[governance] US Lawmaker Opens up ACTA to Online Comments

[Riaz K Tayob]

Business Center Mar 6, 2012 10:10 pm
US Lawmaker Opens up ACTA to Online Comments

By Grant Gross, IDG News

A U.S lawmaker has posted the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade 
Agreement (ACTA) online and is asking the public to comment and make 
changes to the copyright enforcement treaty.


Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, posted ACTA on his 
Keepthewebopen.com site Tuesday. Even though the U.S. and seven other 
countries signed the agreement in October, the public needs to be 
included in the debate as President Barack Obama's administration begins 
to implement ACTA, Issa said.

Issa compared ACTA to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect 
IP Act (PIPA), two controversial bills that prompted widespread online 
protests in late 2011 and early this year.

"ACTA represents as great a threat to an open Internet as SOPA and PIPA 
and was drafted with even less transparency and input from digital 
citizens," Issa said in a statement. "This agreement was negotiated in 
secret and many of its vague provisions would clearly increase economic 
uncertainty, while imposing onerous new regulations on job creators, 
Internet service providers, innovators and individual Americans."

Like SOPA and PIPA, ACTA is "vague" and could create consequences that 
reach beyond the drafters' original intent, Issa said.

ACTA would require countries that sign it to enforce criminal copyright 
infringement laws and take steps to prevent counterfeit goods from 
entering their borders and to take actions against distributors of 
pirated digital goods.

As of early Tuesday afternoon, no one except Issa had commented on the 
site or suggested changes to ACTA. It's not clear how Issa intends to 
use any comments or changes suggested.

Supporters of ACTA have said the treaty is important to help protect 
copyright worldwide. The countries signing the agreement "all recognize 
that strong intellectual property protection is essential to fostering 
creativity and innovation in their economies, creating good jobs, 
increasing cultural diversity, promoting technological advances, 
enhancing the rule of law, and boosting legal trade in products and 
services protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws," 
the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) said in October.

ACTA will help U.S. companies protect their intellectual property, said 
the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. The agreement will foster 
"increased leadership in the international fight against counterfeiting 
and piracy," the agency said in October.

But Issa criticized the agreement, saying most negotiations were in 
secret. The deal appears to violate Congress' authority to make policy 
affecting U.S. trade and intellectual property law, he added.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government 
for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's 
e-mail address is grant_gross at idg.com.

https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/251387/us_lawmaker_opens_up_acta_to_online_comments.html


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