Archive for the ‘ACTA’ category

The speech from the throne: a digital strategy and IP reform

March 4th, 2010

Yesterday’s Speech from the Throne  gives us an insight into the Government’s legislative plans. Many of the initiatives in the throne speech are clearly needed to help bring Canada into the 21st century and to address the threats and opportunities that face us as Canadians and as citizens of a larger world community.

The Government placed significant emphasis on implementing new measures for success in the modern economy and in particular, for building the jobs and industries of the future. As the Government pointed out, we face new challenges, determined new competitors, and are in a “relentless pace of technology” change. We as Canadian “must keep step as the world races forward”.

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, E-commerce, Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA), Piracy

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A reply to ACTA critics

February 2nd, 2010

Last week was another busy week for developments in ACTA. There were meetings in Mexico by representatives from Canada and its key trading partners to further flesh out how to address the worldwide problems with counterfeiting and piracy. Meanwhile, anti-copyright critics were busy filling the blogosphere and press attacking the proposed treaty.

Of course, the actual text of the treaty is not know by the public. So commentators have relied on their interpretations of leaked documents to try and derail it.

When the criticisms are examined, it will be readily apparent that certain ACTA critics misapprehend what has been disclosed and make assertions or reach conclusions that cannot be justified based on the leaked documents. 

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, Counterfeiting, ISP Liability, Piracy, TPMs, Three Strikes

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Dr. Ficsor: An invitation to Canada to join the international community by ratifying the WIPO Internet Treaties

December 21st, 2009

Geneva, December 21, 2009: An invitation – presented to Canada to join the international community by ratifying and duly implementing the WIPO “Internet Treaties” – that should not be turn down

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, Piracy, TPMs, WIPO Treaties

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Getting the straight goods on ACTA, check your sources

November 28th, 2009

There has been a lot written about what ACTA might finally look like. A good deal of it is intended to tarnish ACTA based on misleading interpretions of what is currently known. I discussed this in a recent post, Fear Mongering and Misinformation Used to Slag ACTA.

Another recent blog posting, Talking About Nerd Stuff: RE: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, reviewed some of the anti-ACTA hype and came to the correct conclusion that simply relying on secondary and tertiary summaries of ACTA would give people a mistaken view about what is really known about the treaty. According to the blog:

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, Graduated Response, Three Strikes

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OECD counterfeiting report misinterpreted to support myth of Canada as a low piracy country

November 24th, 2009

On November 20th, the OECD published a report titled Magnitude of counterfeiting and piracy of tangible products – November 2009 update. The report is an update to a previous major study on counterfeiting undertaken by the OECD in 2008. The report confirms what has been known for a long time: that counterfeiting and piracy of tangible goods is a major impediment to global trade that is getting worse. The report estimates that global trade in counterfeit and pirated tangible goods more than doubled in this decade to approximately 250 billion US dollars in 2007, up from just over USD 100 billion in 2001.

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, Counterfeiting, Piracy

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Support for ACTA Urged by Over 20 Leading Organizations

November 20th, 2009

On November 19, leading American entities representing the creative industries including representatives of authors, publishers, directors, artists, photographers, and distributors wrote to Chairman Patrick Leahy, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee as well as to ranking members of various Senate and House Committees to express their strong support for ACTA.

The letter summarizes some of the reasons why ACTA is important. Here are some extracts from the letter, which are equally applicable to Canada:

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, Counterfeiting, Piracy

MPAA ACTA Letter to Chairman Leahy

November 20th, 2009

MPAA letter re ACTA

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright

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MAGNITUDE OF COUNTERFEITING AND PIRACY OF TANGIBLE PRODUCTS

November 19th, 2009

The OECD just published an update on the magniture of counterfeiting and piracy of tangible products. The report, Magnitude of Counterfeiting and Piracy of Tangible Products-An Update, is a useful reminder of the problem and reinforces the need for a global agreement like ACTA to address the problem.

An 2008 OECD study concluded that international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods could have accounted for up to USD 200 billion in 2005. The updated estimates, based on the growth and changing composition of trade between 2005 and 2007, suggests that counterfeit and pirated goods in international trade grew steadily over the period 2000 – 2007 and could amount to up to USD 250 billion in 2007.

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Posted in ACTA, Counterfeiting, Piracy

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Fear Mongering and Misinformation Used to Slag ACTA

November 18th, 2009

Last week saw a lot of digital ink spilled over speculation about what the Internet Chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is going to contain.  Some opponents of ACTA including Prof. Geist helped to leak the contents of a two page confidential memorandum that contained a written account of an oral report on what was still being negotiated.[i] 

Based on this two page preliminary document, ACTA opponents began a frenzied propaganda campaign against ACTA.  Prof. Geist led the feverish attack writing articles, blogs, tweets, giving a speech in Washington, and press and radio interviews.[ii] 

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, Counterfeiting, Graduated Response, Piracy, TPMs, Three Strikes

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Rhetoric exaggerates ACTA leaked negotiations text

November 9th, 2009

Last week bloggers including Michael Geist went hysterical over the “leaked” ACTA memorandum telling the public that it mandated “three strikes” with Internet disconnection based on merely three unproven allegations of online file sharing, among other things.

Turns out that the summary of the text was inaccurate. Further, other bloggers have pointed out that to a large extent the proposed provisions discussed in the leaked memo reflects  existing, international norms for copyright protection in the EU, US and our other trading partners.

For example, Kim Walker, a partner with Pinsent Masons, who specializes in intellectual property law wrote a blog “Don’t panic over the secret copyright treaty” http://www.out-law.com/page-10507. She noted that:

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright

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