Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
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2011 in Review: Developments in ACTA
While Internet blacklist bills exploded into the domestic U.S. Congressional scene this year, foreboding international forces are also posing new threats to the Internet around the world. The most prominent of these is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), signed by the U.S. in 2011, which would strengthen intellectual property enforcement norms between signatory countries, handing overbroad powers to the content industry to preserve their antiquated business model.
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ACTA Goes Too Far, Says MEP
The French MEP who resigned his position in charge of negotiating the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has said it "goes too far" by potentially cutting access to lifesaving generic drugs and restricting internet freedom.
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ACTA to Be Examined by Top EU Court
The European Commission is to refer the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to Europe's highest court to check that ACTA really does comply with existing EU laws.
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ACTA Update I
Anyone who follows me on Twitter or identi.ca, or on Google+ will have noticed something of a crescendo of posts about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) recently. There are two reasons for this.
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ACTA Update II
Although ACTA is billed as a global treaty, there are only two participants that really matter: the US and the European Union. If either of those dropped out, it would be completely ineffectual. I think the US is unlikely to do that, for two reasons. First, ACTA is essentially the US copyright industries' shopping list of measures that they would like to see forced on the rest of the world: it gives huge benefits to Hollywood and the recording industry, but little to anyone else.
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ACTA's Back
Now that the US bills SOPA and PIPA have been put on ice, attention has returned to their parent, an international treaty called ACTA. I've written extensively about ACTA before, but in summary it is an international treaty that has been secretly negotiated to ensure as little input as possible from the citizens of any country.
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ACTA: “Would Usurp Congressional Authority”
The much-criticized cloak of secrecy that has surrounded the Obama administration’s negotiation of the multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was broken Wednesday. The leaked draft of ACTA belies the U.S. trade representative’s assertions that the agreement would not alter U.S. intellectual property law. And it raises the stakes on the constitutionally dubious method by which the administration proposes to make the agreement binding on the United States.
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Congress Shouldn't Debate Copyright In A Reality-Free Zone
Just a few days ago, an unusual thing happened in the halls of Congress: somebody made a case for a copyright policy grounded in reality. The Republican Study Committee (RSC) — an organization that represents more than two-thirds of all GOP Congressmembers — issued a report challenging longstanding copyright myths and offering ideas for potential reforms. [...] Read More »
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EU, Facing Opposition, Suspends Ratification of Copyright Treaty, Refers to Court of Justice
The European Commission, facing opposition in city streets, on the Internet and in the halls of parliament, has suspended efforts to ratify a new international anti-counterfeiting agreement, and instead will refer it to Europe’s highest court to see whether it violates any fundamental EU rights.
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If You thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA
Unfortunately for free-speech advocates, these pieces of legislation are not the only laws which threaten an open internet. Few people have heard of ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but the provisions in the agreement appear quite similar to – and more expansive than – anything we saw in SOPA. Worse, the agreement spans virtually all of the countries in the developed world, including all of the EU, the United States, Switzerland and Japan.
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Japan Was The First To Ratify ACTA. Will They Join TPP Next?
Two of the biggest threats to the Internet are two international agreements: the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). [...] With these two agreements, both of which contain intellectual property (IP) provisions that would negatively impact digital rights and innovation, the country that sits at the center of play is Japan. Read More »
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SOPA Stopped: So Back to ACTA
So the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of copyright maximalist legislation, SOPA and PIPA, have been halted in their passage through the US legislative process. Of course, they're not dead, but are sure to return, zombie-like, either as modified versions of the current texts or new ones that turn out to be exactly the same as the old ones at their heart. However, the unprecedented action by the Net world to get the message across that these bills were not fit for purpose does mean that our attention can swivel back to somewhere else where bad things are happening: ACTA.
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The Darknet Project: Netroots Activists Dream of Global Mesh Network
A group of Internet activists gathered last week in an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel to begin planning an ambitious project—they hope to overcome electronic surveillance and censorship by creating a whole new Internet. The group, which coordinates its efforts through the Reddit social networking site, calls its endeavor The Darknet Project (TDP). Read More »
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TTIP Updates - The Glyn Moody Blogs
Tracking the twists and turns of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and spelling out what it really means Read More »
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“The President of the United States is on the Phone. Would You Like to Hangout on Google+?”
We're suddenly very close to science fiction becoming reality television, live streamed to large and small screens around the world. Read More »
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