The iiNet case is just a minor skirmish, the big battle is ACTA

David Heath
Sunday, 08 November 2009 07:25

IT Policy - Regulation

In short, the US regulators seem to think this is a great idea.

In a press release, dated April 2009 from The Office of the US Trade Representative: "The objective of the ACTA negotiations is to negotiate a new, state-of-the art agreement to combat counterfeiting and piracy. The United States has been working with several trading partners, including Australia, Canada, the European Union and its 27 member states, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland, to negotiate the agreement. When it is finalized, the ACTA is intended to assist in the efforts of governments around the world to more effectively combat the proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods, which undermines legitimate trade and the sustainable development of the world economy, and in some cases contributes to organized crime and exposes American families to dangerous fake products.

"Negotiations on the ACTA began in June 2008. In preparation for those negotiations and since then USTR has reached out to the public for its views and to exchange information on several occasions. The release today of a summary of the ACTA is the most comprehensive joint effort to date of all of the participants in the negotiation to provide information on the ACTA to the public."

Further, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who leads these negotiations, said on June 12th 2009, "As we proceed with these negotiations, we will ensure that the public is kept well informed and has further opportunities to give input."

An admirable statement, except that the entire three-day event in South Korea was held in as much secrecy as possible; it was only the leaking of the documents that focussed attention on the event.  Cynically, the third day was taken up with a discussion on whether the draft treaty should be made public.

Michael Geist, (a Canadian law professor at the University of Ottawa) comments that "Many countries continue to face pressure on the transparency issue, with KEI [Knowledge Economy International] posting a public letter to U.S. President Barack Obama this week on the issue. Past indications are that there is a split - some countries favour making the draft available immediately, while others prefer ongoing secrecy until the treaty is completed.  Compromise positions apparently include allowing individual countries to make available text for which they are responsible."

So, what's in this apparently odious proposal?