Wikipedia’s
articles on
SOPA/PIPA contain balanced information on the bills—and that’s one of the reasons those articles were not blocked on January 18,” he says. “We urged everyone to get informed on the topic and take action. We’d do the same again in the future.”
ACTA has been thrust into the limelight, prompting protests both online and outside the offices of prominent rights holders. Whether ACTA threatens the Internet as we know it depends on how you look at it. But at least the controversy has put the issue of the protection of online IP centre stage.
Internet users are paying attention to IP much more than they have before, and that’s good news for owners who regularly experience online infringement. The ratification of ACTA in this context would be a bonus.
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 2 19
the first amendment.
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