ACTA treaty ‘dead in the water’

[Jazzy]

The European Parliament will effectively kill off the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the treaty’s rapporteur tells The Telegraph.

Members of the Polish parliament wore 'Anonymous' masks to protest against the ACTA bill



David Martin MEP said that the controversial treaty was likely to be rejected by the Parliament in July, and that new measures to deter music, film and software piracy were likely to take two years before they came into force.

Mr Martin stepped in to become the Treaty’s rapporteur in the European parliament after the resignation of Kader Arif, who condemned the process of secret talks.



Mr Martin said that the treaty would not effectively tackle online piracy and that he would be recommending Parliament reject it. He added, however, that the debate, which involved riots in some capitals, had become “unnecessarily hysterical”. He claimed the treaty “never seriously proposed” a divisive “three-strikes and you’re out” policy of disconnecting pirates from the web and that it would never, as was reported, have meant searching people’s iPod at border controls.



“The case for stronger inteleectual property defence is very clear,” said Mr Martin. “But the atmosphere was wrong, with negotiations done behind closed doors without any real information coming out afterwards. What’s emerged is a thin text with insufficient detail, which appears to put duties on internet service providers to act as internet policemen.” It made no attempt to define, he said, for instance between “commercial” and “personal” downloading.



Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9203093/ACTA-treaty-dead-in-the-water.html



Question: Do you agree that the ACTA treaty should be rejected? Why or why not.

 

[The Dragon Master]

Isn't the ACTA treaty like the recent-treaty-in-which-I-have-forgotten-what-it's-called? If it is, then it's a good thing it's been killed off, the internet community as a majority don't want it to be censored. Too much of that happens in press and such...

 

[Evil Eye]

I do agree it should be rejected.

The internet is the biggest open medium in the world. Don't touch it.

the recent-treaty-in-which-I-have-forgotten-what-it's-called

SOPA?