Most people are familiar with the extensive and widespread sale of counterfeit goods. Just think of designers, artists, whose livelihood is at stake. If they cannot protect themselves against illegal copying, they lose their income and may ultimately be forced to shut down their business.
EU customs authorities estimate that illegal copying tripled from 2005-2010, and that European companies annually lose billions as a result. It is a huge problem both for businesses and for growth and employment.
The Treaty extends the protection against copying and rights violation which applies in the EU for a number of countries outside the EU, which are important trade partners for the EU. It makes it easier for companies to enforce their rights, particularly outside the European Union, in countries like the United States, Korea, Morocco and Switzerland. And it will be for the benefit of growth in the EU.
Danish interests
Investment in and development of products requires that companies have the assurance that they can enforce their rights to the products and that they cannot simply be copied. ACTA is also necessary in order to protect citizens' health and safety. This is the case, for example in relation to counterfeit medicines, which make up about 10 percent of world trade.
ACTA is also about securing Danish workplaces. We are currently characterised by numerous information-intensive enterprises, which thrive from developing and designing products such as furniture and high-tech machines. These companies cannot survive without effective protection of their rights both in Denmark and outside Denmark.
The Government is therefore working continually to strengthen the international protection of corporate rights to products they have developed and designed. ACTA is the result of these efforts, and it creates also a model which can be used in future free trade agreements.
Pia Olsen-Dyhr is Minister for Trade and Investment (SF, Socialist People’s Party)
It is very hard to disagree with the post but Pia Olsen Dyhr does not meet the part of the criticism of ACTA about the process itself and to the public (namely the EU Parliament that will eventually ratify the treaty) have been kept in the dark about the contents of the Treaty (proof here: http://www.ft.dk/samling/20081/spoergsmaal/s433/sv ...) not to mention the lawyers (including IT lawyer Martin Von Haller Grønbech today in 'Harddisken' = http://www.dr.dk/harddisken) pointing to
1.The financial compensation that an Internet user will have to pay for monitoring of the network by virtue of his (our) role as an end user of the Internet. and
2. The responsibility you impose ISPs that will be pushed by an international corporate legal muscle compared to a single Internet user and therefore the ISP may be inclined to act on an alleged copyright violation with the pressure that such legal muscle power entails.
And all of this as a tightening of a law which already results in legal error and removal of material which is not legally tenable to be deleted (eg all the * legal * data stored on megaupload, which tens of thousands of users now seem to lose.
ACTA and its successor, TPP is bad legislation. Perhaps OPEN (http://www.keepthewebopen.com/) is a better solution (I don't know). Google is in favor of it - and it occurs at least in a completely transparent dialogue with users of the web. You can make additions, corrections, and comments directly on the website. That modus operandi is the way forward.
The minister highlights problems with counterfeit goods. These undoubtedly exist, and are especially worrying for things like medicines or spare aircraft parts. But this does not address the real problem with ACTA: that it seeks to apply the same harsh legislation aimed at curbing dangerous counterfeit goods to the simplest digital copyright infringement.
For example, Article 9 of ACTA states: "In determining the amount of damages for infringement of intellectual property rights, a Party’s judicial authorities shall have the authority to consider, inter alia, any legitimate measure of value the right holder submits, which may include lost profits, the value of the infringed goods or services measured by the market price, or the suggested retail price."
For physical counterfeits, that might make sense, but it doesn't for digital copies. What is the lost profit from sharing one file? One Euro – the cost of the copy – or the millions that the copyright industries claim has been lost as a result of the multiple copies around the Net?
Not only that, but Section 4 on Criminal Enforcement uses a definition of "piracy on a commercial scale" that includes "indirect economic or commercial advantage." Obviously, everyone that shares digital files without paying derives indirect economic advantage; and because there is no *minimum* level of infringement specified in ACTA, that means that sharing a single MP3 could in principle lead to criminal charges and imprisonment.
