anti-counterfeiting trade agreement

Internet service providers could become copyright cops encouraged to block access to suspected pirate Web sites, according to a previously secret draft treaty made public on Wednesday.

One section of the proposed digital copyright treaty says that immunity from lawsuits would be granted to Internet providers "disabling access" to pirated material and adopting a policy dealing with unauthorized "transmission of materials protected by copyright." If the ISPs choose not to do so, they could face legal liability.

Both the Obama administration and the Bush administration had rejected requests from civil libertarians and technologists for copies of … Read more

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was young, a technology fan, and appeared to be an establishment outsider. For those reasons some techies hoped he might be sympathetic to copyright reform.

Those hopes are fading fast as President Obama appears to have lined up on the side of copyright owners. In a speech at the Export-Import Bank's annual conference in Washington, D.C., President Obama told attendees Thursday that his administration is firmly behind producers of creative works.

"We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property," Obama said. "Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people...It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor."

The president's comments come as his administration continues to revitalize an improving but still ailing U.S. economy. They echo statements made often by leaders in the U.S. film, music, video game, and software industries. For a while these sectors have claimed piracy and Internet file sharing mean the loss of U.S. jobs and poison the economy. Critics say that the job losses are more due to poor business decisions made by the studios and music labels. … Read more

The European Parliament took aim Wednesday at a secret intellectual property treaty that has been criticized for possibly giving copyright holders more power to pull the plug on peer-to-peer users.

By a remarkable vote of 633 to 13, the Parliament rebuked European negotiators who have been drafting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in a series of confidential meetings around the globe. No version of the document has been disclosed by the participants, which include the United States, the European Commission, Japan, and Canada.

Parliament's resolution demands that the European Commission--the EU's executive branch--grant "public access" to … Read more

The European Commission has pledged to make sure a global treaty known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will not force countries to disconnect people for unlawfully downloading copyrighted music, movies, and other material.

The statement from the office of trade commissioner Karel de Gucht is the strongest comment on the treaty since the reorganized European Commission emerged in February.

"We are not supporting and will not accept that an eventual...agreement creates an obligation to disconnect people from the Internet because of illegal downloads," John Clancy, de Gucht's spokesman, told ZDNet UK on Thursday.

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After months of secrecy that has rankled public interest groups, the Obama administration is revealing limited information regarding a multilateral anti-counterfeiting treaty currently under negotiation.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Monday released a summary (PDF) of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a treaty for which negotiations began in 2006 with the aim of setting standards for the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

"We look forward to taking more steps to engage with the public in our efforts to make trade work for American families, " U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement that … Read more