ACTA Will Make File-Sharing a CRIMINAL Offence! (Michael Geist)

[DrewWilson]

According to the official agenda, in a few hours talks will continue on the Internet provisions and then move into the criminal provisions chapter. I discussed details of the Internet chapter yesterday, in a post that highlights the creation of a Global DMCA that would severely limit the ability for signatories to use the flexibility found in the WIPO Internet treaties. Moreover, the provisions would pave the way for a globalized three-strikes and you're out system, as ISP safe harbours would be premised on policies to terminate subscribers in appropriate circumstances.

It is worth highlighting the ongoing criminal provisions as well. As previously leaked, the U.S. and Japan supplied the initial text for this chapter. Their proposal included:

* extend criminal enforcement to both (1) cases of a commercial nature; and (2) cases involving significant willful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain. In other words, non-commercial infringement could lead to criminal penalties
* each country would be required to establish a laundry list of penalties - including imprisonment - sufficient to deter future acts of infringement. The specific proposed language was "include sentences of imprisonment as well as monetary fines sufficiently high to provide a deterrent to future acts of infringement, consistent with a policy of removing the monetary incentive of the infringer."
* trafficking in fake packaging for movies or music would become a criminal act.

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Eat shit and die ACTA!!!

Edit: Further reading

[mountain_rage]

I posted this yesterday, but its quite ridiculous. Some people are even questioning if its legal to pass that type of law in Canada. Either way I hope this gets media coverage, although it probably won't due to conflict of interest for networks.

[DrewWilson]

I've noticed that the media has been missing a lot of obviously hot stories while droning on and on endlessly about the horribly overblown story of swine flu.

They've missed the Montebello story, the surveillance story and they'll no doubt miss this one as well. Swine flu has been a heck of a cover to quickly erase a few more rights out from under Canadian noses.

I confirmed my suspicions with someone I know that it seems to be an effort to make the world governments responsible for file-sharing lawsuits.

[DrewWilson]

Howard Knopf is saying that Canada should walk away from the table:

If all or indeed any substantial portion of the rumours about ACTA (three strikes +, DMCA +, WIPO+, border searches of iPods, cell phone etc, for MP3s, etc.) are true, and if Canada goes along with this "agreement", then Canada will forfeit its sovereignly to determine its own IP policy. For starters, this summer's mammoth copyright consulation will have been for nothing.

So if there is substantial truth to these rumours, then Canada needs to seriously consider walking away from this secret treaty/agreement process. Maybe sooner rather than later.

We know that there is unprecedented secrecy over this process. Neither the WTO nor WIPO ever worked this way. There is no reason or justification for this. Absolutely none other than industry induced secrecy. You can be sure that the RIAA and MPAA know exactly what is going on here.

We know that Canada has very limited ability to influence the Americans. As Trudeau said, when a mouse gets in bed with an elephant, it is the mouse that needs to worry about being rolled over.

Canada has long since lost much if not most of its honest broker status in international IP and other diplomatic circles. We likely don't have the clout any more to stand up to the Americans in a negotiating room or to broker some more moderate IP arrangement. If we really think we can do that, maybe we should remain at the ACTA table for a while. But if we can't, maybe we should just walk away. And maybe sooner rather than later.

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I think a lot of what was said is true. ACTA is not in the national interest of Canada. ACTA isn't even legal in Canada and has no legal basis. ACTA simply cannot be enforced unless the Canadian government plans to arrest and jail 90% of the population (God help the party who is in power if that happens). ACTA has been bordering on being an act of criminality from the beginning because of the secrecy alone on the international stage. No one save for people who value money more than human life would support this unless they are insane. It's a political nightmare to even think about supporting such a thing. It will simply fail to even put a dent in the activities it pledges to stop. It's a failure from beginning to end and no real paper or draft or note was ever released.