JUNE 21 UPDATE BELOW

Crucial ACTA vote: Will INTA committee betray EU citizens?

Press Release
La Quadrature du Net

Brussels — This Thursday, June 21st, the “International Trade” (INTA) committee of the EU Parliament will adopt its draft report on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Under pressure from the EU Commission and industry lobbyists [1], members of the committee could decide, potentially in a secret vote, to call for the adoption of ACTA or to postpone the final vote for years, which would help the pro-ACTA to save face. Citizens participation is absolutely crucial to ensure that the Parliament will stick to the general interest and face its political responsibility by voting a clear rejection of ACTA.

This Thursday, June 21st, the “International Trade” (INTA) committee will recommend to the rest of the Parliament to either accept or reject ACTA.

For months, many NGOs and public institutions have produced analyses and commentaries purporting that ACTA is dangerous for innovation, freedom of speech and privacy online. Hundreds of thousands of citizens took the streets this past winter against ACTA, urging for a reform of today’s outdated copyright regime. This has led to an intense political debate within the EU Parliament. The different opinion reports recently adopted by several committees of the Parliament urged for the rejection of ACTA.

But as the final vote of the EU Parliament gets closer (scheduled for July 3rd-5th [2]), all these efforts could be smashed.

Whereas the draft report of INTA rapporteur David Martin (UK, S&D) recommends the rejection of ACTA, other INTA members have tabled amendments asking either for the adoption of ACTA or for postponing the vote for years, pending an opinion of the EU Court of Justice on the legality of the agreement. Postponing the vote would ruin all chances to have ACTA rejected any time soon, and would pave the way to more repressive policies in the meantime. Citizens must remind Members of the INTA committee that postponing ACTA vote is a tactic of both the EU Commission and copyright lobbies to save face. If the final vote is postponed, the EU Parliament would be seen as playing into the hands of ACTA supporters, renouncing to its political power and its mission to defend citizens.

“Confirmed rumours in the corridors of the Parliament suggest that Thursday’s vote could be held in secret. Such a trick would allow Members of political groups who are officially against ACTA to escape their political responsibility. Important progress has been made in the last months as policy-makers increasingly understand the need to break away from repression and to reform copyright. We cannot allow powerful lobbies and the EU Commission to erase it all”,

says Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net.

Every citizen can participate in this final push against ACTA. Our PiPhone can be used to call Members of the INTA committee for free, and tell them to vote against ACTA!

1. Industry lobbies have put together a website in support of ACTA and are sending many letters to MEPs. See http://www.actafacts.com/.
2. Exact date will be decided one week in advance by the EU Parliament’s conference of Presidents.

Source: La Quadrature du Net

European Lawmakers Reject ACTA

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The controversial anti-counterfeiting treaty is all but dead in Europe after the European Parliament’s trade committee rejects it.

Cologne, Germany – European lawmakers put another nail in ACTA’s coffin Thursday, insuring that the controversial anti-counterfeiting treaty will most likely be fail to pass the European Parliament.

The Parliament’s powerful International Trade Committee (Inta) voted 19-12 recommending European parliamentarians reject ACTA when the treaty comes to a vote on July 4. This is the fifth European committee in a row to vote against ACTA.

The Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) can no longer amend the treaty but must vote either to accept or reject ACTA.

If they vote to derail the treaty, which now seems inevitable, it will be the first time the European Parliament has rejected an international agreement since it gave it gave itself the power to do so back in 2008.

The aim of the U.S.-backed ACTA agreement, is to crack down on intellectual property theft – both online in the form of pirated films, music and software and in the trade of fake consumer goods and pharmaceutics.

The European Commission had initially backed ACTA, arguing it would target large-scale criminal piracy operations, but the treaty proved highly controversial in Europe. Thousands of citizens in several countries took to the streets in protect against it, arguing it would violate European human rights to privacy by criminalizing the downloading of files for personal use.

This was an argument the majority of the 31 members on the European Parliament’s trade committee agreed with, arguing ACTA risked criminalizing citizens who downloaded files from illegal torrent websites.

Such criminalization could infringe on European Union privacy law. The European Commission has asked the highest EU court to rule on the matter but a decision could take up to a year.

The lead negotiator for the EU on ACTA, French MEP Kader Arif, resigned in protest in January, saying the treaty would not only restrict Internet freedom but also curb access to generic drugs, an issue that has been raised by several developing countries opposed to the treaty.

The U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have all signed ACTA but so far none of them have yet ratified it.

Sources: La Quadrature du Net | Hollywood Reporter