EU Officially Pronounces ACTA Dead As Commission Withdraws Court Of Justice Assessment

from the pining-for-the-fjords dept

Thu, Dec 20th 2012 12:02am — Mike Masnick

In case you weren't sure yet, ACTA is now pretty officially dead in the EU. While it was mostly dead back in July, when the EU Parliament vociferously rejected ACTA, the EU Commission, who had helped negotiate the treaty, still held out hope that it would be vindicated by the EU Court of Justice. As you may recall, to try to appease those arguing against ACTA, the EU commissioner with responsibility for the treaty, Karel De Gucht, had submitted the agreement to the EU Court of Justice for a determination on whether or not it really went against EU laws, and he had insisted that even with the Parliament's rejection that he would push forward with that case.

Except... months later, the EU Commission has quietly dropped its request for the EU Court of Justice to weigh in, more or less putting that final nail in the coffin for ACTA in the EU. It's about a year late, but it appears that the EU Commission has finally realized that ACTA was a mistake for Europe.

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Filed Under: acta, dead, eu, eu commission

21 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 12:10am

Don't worry Blue you bosses know it live on in spirit in CETA
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Josef Anvil (profile), 20 Dec 2012 @ 12:29am

Please RIP
We know it's not really over, but we can hope.
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Josef Anvil (profile), 20 Dec 2012 @ 12:31am

Sorry
I was playing Call of Duty and the digital violence made me post that with no remorse.
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Beech, 20 Dec 2012 @ 1:08am

ACTA supporters say, "Screw it, we'll push worse stuff through in pieces on unrelated bills. It'll just be easier."
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 1:21am

Re: Don't worry ...
and TPP too.

ACTA, CETA and TPP look like triplets.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/ceta-replicates-acta
and
https://www.eff.org/is sues/tpp
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 1:47am

Re: Re: Don't worry ...
I found that we need one more proposal begin with G to complete the Nucleobase types(ATCG)...
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 2:28am

'the EU Commission, who had helped negotiate the treaty'

where the hell did you get the 'negotiate' bit from, then?

i hope people dont get complacent now. i wouldn't trust those fuckers in the EU Commission, de Gucht in particular, as far as i could spit! if they have dropped this, it is because they have some other hair-brained, public screwing plan in mind!
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Zakida Paul (profile), 20 Dec 2012 @ 2:37am

They will just break it down and sneak it through in unrelated Bills that appear to do some good. That is the underhanded way politics works.
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Ninja (profile), 20 Dec 2012 @ 2:37am

Major win yes but people must remain vigilant, we'll see new attempts and probably in less direct more cunning ways.
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flint (profile), 20 Dec 2012 @ 2:44am

The EU Commission is not noted for giving up gracefully.

A more plausible interpretation is that they withdrew the case rather than get a definitive judgement against them.

An explicit judgement from the EU Court against ACTA would kill it, and anything that looked like it. Leaving the case undecided leaves a door open for typically EU dodge - put a fresh coat of polish on the turd, call it something different but leave it fundamentally unchanged and pretend you listened to "the people".
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 3:39am

Funeral March (Chopin; High Audio Version)

Goodbye!
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gorehound (profile), 20 Dec 2012 @ 4:49am

Re: Sorry
Hello, I'm Commander Shepard and it is time for you to EMBRACE ETERNITY !
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Nick, 20 Dec 2012 @ 5:41am

Something better in the Pipeline
Next up, the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). It's like ACTA on steroids.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 7:14am

Re: Re: Re: Don't worry ...
Hmm, the nucleic base of genetic trade agreements?
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Mike Shore, 20 Dec 2012 @ 9:04am

Mostly dead
"There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive."
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 9:34am

U.S.?
So Obama has already signed it (despite protestations that he doesn't have the authority). So have a few other countries. Where does that leave us? Is he treaty binding on the few countries that have signed?
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Manok, 20 Dec 2012 @ 11:28am

They didn't realize it was a mistake, they realized they couldn't ram it through....
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 12:38pm

Re: Mostly dead
I guess the only thing left to do is go through its pockets and look for loose change.
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Tunnen (profile), 20 Dec 2012 @ 1:37pm

Nothing dies, it just saves itself for the zombie apocalypse.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 3:02pm

Re: U.S.?
the treaty is still alive though it takes 6 signatories to ratify before it is in effect and only Japan has done so, so far.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2012 @ 3:05pm

Re:
If you listened to the dear de Gucht after all the committees had rejected it, it was clear that at least the upcoming IPRED would hold a lot of similar language as ACTA.

The worst thing in ACTA had nothing to do with internet regulation, though. There was a specific demand for increased minimum damages in court cases. Combine that with the settlement on the new common patent offices and we are talking fertile ground for patent trolling if ACTA had gone through!
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