International Law

ACTA update

During the week my QUT colleague Nic Suzor attended a briefing session hosted by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).  Read Nic's summary of the briefing here.  The main points Nic took away from the meeting were as follows:

• Negotiations will go 'well into 2009';
• The Commonwealth Government is not seeking to drive domestic changes through ACTA. Overall, there do not appear to be any great changes to Australia's enforcement regime ? it appears to be more focused on affecting other states;
• The Government intends to limit the effect of any treaty to trademark infringement and commercial scale copyright infringement;
• However, statutory damages for copyright infringement are on the table;
• Next meeting, in December, will consider internet distribution;
• Camcording is likely to be criminalised;
• There's still time to make relevant submissions to DFAT ? indeed, they release a substantial amount of information once they receive the draft proposals before every negotiation round;
• DFAT has a copy of the Cutler report.

Full post as published by Freedom to Differ on October 25, 2008 (boomark / email).