Moreover, another clause stipulates that signatories "shall ensure that criminal liability for aiding and abetting is available under its law." Even linking to a site that holds unauthorised copies of copyright materials is clearly aiding someone download them, and therefore in principle, because of the very broad definitions employed by ACTA, anyone on Facebook or Twitter who points to a video clip that has not been authorised, and which has some advertising around it (thus making it "commercial") could be subject to criminal charges and imprisonment.
These are just some of the examples of the way in which the inclusion of digital infringement alongside counterfeits has led to a situation where ordinary users of the Internet may find themselves threatened with criminal proceedings and imprisonment.
Other major issues include the fact that ACTA requires authorities to "order an online service provider to disclose expeditiously to a right holder information sufficient to identify a subscriber whose account was allegedly used for infringement." That is, guilty upon accusation, and no right to privacy.
Since ACTA has been drawn up and agreed behind closed doors, there is now no way to amend these problematic passages. In order to protect European citizens from the disproportionate punishments that ACTA provides for, to preserve their privacy and the assumption of innocence before being proved guilty, the only solution is for the European Parliament to reject ACTA when it is presented for ratification, and for new treaties to be drawn up that deal with counterfeits and digital infringement separately.
Jeg deler fuldt ud det synspunkt, at der her er tale om en gl af idebane i retning af censur og politistat.
Skam få Danmark at have været med til noget sådant svineri:
Dsuden er det et oplæg til en uendelighed af retssager med dertil hørende spild af udgifter til dyrt betalte advokatfirmaer i sager, der på grund af tvivlsspørgsmål kan trække ud i årevis.
Det bør tvært imod være sådan, at lægger man åbent materiale ud på internettet, så´er der automatisk fri kopieringsret. Dermed får man langt den mest smidige udnyttelse af de tekniske muligheder for billig distribution og uidveksling af ideer på kryds og tværs, som internettet repræsenterer. Man kan i den fornindelse kun opfordre til civil ulydighed så mehet som man nu ellers tør og har mulighed for. Hvis man vil holde sine ideer, billeder osv for sig selv og de der vil betale for dem, må man enten gemme dem væk, så man kun kan få adgang via passwords eller også benytte et andet medium.
Det kører nøjagtigt, som jeg og andre har påpeget gennem lang tid. Det bliver de røde og de lyserøde politikere, der kommer til at sælge helt ud til den totalitære bag-agenda, der ligger i ACTA.
Min anden påpegning / forudsigelse er, at det også blive dem, der kommer til at gennembryde de sidste bolværker, vi har imod EU-totalitarismen.
Det er efterkommerne af de hedengangne (?) totalitære projekter i Østblokken, der stadigvæk, langsomt-langsomt, nu uden revolution men blot med søde og fine ord og lokkende setups stadig lusker kollektivismens agenda ind: tvær individet ud!
At de røde og lyserøde at umådelig nemme at narre, når blot de får den rette madding, har hele miseren om global-opvarmnings-religionen vist. Man kan bilde disse folk alt ind, blot de bliver bekræftet i deres blinde tro. Religiøs pseudovidenskab, der nu to gange i træk er totalt gennemhullet via 'Climatete 1.0 og 2.0' og af mange seriøse og meget vrede videnskabsmænd, der gennemskuer svindelnummeret. Giv venstrefløjen de politisk korrekte paroler, og de hopper på dem og prædiker dem videre. De stiller sig villig til rådighed som udøvende idioter, nøjagtig som de gjorde i 60'erne og 70'erne.
Dengang hånede jeg dem også for deres hjernedøde dyrken af de kollektivistiske massemordere, Lenin og Mao. Der hang plakater af disse røde Hitler-Mussolini-Franco-Pinochet'er på deres vægge.
Men ligesom nazisterne der 'forsvandt' - gu' gjorde de ej, de tog jakkesæt på og gemte sig i virksomheder, institutioner, finansbygninger, efterretningsvæsener, videnskabelige selskaber - samme skumle agenda, samme eugenik, samme okkulte facination og drøm om 1000-årsriget, samme magtsyge, samme kynisme nu blot stuerene, salonfähige og uigennemskuelige - på samme måde er det med efterkommerne af de naive socialister / kommunister fra sidste halvdel af forrige århundrede, babyboomernes børn.
