[governance] Threats to Internte Bill of Rights: Member of European Parliament's questions to the Commission on ACTA

Jeffrey A. Williams jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com
Tue Sep 16 04:46:06 EDT 2008


All,

  The following clearly does and will continue to represent
a threat to an Internet Bill of Rights:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=WQ&language=EN&reference=E-2008-3876&secondRef=0

Parliamentary questions
11 July 2008
E-3876/08
WRITTEN QUESTION by Andreas Mölzer (NI) to the Commission

  Subject: ACTA Agreement/mp3 music etc.

With digitalisation and the advance of the Internet, young music
consumers in particular have changed their habits. The music and film
industries have not yet found a satisfactory new business model to
cope with the fall in turnover of the last 10 years. On the contrary,
blame is placed on file‑sharing etc. and attempts are made to label
the average consumer as a criminal. There are already compensation
claims before the courts in the USA, although — copyright violations
being hard to prove — in many cases evidence of abuse cannot even be
produced.

In 2007 Parliament came out against criminal prosecution measures
against shareware users who exchange copyright-protected data in a non-
commercial setting,. The newspapers nevertheless report plans by the
Commission to provide for prosecution measures in this very area in
the framework of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement with the USA,
Switzerland, Canada and Japan. In addition, customs and other
authorities in Europe also will apparently be able to search laptops,
iPods and other data-carrying equipment for ‘illegal’ content
without any specific reason.

1. What is the state of the negotiations on the ACTA Agreement, and
what are its provisions at present?

2. Since checks at airports should serve only to ensure safety on
board, airport security staff cannot be asked to search millions of
digital cameras, memory cards, mobile phones etc. containing billions
of data items. Are dedicated staff to be provided for this purpose,
and who is to cover the cost of these searches?

3. Are there also plans in this context to check programmes installed
on computers to ensure that they are licensed?

4. The searches being contemplated also raise the issues of possible
commercial espionage (company laptops) and violation of privacy, quite
apart from the fact that it can be established only with difficulty
whether data have been legally or illegally acquired and a reversal of
the burden of proof would violate fundamental and human rights. What
solutions to this are being considered, and how in this context are
violations of rights to be prevented?

******************************************************************************

E-3876/08EN
Answer given by Mr Mandelson
on behalf of the Commission
(15.9.2008)


1. The negotiating guidelines for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (ACTA) were formally adopted by the Council on 14 April
2008. Since then, the EU (represented by the Commission and with the
presence of the Presidency and Member States) participated in the
first ACTA negotiating round, on 3-4 June 2008, in Geneva. Discussion
focused on customs enforcement issues. The second round took place in
Washington on 29-31 July 2008 and was aimed at reaching an agreement
on the provisions related to customs and on introducing civil
enforcement matters.

Member States are keen to be closely involved in the process due to
the likely inclusion of matters of criminal policy. Consequently, the
Presidency will be leading the negotiation on this matter (and other
non-harmonised issues, such as some aspects of internet piracy).

The Commission already has consulted, and will continue to consult,
with industry and other interested stakeholders. A stakeholder
consultation took place in Brussels on 23 June 2008.

Furthermore, the Commission has briefed the International Trade
Committee (INTA) in Parliament on ACTA since the launch of the process.

Participants in ACTA include Australia, Canada, the European Union,
Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore,
Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

2. and 4: ACTA is about tackling an activity pursued mostly by
criminal organisations. The gangs behind the main traffic lines of
Intellectual Property (IP) infringing goods are often the same that
commit criminal offences, such as drug trafficking or money laundering.

ACTA will be a unique opportunity for the EU to promote its modern and
effective acquis in terms of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
enforcement (inter alia the 2003 Customs Regulation , the 2004 Civil
Enforcement Directive , or the 2001 Information Society Directive ) to
other important trade partners.

ACTA is not designed to limit fundamental rights and freedoms or civil
liberties, such as the protection of personal data: this acquis in
terms of IPR enforcement is without prejudice to national or Community
legal provisions in other areas, in particular in the area of personal
data protection, as regulated by the Data Protection Directive  and
the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications .

ACTA is not designed negatively to affect consumers: EU legislation
has a de minimis clause that establishes that goods carried in
traveller’s personal baggage are considered to be outside the scope
of this Regulation as long as these goods are not part of commercial
traffic.

3. No.

footnotes
        Council Regulation (EC) No 1383/2003 of 22 July 2003 concerning
customs action against goods suspected of infringing certain
intellectual property rights and the measures to be taken against
goods found to have infringed such rights, OJ L 196, 2.8.2003.
        Directive 2004/48/EC of Parliament and of the Council of 29
April
2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, OJ L 157,
30.4.2004.
        Directive 2001/29/EC of Parliament and of the Council of 22 May
2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related
rights in the information society, OJ L 167, 22.6.2001.
        Directive 95/46/EC of Parliament and of the Council of 24
October
1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of
personal data and on the free movement of such data,
   OJ L 281, 23.11.1995.
        Directive 2002/58/EC of Parliament and of the Council of 12 July

2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of
privacy in the electronic communications sector, OJ L 201, 31.7.2002.
        Council Regulation (EC) No 1383/2003 of 22 July 2003 concerning
customs action against goods suspected of infringing certain
intellectual property rights and the measures to be taken against
goods found to have infringed such rights, OJ L 196, 2.8.2003.

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS.
div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail
jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com
My Phone: 214-244-4827
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance



More information about the Governance mailing list