[A2k] ACTING AGAINST ACTA

Mon Jun 2 12:34:07 2008

Alan and all,

  I hear your plea.  ACTA is intent on setting a standard
for methods of protecting IP.  It is difficult to protect
against piracy of IP on the Internet, especially copywrite.

  Frankly to a degree the approach ACTA is taking, IMO
is not one that will be largely successful and will also
cause a degree of confusion amongst consumers, especially
Internet users on a global scale.  But the IP owners in
some circles are fed up with being ripped off in their
opinion.  Most of the IP piracy problems stem from
the fact that most IP owners don't take proper security
measures, if any at all, to protect their IP and than
want government assistance with public money, to protect
their IP.  That's not a government function, but in
my country as the lanham Act articulates, protection of
IP in Trademark and copyright is the responsibility of
the IP holder/owner, not government.

  As the brick and mortar world merged and is merging with
the Internet, it hasn't and didn't take into account the
breadth of access by consumers and their desire to get
whatever they can, that they want or need for free. And so
the idea of ACTA and TRIPS were borne. ACTA is attempting
to extend additional protections above and beyond existing
IP law that some believe did not and does not take into
account the Internet. I personally am not sure if such
extra protections that ACTA seeks to provide are in the
best interest of consumers or industry.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Alan Story <A.C.Story@kent.ac.uk>
>Sent: May 30, 2008 12:36 PM
>To: a2k@lists.essential.org
>Cc: A.C.Story@kent.ac.uk
>Subject: [A2k] ACTING AGAINST ACTA
>
>ACTING AGAINST ACTA
>
>30 May
>
>As more details about the proposed ACTA pact continue to dribble out, the
>responses printed on this list, in IP Watch, and elsewhere rather miss the
>main point, in my view.
>
>For at least the past five years, copyright and patent owners and their
>representatives in the halls of power, whether in Washington or London or
>other rich IP-exporting countries, have used the term and concept of
>=C2=93piracy=C2=94 to capture the international agenda in our field.
>
>In copyright, for example, where do we read about how copyright blocks
>access to books or leads to ever greater commodification and sameness in
>our culture? Instead, we are regularly carpet-bombed by the latest
>revelation, accompanied by statistically unreliable surveys, as to how
>piracy is, one week, killing the music industry, and the next week, the
>film industry. Lock =C2=91em up, cut off their Internet access forever, pi=
racy
>funds terrorist cells: the articles never cease in this steady drip after
>drip.
>
>It is certainly working. When I was recently in Goa and told a Canadian
>that I was doing some research on copyright, the first words out of his
>mouth were: =C2=93yes, piracy is bad in India.=C2=94
>
>Unchallenged about the fundamentals of this story, the architects of ACTA
>are now moving in for the =C2=93legal kill=C2=94 and, according to one US =
trade
>official, =C2=93the United States will strive to complete the agreement be=
fore
>the end of 2008.=C2=94 (As a colleague and I joked sadly last week, ACTA i=
s not
>TRIPS PLUS, nor TRIPS PLUS PLUS, but rather TRIPS SQUARED.)
>
>Yet again, the responses from many NGOs and legal observers simply
>question the ACTA-making process, but never the substantive issues at
>stake.
>
>Does ACTA define the term =C2=93piracy=C2=94 properly, asks one. (If it do=
es,
>presumably that=C2=92s okay then.)The ACTA negotiations are not transparen=
t
>enough, suggests another. WIPO and the WTO are already doing a fine job
>fighting piracy, why do we need more piracy police? a third questions.
>
>But what about the fundamentals of the issue? Never a word of challenge on
>the basics is uttered, never a counter analysis is given.
>
>Buying into this shameful piracy rhetoric or responding defensively or
>talking solely about the process will get us nowhere, except for a few
>more flights to Geneva. And it is exactly how those who have captured the
>copyright and patent agenda want us to respond.
>
>Instead, what we need more voices which directly challenge and
>contextualise ACTA=C2=92s  piracy discourse. Read, for example, the words =
of my
>friend Roberto Verzola of the Philippines (as quoted on page 73 of the
>Copy/South Dossier: www.copysouth.org)
>
>=C2=93If it is a sin for the poor to steal from the rich, it must be a muc=
h
>bigger sin for the rich to steal from the poor. Don=C2=92t rich countries
>pirate poor countries=C2=92 best scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses an=
d
>programmers? When global corporations come to operate in the Philippines,
>don=C2=92t they pirate the best people from local firms? If it is bad for =
poor
>countries like ours to pirate the intellectual property of rich countries,
>isn=C2=92t it a lot worse for rich countries like the US to pirate our
>intellectuals?
>
>In fact, we are benign enough to take only a copy, leaving the original
>behind; rich countries are so greedy that they take away the originals,
>leaving nothing behind.=C2=94
>
>Alan Story
>
>
>
>
>Alan Story
>Senior Lecturer, Intellectual Property Law
>Kent Law School
>University of Kent
>Canterbury Kent
>United Kingdom      CT2 7NS
>acs3@kent.ac.uk
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>A2k mailing list
>A2k@lists.essential.org
>http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k

Regards,

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