Big tech accountability? Read how we got here in  The Closing of the Net 

 Haddock, whiting, hake, Norwegian lobster….  What do these  harmless marine creatures   have to do with Internet copyright?

 The EU Council of Ministers  yesterday gave the go-ahead for the EU to sign the controversial Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). ACTA is effectively an international copyright treaty, paving the way for a range of Internet blocking measures against allegedly infringing material online.  The green light was given  - not by the Ministers responsible for copyright – but by those in charge of fishing fleets.

 

The decision for signing ACTA was deemed an ‘A’ point, meaning that it had been pre-agreed. It was therefore put to the next available meeting, which happened to be  the Fisheries Council. At this Fisheries Council meeting,  fishing quotas were the hotly disputed matter. The ACTA authorisation was slipped  in unnoticed beneath the never-ending  fight   between the British and the Spanish over how much cod  they can net.

The Council’s press release was notably bland: 

 The Council adopted a decision authorising the signing of an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) with Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

 But it  also  contained some fishy language, claiming that ACTA is only intended for “ actions against large-scale infringements of intellectual property.  Those words can be read two ways. To address a single infringer who has a large-scale operation. Or to address infringements which multiply on a large scale – namely the millions of small infringements, such as those  allegedly taking place over file-sharing networks.

 The Council decision document  contained  a get-out clause on criminal measures. The Council is not authorising the EU signatories to accede to the criminal measures in ACTA – that will be left  to the Member States to individually sign.

This is not however, the end of the matter. The European Parliament must give its consent before ACTA can be signed  by the EU.  The Parliament’s consent is still pending and not expected before March next year.  

 

PS. I also noted that the Fisheries Council sneaked in the authorisation of four varieties of GM food … hmmmmmm?

 

You are free to re-publish this article under a non-commercial Creative Commons licence, but you must attibute the author and put a link back to iptegrity.com. Academics – please cite this article as Monica Horten, EU Council gives fishy go-ahead for ACTAwww.iptegrity.com, 16 December 2011 . Commercial users – please contact the author.

opening.panel.kiev.2015.s.jpg

Iptegrity in brief

 

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. I’ve been analysing analysing digital policy since 2008. Way back then, I identified how issues around rights can influence Internet policy, and that has been a thread throughout all of my research. I hold a PhD in EU Communications Policy from the University of Westminster (2010), and a Post-graduate diploma in marketing.   I’ve served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe  Committee on Internet Freedoms, and was involved in a capacity building project in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. I am currently (from June 2022)  Policy Manager - Freedom of Expression, with the Open Rights Group. For more, see About Iptegrity

Iptegrity.com is made available free of charge for  non-commercial use, Please link-back & attribute Monica Horten. Thank you for respecting this.

Contact  me to use  iptegrity content for commercial purposes

 

States v the 'Net? 

Read The Closing of the Net, by me, Monica Horten.

"original and valuable"  Times higher Education

" essential read for anyone interested in understanding the forces at play behind the web." ITSecurity.co.uk

Find out more about the book here  The Closing of the Net

PAPERBACK /KINDLE

FROM £15.99

Copyright Enforcement Enigma launch, March 2012

In 2012, I presented my PhD research in the European Parliament.

The politics of copyright

A Copyright Masquerade - How corporate lobbying threatens online freedoms

'timely and provocative' Entertainment Law Review


 

Don't miss Iptegrity! Iptegrity.com  RSS/ Bookmark