Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement / ACTA

NOTE: This entry is not to be confused with the U.S. intellectual property bills “Stop Online Piracy Act” or “Protect Intellectual Property Act.”

Overview

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed trade agreement that aims to establish international conventions on enforcing intellectual property rights. It would establish an international legal framework for national governments to join voluntarily and create a governing body outside existing decision-making bodies such as World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations. ACTA enjoys widespread support from the producers of music, movies and a range of goods enjoying copyright protections.

Background

Initiated in 2006, the treaty proposal was drafted through a series of multi-party negotiation among governments of nations representing Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and Singapore. In addition to government officials, a committee of multinational corporations including the International Intellectual Property Alliance and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America was consulted during the negotiation process.

Described by the involved parties as a response “to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works,” ACTA would set a number of legal enforcement measures against counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the web.

Notable Developments

The negotiations took place under state secrecy, although some details of the proposed treaty have been leaked through Wikileaks and other news publications in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The first official version of the draft was published on April 20th, 2010 and November 15th, 2010 and the final text was published on April 15, 2011. A total of 8 participating nations have signed ACTA: Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco and Singapore.

Online Reaction

In June 2010, a conference held at the Washington College of Law with over 90 legal experts concluded “that the terms of the publicly released draft of ACTA threaten numerous public interests, including every concern specifically disclaimed by negotiators.” Furthermore, a group of 75 law professors signed a letter to U.S. President Obama demanding that ACTA be halted and changed. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also publicly came out against the treaty, calling for more public scrutiny of the proposal.

Poland Protests

On January 19th, 2012, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that its government would sign the treaty on January 26th. On January 23rd, it was reported that Polish-language social sites Demotywatory.pl, JoeMonster.org, Kwejk.pl, AntyWeb.pl and Wykop.pl were planning a blackout protest against the signing of ACTA, inspired by the success of Wikipedia’s partial blackout against the legislation of SOPA and PIPA. On the same day, hundreds of people opposing the signing of the treaty participated in a street demonstration in Warsaw while several popular websites voluntarily went offline or displayed statements regarding ACTA. Approximately 15,000 protestors gathered in Krakow, 5000 in Wroclaw, and thousands more scattered across other Polish cities.^[15]

Prime Minister Donald Tusk insisted that his government will not give in to the protesters and that he will sign the international agreement. “There will be no concessions to brutal blackmail,” Tusk said at a news conference. Another statement by government spokesperson Pawel Gras became a subject of parodies when he commented that the outage may have been due to increased level of interest in the targeted sites, rather than deliberate attacks.

Anonymous Retaliation

Within the next 48 hours of the announcement, a number of Polish government websites including homepages of the President, the Polish Ministry of Culture and Parliament were brought down by denial-of-service attacks. The hacktivist collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attacks in a list of targeted websites released on Pastebin, as well as messages posted via @AnonymousIRC, @AnonymousWiki and @AnonOps.

@AnonymousIRC: "’Internet censorship is wrong’ #Anonymous #ACTA,
bq. @Anonyops: “This way to the world war web. Single file, please. #SOPA #ACTA #FBI”.

Some of targeted websites were vandalized with an embedded video of a parody of Poland’s Communist-era leader Wojciech Jaruzelski’s announcement of martial law in December 1981. Hackers also claimed that the password and login to premier.gov.pl’s admin panel were admin and admin1 respectively.

Meanwhile, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley’s Twitter account was reportedly hacked by an individual claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous on January 23rd, only days after the controversial U.S. copyright bills were indefinitely shelved following massive protests. According to a message posted on Grassley’s official Twitter account:

February 11th Protests

After the successful internet blackout protests of SOPA and PIPA, the global activism group Access^[9] decided to assist Europeans in organizing both physical and virtual protests on February 11th, 2012. News of the event spread on The Next Web^[10] and Geekosystem.^[11] Access has organized Facebook events^[12] for protests in over 80 cities^[14] on a Google map, with some of these events encouraging protesters to bring signs and free candy.^[13]

On February 13th, a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic themed poster from the protests was submitted to the site My Little Brony^[21] Cheezburger website.

Budapest Protest Photo

During the protests in Budapest, Hungrary on February 11th, 2012, photos emerged of a sign printed to appear as if it were a Microsoft Windows warning held by two people wearing Guy Fawkes masks. On February 15th, 2012, a photo was submitted to the media remix site Canvas^[17] followed by several edited versions of the photo. The thread was subsequently mentioned in a post on The Daily Dot.^[20]

Signatures

ACTA began acquiring signatures on October 1st, 2011 at a signing ceremony in Tokyo, Japan.^[16] On that day, the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea each signed the treaty. On January 26th, 2011, the European Union signed the treaty, with all but five member states signing as well. The countries that were not included, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Netherlands, and Slovakia, are expected to sign it in the coming months. Though the EU as a whole has signed ACTA, it will not be enacted until a debate is held in the European Parliament, which is currently scheduled for June 2012. The final date for countries to add their signature is March 31st, 2013.

Search Interest

External References