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Divisions Between US and EU Begin to Appear Over ACTA

A recent issue of Inside US Trade featured a detailed report (sub required) on the European Union positions in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations.  The article cites comments from Pedro Velasco Martins, an EU official involved in the ACTA negotiations and points to several areas of disagreement:

  1. The scope of ACTA coverage.  The Europeans would like to extend ACTA to patents.  Canadian officials are known to want to limit it to copyright and trademark.
  2. Anti-camcording provisions.  The Europeans are not supportive of a specific anti-camcording provisions.  The U.S. obviously is and pressured Canada to enact such a provision in 2007.
  3. Dispute Resolution.  The Europeans prefer a "peer review" approach to review compliance.  Other countries are known to support a judicial process complete with penalties for non-compliance.
  4. Internet provisions.  The Europeans are not prepared to go beyond existing EU law of any Internet provisions.  This potential makes the European Parliament's support to block a three strikes system important.

These divisions point to the value of more countries entering into the negotiations as that will provide a greater diversity of views at the table.

One Comment

  1. Bigger fish coming perhaps
    Hi Michael, appreciate the information you provide on copy right issues. Starting to see laws in EU countries, for example Sweden, that dictate saving web traffic. Getting a bit concerned about what will be saved and how that information can be used combined with powerful data analysis tools. I hope it creates a debate if this trend comes to Canada.