International anti-counterfeit plans published

Talks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have been ongoing for two years between Europe, the US, Japan, Canada, and others.

BRUSSELS, April 21, 2010 (AFP) - The EU published on Wednesday formerly secret draft papers on an international anti-counterfeiting deal, with no sign of a controversial mooted "three-strike" ban for on-line copyright breachers.

Talks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have been ongoing for two years between Europe, the US, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and others with the aim of establishing an international framework for national efforts "to more effectively combat the proliferation of counterfeiting and piracy," with the accent on Internet fraud.

The drafters, who have much work still to do, have to perform a tricky balancing act between assuring the likes of individual music downloaders that they won't have their broadband access cut, give service providers ways of avoiding liability while still ensuring the goal of better protecting the products and ideas of intellectual property owners and reduce counterfeiting and illegal trade.

"This text shows that the overall objective of ACTA is to address large-scale infringements of intellectual property rights which have a significant economic impact. ACTA will by no means lead to a limitation of civil liberties or to "harassment of consumers," said EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht.

He assured that "specific concerns, raised in particular by the civil society, are unfounded," with none of the ACTA negotiators now proposing to introduce a compulsory "three strikes" rule under which Internet service providers would be able to terminate the connection of individuals found infringing copyrights and engaging in internet piracy.

Similarly while border control officers would, under the draft rules, be able to stop goods that infringe intellectual property rights from crossing borders "a de minimis exception... would permit travellers to bring in goods for personal use," meaning personal iPods with illegally downloaded songs on them would not be confiscated.