[governance] US Lawmaker Opens up ACTA to Online Comments

[Fouad Bajwa]

Hi Riaz,

Thanks for sharing this. I believe this may be on the too late mark to
do anything. Its one thing that wasn't sponsored by one person and
signed by a number of nations, it was led with the collaboration of
various trade bodies and IPR holders from these countries that lobbied
their governments to sign this document that blurs and benefits the
usual culprits.

So what if the SOPA/PIPA didn't make it through, this is the worse of
them and more over its expansive beyond borders of one state to other
participating countries. Its hard to believe how so many countries
agree blindly to fall prey to just one major group to enforce its
slowly evolving practice of making big bucks through taking IPR
enforcement and litigation beyond their country's borders to other
countries and strangling their businessmen and citizens.

A light version of such IPR protection and enforcement can be read
under searching the keyword BSA business software alliance where apart
from its claims one can read how badly it has hurt certain countries
business environment. With this trade agreement, those governments are
giving access to even a larger combined force of multiple kinds of
BSA's to wade through their territories and slap struggling businesses
with a new order of pan-global IPR enforcements.

On the current state of this TA, will any public comment be able to
alter what has been constructed into a signed treaty already between a
number of nations? Would it be possible to retract from what has
already been done and posted online? Is this a combined call from all
those signing nations to include public comments to help modify this
agreement?

Interestingly the party attribute language gives fundamental rights
under privacy of information to commercial/corporates that receive
full confidentiality while getting the right to have even stricter and
extensive IPR enforcement implemented beyond this agreement. Check
this opportunity to give legal rights of implementing enforcement to
anyone under party/parties:
"competent authorities includes the appropriate judicial, administrative,
or law enforcement authorities under a Party’s law;"

I don't see how negotiations carried out in secret benefit anyone else
other than the the "parties" that have had this designed in the first
place.

SAY NO TO ACTA! may only remain a slogan from this point
onwards......here comes the Chengaiz Khan of IPR!!!

Fooooooooooooooooooooo

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 2:09 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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