[Chapter-delegates] PES on ACTA - wow!

[Veni Markovski]

also, would be good to read the actual PES statement:

The Party of European Socialists considers the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade 
Agreement (ACTA) to be
fundamentally flawed in both content and process. There is a severe 
imbalance between the rights
attributed to the users, service providers and rights holders.
The agreement, which is to be voted on by the European Parliament before 
summer 2012 and
ratified by National Parliaments, is flawed in content for the following 
reasons; it gives undue power
of oversight to internet providers; it infringes the privacy of internet 
users; and it will curtail
developing countries access to generic medicines.
It is flawed in process because of the secret manner in which the accord 
was agreed upon, and
because of the significantly reduced time afforded to the European 
Parliament to scrutinise the
final draft.
The PES condemns the secretive manner in which this Agreement was 
negotiated by the
European Commission and the other negotiating partners. Negotiations of 
agreements should not
be conducted behind closed doors, and the European Parliament and public 
must, by right, be
made privy to the on-going negotiations on a regular basis. This is the 
only way to ensure full
transparency and public consultation.
Despite the fact that ACTA will have a very real effect on the lives of 
European citizens, they were
not privy to the negotiations and their contents. The largest source of 
information to the public was
through leaked documents on websites such as Wikileaks. The first 
official draft text was only
released following eight rounds of negotiations and two years of 
official negotiations.
The PES continues to believe that there is a need for legislation on 
intellectual property rights in
order to protect rights holders and encourage creativity and 
entrepreneurship. However, ACTA is
not a reasonable solution to this need and risks to contravene the 
fundamental rights of European
citizens.

Background:
The aim of the Agreement is to establish an international agreement for 
the protection of
intellectual property rights. In the preamble to the legislation the 
goals are laid out to combat the
proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods, as well as of services 
that distribute infringing material by:
- Providing effective and appropriate means for the enforcement of 
intellectual property rights,
while trying to ensure that these measures do not become barriers to 
legitimate trade;
- Addressing the problem of infringement of intellectual property 
rights, including infringement
taking place in the digital environment, in a manner that balances the 
rights and interests of the
relevant right holders, service providers and users;
- Promoting cooperation between service providers and right holders to 
address relevant
infringements in the digital environment.

On 2/9/2012 15:40, Eduard Tric wrote:
> Sorry Alejandro ,  my fault , never let computers take full control on grammar :) My zimbra romanian-english spell-checker is not so smart , changing Letonia (Latvia in romanian ) with Estonia and weird with wired. I
>