[Commons-Law] The Pirate Bay killer Trade Agreement

[Lawrence Liang]

Hi all

some of you must be following the developments on the negotiation of the
ACTA. Here is a story on the ACTA with its kill pirate bay clauses

From
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9511/US+Proposes+%27Pirate+Bay+Killer%27+Trade+Agreement

For more information see the IP Justice page on the ACTA

http://ipjustice.org/wp/2008/05/22/leaked-us-govt-discussion-paper-on-proposed-anti-counterfeiting-trade-agreement-acta-from-wikileaks/

US Proposes 'Pirate Bay Killer' Trade Agreement
<http://www.zeropaid.com/> posted
by *soulxtc* <http://www.zeropaid.com/news/user.php?login=soulxtc> in
bittorrent <http://www.zeropaid.com/news/index.php?category=bittorrent> //
12 hours 27 minutes ago
 If adopted, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) treaty would
impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime imposing new cooperation
requirements upon ISPs, including perfunctory disclosure of customer
information, as well as measures restricting the use of online privacy
tools.

The US is proposing a multi-lateral intellectual property trade agreement
proposal called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) "Discussion
Paper on a Possible anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement", circa October
2007. The agreement covers the copying of information or ideas in a wide
variety of contexts. For example page three, paragraph one is a "Pirate Bay
killer" clause designed to criminalize the non-profit facilitation of
unauthorized information exchange on the internet, which would also
negatively affect transparency sites such as
Wikileaks<http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks>.


The document details is a proposal for a multi-lateral trade agreement of
strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet
activity and trade in information-based goods. If adopted, a treaty of this
form would impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime, with new
cooperation requirements upon internet service providers, including
perfunctionary disclosure of customer information and a ban on
anti-circumvention measures.

The proposal also specifies a plan to encourage developing nations to accept
the legal regime.

The source states that trade representatives intend to formalize the
agreement at the G-8 summit in July 2008.

The following summary of the trade agreement issue is from IP Justice, an
international group directed from San Francisco group that fights for a just
world intellectual property regime:

FROM WIKILEAKS<http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Proposed_US_ACTA_multi-lateral_intellectual_property_trade_agreement_%282007%29>:


 In 2007 a select handful of the wealthiest countries began a treaty-making
process to create a new global standard for intellectual property rights
enforcement, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). ACTA is
spearheaded by the United States, the European Commission, Japan, and
Switzerland — those countries with the largest intellectual property
industries. Other countries invited to participate in ACTA's negotiation
process are Canada, Australia, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand. Noticeably
absent from ACTA's negotiations are leaders from developing countries who
hold national policy priorities that differ from the international
intellectual property industry.

After the multi-lateral treaty's scope and priorities are negotiated by the
few countries invited to participate in the early discussions, ACTA's text
will be "locked" and other countries who are later "invited" to sign-on to
the pact will not be able to re-negotiate its terms. It is claimed that
signing-on to the trade agreement will be "voluntary", but few countries
will have the muscle to refuse an "invitation" to join, once the rules have
been set by the select few conducting the negotiations.


The US is negotiating ACTA through the Office of the US Trade Representative
(USTR), an office within the Bush Administration that has concluded more
than 10 "free trade" agreements in recent years, all of which require both
the US and the other country to increase intellectual property rights
enforcement measures beyond the international legal norms in the WTO-TRIPS
Agreement.

As of 25 March 2008, no draft text has been published yet to provide the
public with substance of the proposed international treaty. A "Discussion
Paper on a Possible Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" was reportedly
provided to select lobbyists in the intellectual property industry, but not
to public interest organizations concerned with the subject matter of the
proposed treaty.



Once again the entertainment industry is doing all it can to meddle in the
affairs of sovereign countries and make ISP into gatekeepers of data rather
than than conduits to it.
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