News

Official ACTA Responses Begin To Mount

As public outrage over ACTA mounts, there have been a series of official responses to questions posed by legislators or raised through access to information requests.  In addition to yesterday's statement from International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan's office confirming Canada's support of release of the ACTA text, recent documents or statements include:

  • David Lammy, United Kingdom Minister for Intellectual Property, has confirmed his support for ACTA transparency: “The UK has long been in favour of greater transparency in the ACTA negotiations, so I am very pleased that EU has now agreed that the draft ACTA text should be placed in the public domain as soon as possible. This would allow much more open and informed engagement with citizens, society, and parliaments.
  • Several NZ documents have been released under Access to Information.  They include documents outlining which organizations have been consulted and disclose that the New Zealand government was initially interested in using ACTA to cover traditional knowledge such as Maori culture.
  • A European Commission response to MEP Alexander Alvaro's questions on ACTA that focuses on cross-border copyright enforcement.
  • A lengthy letter from the Dutch Ministers of Economic Affairs and of Justice to the Dutch Parliament on ACTA, addressing transparency and the legal competence of the EU and its Member States to enter into the agreement.

4 Comments

  1. Doug Blades says:

    Citizen
    How do I find out what the impact of ACTA is going to be on my use of Open Source Software, such as LINIX and Open Office?

    Who Do I write to demand more open discussion around this initiative, which appears to be another attempt to railroad governments into hurting their citizens?

  2. Impact on Free Software
    The impact on free software is obvious:

    http://stopsoftwarepatents.org/forum/t-101929/acta-fuel-for-patent-trolls

  3. This is a bit off topic but there is an absolute must read story on the Viacom / youtube spat up on Arstechnica. Both sides stink to high heaven in this. But it sure shows you how the fight really isn’t the one sided we’ve been done wrong story the MPAA/RIAA/CRIA make these things out to be.

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/smoking-guns-dark-secrets-spilled-in-youtube-viacom-filings.ars

  4. pat donovan says:

    grunt
    a golbal commision..

    where the capacity to commit a crime is proof of guilt
    (seed cleaning, sex registry, p2p)

    they won’t need terrorists, little green men from mars or pandemics to create the NWO
    they have cd’s.
    packrat