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A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL treaty aimed at curbing the trade of counterfeit goods now looks to be all but abandoned, after the European Commission abandoned a request that the European Court of Justice examine whether it was legal.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which had prompted international outcry when news of its impending signature emerged earlier this year, after internet users raised concerns that the treaty would impact on online privacy and freedom of expression.
The treaty would have required internet service providers to disclose a user’s details to a copyright holder, in cases where the latter had a sufficient claim that their copyright was being abused.
It also would have required countries to bring in laws banning the use of measures to circumvent copyright, such as internet proxy servers, or mechanisms to remove copyright protections on files like MP3s.
Others had raised fears that the treaty’s aims of clamping down on the real-world trade of counterfeit goods, and the reinforcement of copyright rights, could mean generic equivalents of brand-name drugs could be declared illegal.
Ireland and 24 other European Union countries, as well as the EU itself, signed the treaty in January. However, the treaty could not take effect until it was ratified by each country’s parliament, and first by the European Parliament.
The European Parliament overwhelmingly defeated the treaty in a vote in July, though the European Commission said it would consider asking for another vote after it sought the European Court of Justice’s ruling on whether the treaty was compatible with the EU’s own founding treaties.
This request has now been abandoned – meaning that the treaty cannot take effect on an EU-wide basis, and is therefore unlikely to be adopted by individual countries.
While member states are still free to adopt the treaty themselves, the lack of any EU-wide consensus on the treaty will mean such deals are unlikely – and will also make the treaty largely unenforceable for other countries, such as the US and Japan, where it was also due to be ratified.
The president of the European Parliament’s socialist group, Hannes Swoboda, said it was “about time” that the Commission abandoned its hopes to ratify ACTA.
“It was the best decision, because the European Parliament’s vote last July had already made it a dead end for ACTA,” he said.
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Stick that in your pipe Sherlock.
I understand he has a list of 260 websites to be blocked based on his own introduced statutory instrument.
Sean, do you have a link to the list of websites to be blocked? Would be very interested to see this.
It’s not Sherlock’s list – it’s a list compiled by record companies who are going to court to try and get blocking orders.
We’ve asked for a copy of the list and will put it up if we can get hold of it.
It may not be his creation Gavan but it’ll forever be his list as far as i’m concerned. He let the censors in because he was too stupid to understand the consequences of his actions. The question is, will those targeted get a chance to defend themselves in court.
100% correct SB. I spoke to Sherlock about it before the changes were signed into law. He had zero ability to understand the deeper impact and consequences of censoring parts of the internet to appease the music industry. Just doing as he was told. That list of 260 websites will grow and grow as alternate mirror websites appear. It’s the wrong approach to tackle piracy. Improving the delivery channels for music sales online would have been the correct approach.
Sean hasn’t a clue, he stands for nothing. Labour leadership stand for nothing. The few that lost the whip will hopefully get rewarded for having core values in next election. Control of Internet will come up again as the World Government agenda is getting far more exposure than they want. Agenda21, Monsanto, federal reserve, many people are now connecting the dots.
Good riddance to a ham fisted, bludgeon approach drafted by people with no clue.
Excellent decision by European Parliament to spike this attempt to put corporate interests first over citizens interests on the web. Another example of why the European Parliament counts.
A pity that the national parliaments and Governments did not take a similar stand. Hats off to the European Parliament!
Agreed Alan … there’s a tendency for some ministers to spend too much time listening to their officials and industry lobbyists and not enough time listening to the rest of us.
A key difference between the European Parliament and the national ones is the absense of a dominent executive branch imposing itself on parliament.
Possibly, but that brings its own problems when it comes to the need for co-ordinated, sustained and swift responses to economic, social and political crises. One thing I’ve noticed is that because of the physical and political distance between the European Parliament and the home patches of MEPs the enfeebling curse of localism is much less evident. Not entirely gone, but less evident and the quality of debates and legislation are much improved as a consequenece.
Hmm… you could be right on the localism angle there Des. Certainly our own electoral system only serves to encourage localism and is not helpful to the quality of governance.
As for “co-ordinated, sustained and swift responses to economic, social and political crises” being enabled by the executive dominating the legislative branch: we can certainly see the evidence of this in Ireland, one of the weakest parliaments in the EU, where it has only taken 20 years to deal with the X case. Imagine how long we could have taken otherwise.
And here I thought EVERY elected official was in favour of neo-Liberal pro-Corporate measures that benefit big business at the cost of the people.
Guess that’s just our ones.
so what does this mean for sherlocks statutory instrument. Does it stay in effect?
Does this affect the ridiculous eircom block of piratebay etc that anyone with half a mind can bypass?
As far as I can see we still live in a nanny state and censorship is still the name of the game.
It doesn’t affect the SI, but does mean that Ireland is now at a competitive disavantage with other European countries which do not seek to place corporate interests before the interests of their online citizens.
Doesn’t matter. They will just censor the Internet instead. Why is there no mention of the list of 260 websites that the music industry are going to the irish courts with?
The list used to be 250 , then 10 websites posted the list
What the idiotic record companies don’t realize is they CANNOT stop piracy! No matter what they do, a new system will be developed to circumvent it.
The only way to reduce piracy is to change their business model to the likes of Spotify and Netflix. With Spotify, you pay €10 a month and have pretty much unlimited music, yet one popular song on itunes et al cost €1.29, stupid business model!
Not a bad model, per se. Just bad if you’re the consumer who chooses to use it.
But each has its merits. Spotify is WAY cheaper per song, but you never own it outright. Stop subscribing and you have nothing.
Still, I prefer spotify, and it really irritates me how many labels are still hesitant about it.
The key to reducing piracy is in the labels and studios recognising that consumers want unlimited access, but will only pay a limited price. Which works, because me listening to a hundred albums on spotify doesn’t mean that pre-internet piracy I would have bought them all (obviously not).
and now for Sherlocks SI to be withdrawn and reworded!
Hooray, thank goodness. :)
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