Secret International Copyright Treaty Delayed

22 Dec 2008 at 13:29:54 by

In a bid to fight piracy, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been working on a secret copyright treaty that will make it more difficult to counterfeit everything from videogames to music.

ACTA is currently being negotiated by the US, Canada, the European Community, Switzerland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

Working in close conjunction with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the treaty is being handled in private and in secret, with some groups concerned about implementing law across the globe without being privy to discussions.

President of the Entertainment Consumer Associate (ECA), Hal Halpin, has already expressed concerns about ACTA (via GamePolotics), claiming the talks might cause “unforeseen negative implications in US law.”

Although the discussions will be placed on hold until president-elect, Barack Obama, is inaugaurated, Halpin still feels talks must not undermine the US law.

“[The ECA] together with the Consumer Electronics Association, the US Internet Industry Association, Intel, Yahoo, Verizon and others, sent a memo asking the [U.S. Trade Representative] to carefully consider that any discussions of “Internet issues” in ACTA be carefully circumscribed, consistent with U.S. law, and not include any portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).”

Speaking to Ars Technica Art Brodsky, Public Knowledge’s communications director, one of the companies fighting to access the ACTA talks, said that talks should be transparent.

"We believe they should conduct these negotiations with some transparency for what goes on, particularly when the talks are transparent to one side and not to the other (us)," he said.

"At a minimum, we should know how the US delegation is formulating its positions and have access to what they are doing."

With talks now on hold, it won’t be until next year until we know any more about this, but we’ll keep you posted and let you know how this will bear on things such as DRM and the like.

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