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The Return of the Copyright Taliban

Hildy Johnson | 06.04.2010 11:10 | Globalisation

The term Copyright Taliban has been borrowed from La Quadrature Net. Concern is growing about a new international treaty with a very broad agenda.

"Our single greatest asset is the innovation, ingenuity, and creativity of the American people. It's essential to our prosperity. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor."
Barrack Obama

Whilst much vitriol is directed at the mainstream media for it,s distortions it is also necessary to pay attention to it´s omissions- that is to say what is not regarded as news. A prominent example of this is the lack of coverage given to debates over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which represents an important new battleground of international law regarding the protection of “intellectual property rights”. For anyone familiar with the WTO Trips agreement the call for “obligations that go beyond Trips” (1) should set alarm bells ringing given that it was under Trips that farmers were sued for patent infringements because GMO seeds blew onto their land.

ACTA is being negotiated by the wealthy states (US, Canada, EU, Japan, Australia etc.) behind closed doors and outside any recognised international forum such as the WTO or the UN). The treaty presents significant threats to public health (access to generic medicines), freedom of expression, the autonomy of web users, punitive sanctions against Internet Service Providers and democratic debate in the countries concerned. For example, ISPs could be expected to disconnect “illegal” file sharers along the lines of the French 3 strikes policy, whilst there has also been talk of border searches of electronic equipment for evidence of theft at airports. On a larger scale Le Monde Diplomatique recently noted the detention in European waters by customs officials of an Indian ship transporting genetic medicines to another developing country.

A principal object of concern is the lack of access by citizens and politicians to the proposals for inclusion in ACTA, whilst industry representatives and their lobbyists have been included every step of the way. In the UK where politicians are currently discussing national legislation, a handful of MPs are miffed because they have no access to key documents emerging from the talks (2). Meanwhile in the US the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge are going to court to overturn the decision that the documents are exempt from Freedom of Information laws.
According to Public Knowledge a “leaked discussion paper seems to heavily reflect the wish lists provided in the comments from the industry groups” (3). For example the International Counterfeiting Coalition want to see a “greater use of criminal enforcement” as opposed to civil sanctions against copyright breachers.

Although threats posed to internauts and their freedom are important, the impact of the proposals concerning pharmaceutical copies and the protection of medical and other forms of knowledge upon health budgets in the Global South must also be kept in mind.

"We can only assume that the final text
could do great harm in developing countries
and undermine the balance between the
protection of intellectual property and the
need to provide affordable medicines for
poor people.”

Rohit Malpani, OXFAM, from a press
release criticising possible impact of ACTA.

“We are in danger of ending up with the
worst of both worlds, pushing IP rules,
which are very effective at stopping access
to life-saving drugs but are very bad at
stopping or preventing fake drugs.”

Michelle Childs of Médecins Sans
Frontières, Nobel Peace Prize winners, has
issued a very critical statement on ACTA. (4)

Despite claims made by ACTA negotiators that civil society groups are being included in the talks it is unclear which of them will be present among the business lobbyists at the next session of talks to be held in a weeks time (April 13) in Wellington, New Zealand. As suggested by Le Monde Diplomatique activists would be advised to wise up to this treaty and oppose it before its ratification.

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