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You’ve probably read about SOPA and PIPA almost everywhere on the web, including The Tech Guy. While everyone was busy protesting these two insanely stupid pieces of legislation, the US government, along with several other countries, signed a “trade agreement” that would allow their governments to do whatever they want to the Internet and its infrastructure. SOPA and PIPA were just bills that were meant to distract you from the actual threat: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Before we go any further, I would like you to watch a video put together by Anonymous:

If you still feel skeptical about the whole thing, I took apart all 56 pages of the agreement below and broke it into simple, rudimentary explanations for the layman:

Why Should I Be Worried?

Many people look at the title of the agreement and ask, “I’m not counterfeiting anything, so why should I feel threatened by it?” Well, I think you should be concerned, particularly if you’re not a big fan of Internet censorship. In the agreement’s contents, you see the regular obligation of government to partake in activities against counterfeiting, which could lead to consequences that will endanger consumers. Sure, I’m all for a plurilateral agreement that will put a stop to fake products that put false “CE” certifications on their packaging. It would be great to see such a thing, so that I can rest assured that consumers won’t be put into any danger. When you read the fine print of ACTA, though, you come up with something like this:

Article 2.4: Information Related to Infringement

[EU: Without prejudice to other statutory provisions which, in particular, govern the protection of confidentiality of information sources or the processing of personal data,] Each Party shall provide that in civil judicial proceedings concerning the enforcement of [US/J: intellectual property rights][Can: copyrighted or related rights and trademarks], its judicial authorities shall have the authority upon a justified request of the right holder, to order the infringer to provide, [US/J: for the purpose of collecting evidence][Mor: within the framework of measures of inquiry or investigation], any [Can: relevant] information [EU: information on the origin and distribution network of the infringing goods or services on a commercial scale][J: in the form as prescribed in its applicable laws and regulations] that the infringer possesses or controls, [J/Can/EU/MX: where appropriate,] to the right holder or to the judicial authorities. Such information may include information regarding any person or persons involved in any aspect of the infringement and regarding the means of production or distribution channel of such goods or services, including the identification of third persons involved in the production and distribution of the infringing goods or services or in their channels of distribution.

You don’t have to be a legal expert to see how vague this is. Basically, it allows governments to put you at the mercy of a copyright holder, even if you only put a link on your site to someone who infringes a copyright. There are subtle ways to infringe a copyright, and they don’t always involve sharing a movie or song. If you don’t care to read the fine print, you can always look around at reports across the web about ACTA.

ACTA’s Definition of Intellectual Property

Here’s ACTA’s definition of intellectual property:

intellectual property refers to all categories of intellectual property that are subject of Sections 1 through 7 of Part II of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

Yeah, as you can tell, they don’t expect you to actually flip the pages to the actual definition. Confusion is a wonderful tool, but let’s skim into Part II. This isn’t part of ACTA. In fact, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is a definition from 1994 by the World Trade Organization. You can read the full text here. If you’d notice, everything’s pretty well defined.

ACTA’s Definition of Copyright Infringement

If you read ACTA’s text, you’ll notice that it doesn’t properly define “infringement” or “counterfeiting.” We all know that counterfeiting is a false reproduction of something else. We also know that “copyright infringement” is the stealing of intellectual property. But, wait a second…

Here’s what intellectual property is defined as in the WTO’s TRIPS, with regards to computer programs:

1. Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971).

2. Compilations of data or other material, whether in machine readable or other form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as such. Such protection, which shall not extend to the data or material itself, shall be without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or material itself.

ACTA isn’t clear on whether stealing the source code of an application and releasing another “version” as your own is considered copyright infringement. The definition of copyright infringement could also be distorted to include the free sharing of the program itself. Is it immoral to share information?

Let’s look at the definition of stealing, shall we?

intransitive verb

1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice

It’s kind of vague. Let’s be more specific:

Verb:
Take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: “thieves stole her bicycle”.

OK, so let’s say I make a copy of a photo of my aunt bathing her dog. According to ACTA, that could be considered stealing. Is that proper, or logical? The original work remains in her hands, and I hold but a copy, an exact replica. It couldn’t be considered counterfeiting either, unless I consider myself the originator of the photo, or I modify the photo slightly, put another dog in the picture, and say it’s her dog.

My Experience With Copyright Infringement

A while back, I have seen translated copies of The Tech Guy’s articles, posted on sites in other languages. Is it wrong to do this? I don’t think so, as long as the site links back to me and gives me credit as the originator. I would request the same from someone who copies my information and posts it, in English, on their website. It wouldn’t bother me a bit, as long as the link to the source is there, in a decent size, so everyone can see where the article came from and share it as they please. That’s the beauty of the Internet.

I don’t go around crying, attempting to ban every single site that copies my content. I only do it for websites that have passed off my content as their own. Now, that’s a nasty thing to do! DMCA takedown notices are beautiful for things like this, and I never needed ACTA to rid the Internet of infringement of my own copyrights. I believe in free expression and the ability to comment on my works freely. I think it’s part of the innovative edge that the Internet gives everyone. With ACTA around, not only will everyday people be at a loss, but The Tech Guy and many other nice websites out there will be hurt as well.

What ACTA Tells ISPs to Do

I was kind of suspicious of the hype against ACTA, when people were saying that the new trade agreement will force ISPs to monitor their subscribers and even remove their Internet without a court order. That is, until I saw the following clauses added to Section 4 of ACTA:

(b) condition the application of the provisions of subparagraph (a) on meeting the following requirements:

(i) an online service provider adopting and reasonably implementing a policy to address the unauthorized storage or transmission of materials protected by copyright or related rights except that no Party may condition the limitations in subparagraph (a) on the online service provider’s monitoring its services or affirmatively seeking facts indicating that infringing activity is occuring.

(ii) an online service provider expeditiously removing or disabling access to material or [US: activity][MX: alleged infringement], upon receipt [US: of legally sufficiant notice of alleged infringement,][MX: of an order from a competent authority] and in the absence of a legally sufficient response from the relevant subscriber of the online service provider indicating that the notice was the result of mistake or misidentification.

The only country asking for a court order is Mexico. Every other country will allow ISPs to remove your Internet privileges without warning or any sort of legal document allowing them to do so. This is completely against the rights of the citizen of the country.

How You Can Fight ACTA

The only way to fight anything of this magnitude is to protest it, unfortunately. Writing to legislators isn’t quite working, and groups like Anonymous are trying as much as they can to suppress it. In fact, there is a number of politicians around the world against ACTA, but there’s very little one person can do against this. We might lose the right to freely express ourselves on the Web, and this agreement poses a major threat to the free exchange of information on the Web.

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