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ACTA Turning ISPs Into Enforcers (LA Times)

By Robin Gross

ACTA, which aims to establish a multinational standard for anti-piracy enforcement, has generated a fair amount of concern in the blogosphere because a) it's being negotiated in secret, as are all trade pacts, and b) some media outlets have suggested that it could lead to people's laptops and iPods being searched at the border. ...What that means is, border agents wouldn't have to wait for a complaint from Warner Bros. Studios to be on the lookout for a few hundred bootlegged DVDs of "The Dark Knight." U.S. border agents already search laptops at random and without warrants, yet it's hard to picture them spending the time and energy to catch people smuggling camcorded films on their iPods. Much more problematic is the RIAA's wish list for online enforcement. The suggestions would seem to shift the legal ground in favor of copyright holders on issues that remain in dispute in U.S. courts, and possibly on a few that have been settled here or in other countries. ...

Full post as published by IP Justice on July 09, 2008 (boomark / email).