anonymous
What is wrong with ACTA? This question is harder to answer than it may seem. Since it’s a trade agreement (not a law in itself) that has been under negotiation since 2006, having uncertainties about the effects of this treaty in 2012 is awkward at best. Herein rests the problem.
It was negotiated in near perfect secrecy. Apparently it began between USA and Japan. I say apparently because the first mention of ACTA came from a set of documents leaked via WikiLeaks in 2008. It took a while for people to start asking questions as those digging through the cornucopia of documents published by WikiLeaks needed time to understand what was going on. However, without details, the history of the negotiations is not much more than a blur. The chapter outline was discretely leaked in 2009 and it was only at the very end (November) of 2010 that the final draft was, again, leaked. Only at this time people started to understand the magnitude of what was being prepared in secret. Officially, ACTA was submitted by the negotiators in April 2011, time around which questions asked were met with dodgy answers that highlighted the importance of fighting counterfeit products and the idea that a treaty only builds on existing legislation without introducing new one (theoretically true, but practically countries can be coerced into introducing new legislation). At the same time it became apparent that the secrecy still prevails: the negotiators refused to disclose the exact participants, their positions and whether there was anyone to protect consumer interests. At the same time, it was (again, leaked) shown that several international companies received drafts of the treaty (after signing some NDAs): Google, eBay, Intel, Dell, News Corporation, Sony Pictures, Time Warner and Verizon. Then, all hell broke loose.
Now, anti-ACTA activists claim that the treaty is a slap in the face of democracy, consumer rights and free speech with outrageous punishments and humongous loopholes that allow abuse. On the other hand, the pro-ACTA side claims there is no new legislation needed, that fighting counterfeits is essential for the economy and that the anti-ACTA side doesn’t really understand what the treaty is about. Now we can start asking questions.
1. How does anyone really understand ACTA? If someone comes to me saying that I don’t understand ACTA, the first thing that comes to mind is: do you? It was officially disclosed in April 2011 in its entirety. Until then, aside from the people who actually worked on the document, the only other people aware of the document were hackers, public agitators and a core of protesters formed around them. Due to the secrecy, it was assured that the only people who got a peek lacked either the credibility or the right (those signing NDAs) to make an impact in the public opinion. And ACTA does contain a conundrum of a legal framework. In less than a year, I really doubt that even people with a legal background have managed to get a complete understanding of ACTA. The rest of us got enough detail to support one side or the other. We extracted the quotes that paint a bleak picture of what’s coming and that’s enough to make a stand.
2. ACTA doesn’t require any new legislation: that’s a pickle. Without a true independent body to have examined it, all we have is the word of those who wrote it. Hmmm … the same people who managed to keep this from the public scrutiny for 5 years. Even barring that, they’re not exactly the paramount of trustworthiness. And common sense demands at least one question: since the treaty specifies heavy punishments of various offences, how are those punishments enforceable without new laws? Many countries do not contain those punishments in their Penal Codes, aren’t they going to need new laws?
3. ACTA targets counterfeit trading: between counterfeit and piracy there’s a clear distinction. Digital copies of a digital product are not counterfeit, they are the original. If you do an atom-by-atom copy of a Nike shoe, it’s exactly the same shoe, with all the properties of the initial one. Fighting counterfeits means a focus on physical products, but the emphasis on this was so great that … how many producers of physical goods were made privy to the document? None. All those in the list are IT giants and conglomerates of publishers/labels that work with IP in the digital world.
4. Outcry: but the people who create stuff are even present in the debate: Funny as this seems to come from ACTA supporters. This begs the question: were any of them consulted during negotiations? I’m just asking because I only saw the names of copyright holders, but no names of people who actually create something. Funny enough, I do see names of content creators on the other side of the debate, on the anti-ACTA side. U2, Paulo Coelho, Louis CK, Randall Munroe and others are only some of the best known names to speak against ACTA. Paulo Coelho and Louis CK (as well as Larry Mullen Jr) gave their personal example on how file sharing helps them and how one can get self-published. Several e-book authors also spoke against ACTA as they felt that the treaty’s provisions will harm their reach to the public.
5. What would have happened without WikiLeaks and Anonymous ? In the first paragraph you might have counted several occurrences of the word “leak”. The very existence of ACTA was leaked to the public, drafts were leaked, contents were disseminated by hacktivists. This begs a certain question that although not very useful to the issue at hand, it is rather scary: what would have happened without these two organizations? The public opinion (and this includes a vast number of government officials, too!) would have faced a done deal, a treaty signed “in absentia” of any due democratic process. Even with a 2010 disclosure of a draft, it still came dangerously close with many governments signing against the interest of their own citizens. So reflection is required: are we actually there, were we are required to blindly obey what we are told? Were politicians and corporations alike make laws to dictate what, how and when we consume? What happened to the elegant system where we were brainwashed by advertising or scared by ad-hoc wars? Is that too expensive now so somebody just thought: hell, let’s just make corporate interests into law and that’s it?
Bottom line is: democratic channels were bypassed in favor of large corporations that are collectively called “rights holders“. Make note of that, because it’s important. They are not creators, artists, etc, they just hold the right to profit from other peoples’ creations. And because they refuse to adjust their business to the digital age, they press government into passing laws and treaties to ensure people are forced to go to them. Why? Because they have money and access to government. Yes, inside a democracy, large corporations have better access to government than the common people. Because that’s what democracy means, isn’t it?
John Le Carre is no Ian Fleming just as George Smiley is no James Bond. Surely, both authors worked in British Intelligence during the Cold War. They both handled intelligence operations, handled agents and top secret information, set up informants and so on before they both turned to writing.
