ACTA Rapporteur's Recommendations: Reject Treaty, But Ask European Commission To Come Up With Replacement
from the not-quite-what-we-hoped-for dept
Last week, the EU Rapporteur on ACTA, David Martin, announced he would recommend that the European Parliament reject the treaty. He has now made good on that promise in his report, available in draft form (pdf):
The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties. Given the vagueness of certain aspects of the text and the uncertainty over its interpretation, the European Parliament cannot guarantee adequate protection for citizens' rights in the future under ACTA.
It's interesting to note the main areas of ACTA that he found unsatisfactory:
Your rapporteur therefore recommends that the European Parliament declines to give consent to ACTA. Unintended consequences of the ACTA text is a serious concern. On individual criminalisation, the definition of "commercial-scale", the role of internet service providers and the possible interruption of the transit of generic medicines, your rapporteur maintains doubts that the ACTA text is as precise as is necessary.
However, Martin does not have a problem with the underlying idea of ACTA:
The problems which ACTA seeks to address are real and growing. Counterfeiting and piracy have increased substantially and continue to do so. The consequences of the growth in these illegal activities range from economic losses to health and safety dangers. The European Union has much to lose without efficient and enforced global coordination in copyright protection.
As a result, he concludes as follows:
Following the expected revision of relevant EU directives, your rapporteur hopes the European Commission will therefore come forward with new proposals for protecting IP.
This seems to be a reference to the imminent revision of IPRED ("intellectual property rights enforcement directive"). The European Commission has already published what it calls its "indicative roadmap" (pdf) for IPRED, so it's clear that it is working on a new proposal. Martin's closing comment suggests that it may get an easier ride through the European Parliament than ACTA, which could encourage the Commission to incorporate some of ACTA's ideas in IPRED 2 -- before moving on to ACTA 2.0.
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Filed Under: acta, david martin, eu rapporteur, europe, ipred
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Martin leave the Internet ALONE!
As governments receive more powers they can abuse citizen's data. As a result Martin should introduce a treaty that preserves the privacy of netizens. Besides his focus should be focusing on TPP not ACTA since TPP is way worse than ACTA. The ambiguous wording behind TPP will enable democracies to become absolute dictators. Hence hired thugs will abuse all power and allow for fabricated piracy cases to win favor from corporations. As a result, there is no need for another data burning and a third Holocaust like event. Corporations and creators do not treat us like online-Jews, otherwise shrapnel will fly on peaceful city blocks. Megaupload and Kim Dotcom sacrificed their website in the hopes that someday that the Internet liberation will occur. For this reason, MPAA and other similar groups must stop degrading Internet users and leave us alone!
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Re: Martin leave the Internet ALONE!
/s
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If it was just because "it' easier" then why does "everybody does it"? Surely that should show how much lack of respect there is for copyright, trademarks and IP in general. Maybe it's time to chnge the laws to match ociety.
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Does it include restricting copy protection privileges to a maximum possible and reasonable lengths (and retroactively shortening any length longer)?
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i dont understand how they get to set international law
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not out of any interest in the public's opinion, but because they've found they get more of what they want, and beheaded in messy revolts less, if they take it slow and sneaky.
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