От: ACTA е приета (вдъхновител на SOPA)
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RE: Acta
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:35 PM
From:
"ALBRECHT Jan Philipp" <
[email protected]>
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To:
"ALBRECHT Jan Philipp" <
[email protected]>
(see german version below)
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Dear Sir or Madam,
thanks a lot for your mail and for voicing the concerns about ACTA, which we fully share!
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would indeed strengthen intellectual proprety rights holders' means for privatised policing, while protections for users are not adequately enforced. It would introduce voluntary cooperation between internet access providers and rights holders, creating a danger of French-like "3-strikes" penalties even without due judicial process. Even the European Court of Justice in its ruling of 24 November 2011 said that blocking or filtering internet acces is not an appropriate measure for fighting copyright violations. ACTA would also impose civil damages for file-sharing that are disproportionate, because they may be only based on the retail value of shared files, without any assessment of the real loss in sales. ACTA also will make access to generical pharmaceuticals more difficult for developing countries if they are shipped through harbours of ACTA signatories such as Europe or the United States.
ACTA was only started because some industrialised countries could not continue their IPR enforcement agenda in legitimate multilateral organisations such as WIPO or WTO anymore, because of resistance by developing countries and emerging economies. So they moved towards closed-door secret negotiations with a coalition of the willing. ACTA negotiation documents have still not been made public, and the draft negotiation texts have only been released after heavy pressure from the European Parliament.
Greens/EFA in the European Parliament have been fighting this dangerous agreement for the last two years. We commissioned two studies on its impact on fundamental rights and on access to medicine, which clearly show the dangers of ACTA. We have worked closely with the NGO and activist community, and we have taken the necessary steps to clarify how ACTA can be sent to the European Court of Justice. You can find all information about our activities at <
http://en.act-on-acta.eu>.
Now that the EU Council presidency and a number of member states have signed the agreement, the European Parliament will start dealing with the ACTA ratification procedure. Most crucial will be the committees LIBE (civil liberties), JURI (legal affairs) and INTA (international trade - leading committee on ACTA).
If you want to help, we suggest you contact especially liberal (ALDE) and social-democrat (S&D) MEPs in these committees, as it is not clear yet how these political groups will vote in the end. Your request to them can make a real difference. Thanks for your help!
More information:
* Greens/EFA press release on the signing of ACTA:
http://www.greens-efa.eu/anti-counterfeiting-trade-agreement-acta-5089.html
* Position of European intellectual property professors on ACTA ("Hannover Opinion"): <
http://www.iri.uni-hannover.de/tl_files/pdf/ACTA_opinion_200111_2.pdf>
* Studies on ACTA commissioned by Greens/EFA:
* ACTA and Access to Medicines, <
http://rfc.act-on-acta.eu/access-to-medicines>
* Compatibility ACTA with the European Convention on Human Rights & the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, <
http://rfc.act-on-acta.eu/fundamental-rights>
* Mexican Senate urged its government not to sign ACTA, <
http://www.senado.gob.mx/index.php?id=9376&lg=61&mn=2&sm=2&ver=sp>
* FFII blog on ACTA: <
http://acta.ffii.org/>
* ACTA text: <
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/147937.htm>
Best regards,
Clara Fecke