Obama's transparency commitment makes secret copyright treaty public - UPDATED
Glyn sez, "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement designed to combat the 'increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works.' is considering whether to involve internet service providers (ISPs) in fighting copyright infringement. Details of the negotiations have at last been published as a result of Obama's commitment to transparency in government.Section 4: Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement in the Digital Environment This section of the agreement is intended to address some of the special challenges that new technologies pose for enforcement of intellectual property rights, such as the possible role and responsibilities of internet service providers in deterring copyright and related rights piracy over the Internet. No draft proposal has been tabled yet, as discussions are still focused on gathering information on the different national legal regimes to develop a common understandingACTA fact-sheet PDF -- US Trade Rep
(Thanks, Glyn!)
Update: Michael Geist sez, "I blogged this (partially) in response to your recent ACTA posting, which I think has an inaccurate headline and gives too much credit to Obama: 'There are many reports about the release this week of an ACTA summary document that was first made available on the USTR website. These articles suggest that this reflects new support for transparency from the Obama administration. While it may be true that the administration supports greater transparency, making that connection in this case is misleading. The document is a negotiated text between all the ACTA countries (this was made clear in the DFAIT consultation). Some countries (Canada among them) are supportive of greater transparency, others are not. It is not entirely clear where the U.S. stands. Moreover, it is not just the U.S. that made the document available - all ACTA partners are entitled to do so (the Canadian version is here). Finally, while it is not a bad document, there is still far more information available online from non-governmental sources. A commitment to transparency would mean making available actual documents including draft text and "non-papers" used as the basis for discussion.'"
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