Intellectual Property Law

Tell Your Lawmakers: "Anti-Counterfeiting" Treaty Is a Sham!

By richard

The U.S. Trade Representative has spent the past two years working with other developed nations on a secret agreement allegedly designed to reduce the flow of fake physical goods across borders. However, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is really a ruse that gives the entertainment industry its wishlist of Internet copyright regulations and enforcement power.

Just look at some of the "anti-counterfeiting" measures included in ACTA. ACTA would set up a global framework that could:

• Require Internet service providers (ISPs) to disconnect individuals accused (not convicted) of repeated copyright infringement;
• Require ISPs to hand over their subscribers? identities to copyright owners without any due process or judicial oversight;
• Require ISPs to make potentially expensive modifications to their networks in an effort to prevent copyright infringement;
• Prohibit the U.S. Congress from reforming the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it a crime to defeat copy protection even when making a copy is perfectly legal;
• Require all countries to implement DMCA-like laws for their own populations, without the benefit of fair use or other legal exceptions that provide a modicum of protection for speech;
• Threaten potential innovators with outrageous financial penalties for copyright infringement; and
• Criminalize even non-commercial uses of copyrighted materials.

Sounds a lot like a copyright law, not an "anti-counterfeiting" agreement, doesn't it?

ACTA is being negotiated by a handful of countries behind closed doors and is on track to be finished by the end of this year. Despite its potentially far-reaching impact for consumers and the future of the open Internet, the U.S. Trade Representative has claimed that it can shut out Congressional oversight by treating ACTA as a "sole executive agreement" under the President's executive power, rather than a treaty.

We can't sit back and let this fake "anti-counterfeiting" agreement become law! Your congressional representative is on one of the committees that has oversight over the U.S. Trade Representative. Tell your lawmaker not to be fooled by this chicanery and demand that ACTA be limited to addressing international counterfeiting.

Full post as published by Electronic Freedom Foundation - Deep Links on May 25, 2010 (boomark / email).