The movie and music cartels have virtual carte blanche in Canada and the US, but the European parliament has told them it, not corporate might, holds sway, voting overwhelmingly 663 to 13 against the entertainment industry inspired Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, aka ACTA.
“This Parliament will not sit back silently while the fundamental rights of millions of citizens are being negotiated away behind closed doors”, said Stavros Lambrinidis who, with Zuzana Roithova, Alexander Alvaro and Françoise Castex, made the message clear in their earlier written declaration opposing ACTA.
“We oppose any ‘legislation laundering’ on an international level of what would be very difficult to get through most national legislatures or the European Parliament,” he said.
And “MEPs will go to the Court of Justice if the EU does not reject ACTA rules, including cutting off users from the Internet ‘gradually’ if caught stealing content”, European parliamentarians told Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Picture, says EurActiv.
MEPs can’t take part in the ACTA talks without the consent of the European Parliament, but EU negotiators will now have to “go back to the drawing board and come up with a compromise”, says the report.
If it was accepted, “The secret treaty would turn Europe into an entertainment industries’ dream region”, says The Inquirer, going on, “ISPs would become police for the music and film industries and would have to switch off whoever they suspect of filesharing that infringes copyrights.
“Europe would be forced to adopt laws like America’s DMCA, which is currently being used by the media companies as a legal tool to stifle rivals, censor the press and suppress political dissent.”
However, the victory isn’t total.
“EuroISPA, the Brussels trade body for network providers, says that recent leaks from the European Council indicate the EU is considering US proposals on combating piracy which include ‘criminal sanctions, US-style notice and take-down and monitoring of a user’s Internet traffic and services’,” says EurActiv, continuing >>>
Though EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht reassured MEPs at a debate yesterday that the EU was not considering all of the measures in the ACTA text, EuroISPA argues this contradicts the most recent leaks coming from the EU and the US.
“The Commission has provided no reassurance that it will not introduce the penalties outlined in the ACTA leaks,” Andrea d’Inneco from EuroISPA told EurActiv.
Commission officials participating in the talks have signed a non-disclosure agreement and have been reluctant to divulge much information from the talks.
A high-ranking official told EurActiv that rumours saying ACTA would rewrite rules on the liability of Internet service providers for pirated content on their networks were untrue.
EU rules, which were agreed upon after lengthy negotiations last year, say that ISPs are mere conduits of information and are not liable for pirated content if they take measures to remove that content, the official explained.
“The Commission official said this would still be the pretext of EU law and that ACTA would not alter the European safeguards”, the story adds.