A FEW months ago, despite widespread, growing protests, it looked likely that the Anti Counterfeit Trading Act (Acta) – a kind of international sibling of the US’s failed and highly controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) – would get substantial global ratification. Now, the outcome seems less sure.
Eight countries, including the US and Canada, have already signed the act, which aims to tackle the problem of counterfeit sales and the violation of the legal rights of intellectual property holders trying to protect their products and brands. Opponents argue that this would give a green flag to many of the detested elements of Sopa.
Because of this, and due to its introduction around the same time as worldwide internet protests galvanised around Sopa, a similar, if more diluted, opposition campaign formed around Acta. Ironically, although opposition to US-based Sopa drew great strength from international outrage, it seems Acta, although an international proposal, has had a harder time harnessing quite the same level of co-ordinated criticism.
That is not to say there has not been concerted campaigning to topple Acta, and in some regions, approval remains questionable. The most significant is the European Union.
In February, the European Commission’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy for the committee on international trade advised that the European Parliament reject the agreement.
Although the committee noted in a draft opinion that it welcomed the general aims of Acta, it said the act created an unwieldy and onerous “one-size-fits-all instrument of enforcement” that “creates legal uncertainty for European companies and in particular SMEs, technology users, online platform and internet service providers”. Now, a leaked working document from the G8 suggests that perhaps, these core countries and economies are now questioning the workability of Acta.
The document, which has been seen by The Irish Times and is now posted to the European Digital Rights website ( edri.org), echoes the areas of concern for Acta – counterfeit goods and intellectual property – but is far milder in its suggestions of ways in which the G8 countries could address the problem.
The document, A Non-Paper on Intellectual Property Rights Protection, describes three areas – counterfeiting and piracy, securing a global supply chain and promoting safe pharmaceutical drug safety – in which the G8 countries could co-ordinate what, on face value, looks to be quite a less onerous approach to counterfeiting than is contained in Acta.
Only once does it mention Acta, and that is to note that it only deals with importers and exporters of counterfeit goods whereas the G8 should also include trans-shippers. The brief document only considers counterfeit physical goods, with digital goods not mentioned at all.
So, is this truly an about-face, a change in approach after Sopa and an intention to deal with narrower issues in a more focused way rather than Acta’s “one-size-fits-all” approach? Or is this a fragment of some bigger G8 plan to consider ways of supporting Acta?
EDRI head Joe McNamee thinks it is the former, recognising that the EU is, in his belief, “likely” now to reject Acta, making it unfeasible as a global initiative. “The document appears to recognise that the European Parliament is left with no option other than to reject Acta,” he says. “By being more focused and concentrating more on dangerous counterfeit products, it appears to be consciously trying to learn from the mistakes of the counterproductive inconsistencies in Acta.”
Not that he’s entirely happy with the overall thrust of the G8 document either. “On the other hand, the attempt to deputise internet companies, albeit in a narrower way, into policing roles is very, very unwelcome, as is the ongoing misguided approach of the EU and US creating strategies with the aim of foisting them on to the rest of the world.”
But still – is this really an Acta backdown? I would like to think sanity has prevailed and that it is, but I don’t think it is clear yet what the parliament will do. The EU already signed Acta in January in Japan, although it has not been ratified, and both the European Commission (which supports it) and parliament have to approve it.
Given that seven of the G8 were original Acta signatories, it does seems odd, as McNamee argues, that they would draw up their own somewhat different document. But what is it – and what about Acta? There is only one certainty: a lot more politicking is going to happen before we’re any the wiser.