ACTA er et snedigt kollektivistisk, new-world-order-lovkompleks.
Man kommer uvægerligt til at tænke på et lignende lovkompleks, der er udfanget indenfor rammerne af Big Global Business: Codex Alimentarius, som mange lande nu naivt og sovende i timen har accepteret. Det er designet til at lamme og hyperkontrollere al handel, alle fødevarer, alle produkter, der ikke er spyet ud af industrien, alle præparater, der er udvundet af naturen. Det er et vaskeægte eugenisk projekt, i øvrigt udtænkt af Dr. Vermeer, tidligere leder af I.G. Farben, mens han sad i fængsel efter Nürnberg-processen. Han udtænkte, hvordan man med langt snedigere midler kunne undgå at gasse folk og i stedet kvæle dem langsomt. Det syntes hans venner i FN så var en vældig god ide, efter han var løsladt, så hans 'gode ide' endte som officiel FN-politik.
Alle disse snedige og uigennemskuelige lovkomplekser ankommer på stribe for tiden. De har været forberedt længe, og målet er Den Ny Verdensorden, 'deres' verdensorden. Og 'de' er 100% bedøvende ligeglade med, hvilken farve politikerne, ideologierne, partierne, regeringerne har. De er blot deres instrumenter, deres mere end villige instumenter.
Ligesom Pia Olsen-Dyhr.
http://paradigmet.blogspot.com/2012/02/acta-et-nytotalitrt-tiltag.html
'War is Peace' - 'red is blue' - ACTA is a victory.
It is disheartening that this article comes from a minister.
"Most people are familiar with the extensive and widespread sale of counterfeit goods"
Oh well yes, I guess they are. Most people may well now and then have made themselves guilty, even in the best circles, and perhaps especially there. We are all sinners.
"Just think of designers, artists, whose livelihood is at stake."
It is a false argument. Artists' work is not at stake unless their works are destroyed with fire, or if their works are the money that is at stake when gambling, or they are listed on the stock-exchange. Artists can not be stopped by someone copying them. And designers, what is that? Some kind of technical artists, half artists, half inventors? Or are they someone who is trying to 'shoot the parrot'? 'My brain is better than yours, so can I free-ride, and you must feed me.' Or are they someone who actually believes that their work can improve the world and the lives of people?
"If they cannot protect themselves against illegal copying, they lose their income and may ultimately be forced to shut down their business."
If true, I think they should close their business and find something more important to do. And those who lose their income should be provided with another, as far as possible (and this applies to everyone, including non-artists). Incidentally I do not think that there are any artists who allow themselves to hook on to the (industrial complexes) anti-copying bandwagon unless their self-perception is illusory. Artist is not something you are, it's something you do. And if what you do has any value for others, then I honestly think that the copy machines should run at their highest pace. Artists' work should not be used as the rulers excuse for a totalitarian mental and physical control of people.
Non-artists are a logical consequence of applying the concept artists.
'Information-intensive companies that makes furniture' - gimme a break.
PS.
I also think that patents and copyrights applied to scientific discoveries, food and medicine should be banned - NOW !
Please, do not protect our health and safety. Everytime you do, we get more sick, more fearfull and end up paying with our liberty, Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information, and religion destroys spirituality." We are very good at taking care of our self, so give us our money and health back.
Vågn op Pia, der er også masser af eksempler på danske firmaer der køber kopierede varer i Kina, og sælger dem som sine egne kreationer i Danmark.
Vi ser det overalt i det små, alt lige fra billigt køkken udstyr til reservedele i teknik.
Copyriight in music seems to have evolved to an utter farce, where musicians literally have to ask permission to use, for instance, a bass figure, they have heard someone do elsewhere. - Time must be up to distinguish between the copyright of literature, which is apt, and other media, which are not, unless they are quoted in toto and for commercial purposes.
By today's standard, Ella Fitsgerald doing "How High the Moon" would be a major criminal.
She's most likely in the pockets of some big American company. Wouldn't surprise me if they're now paying politicians from all the EU countries to argue for ACTA, even though everyone can see it's completely idiotic.