Thursday, October 21, 2010

European Parliament finally debates Acta piracy treaty

European Parliament finally debates Acta piracy treaty ; After two and a half years of requests from member states and campaigners, last night’s final session at the European Parliament was scheduled to debate the controversial Anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (Acta) treaty. Negotiated in secret, the treaty could precipitate the imposition of a new range of rules on computer software piracy and sharing. Opponents say it will limit free speech, while the music industry claims it is essential if their business is to remain viable.

The debate was scheduled for the last session, between 9pm and midnight. A number of MEPs have previously taken a strong line against Acta, and Kader Arif, an MEP has already reiterated that the Parliament's opinion must be taken into account, even if that means that Acta has to be re-negotiated.

Carl Schlyter, an MEP from the Greens/EFA, has also sought an expert opinion on Acta from the Article 29 Data Protection Working Group, an independent EU advisory body. He challenges whether ACTA is even compliant with the Maastricht Treaty. This is in addition to politicians from America and Mexico voicing their own concerns, and requesting legal reviews. The Mexican Senate voted to withdraw the country entirely from ACTA negotiations.

Pressure organisation, the Open Rights Group, is also concerned that the US and EU will “encourage” other countries to agree to ACTA provisions in return, for example, for access to US or EU domestic markets. “Arguably this coerces developing countries into implementing legislation that is wholly inappropriate for them and in which they had little, if any, say”, claimed the group.

Although the Acta negotiations have been secretive, a full text has been leaked at various stages of the process and an official version has already been released by the EU. However, much information on specific country’s positions is still not known.

Campaigners have been lobbying for the negotiations, only some of which are concerned with online piracy, to become more transparent.

Rumours had spread across the internet that the talks were discussing searching individual MP3 players at border crossings to look for pirated material. In a statement released with one version of the text, the EU confirmed that this was not the case.

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