[Chapter-delegates] [European-chapters] Action needed: voting on ACTA at the European Parliament

[Patrick Vande Walle]

Dear all,

Commissioner Kroes held yesterday a Twitchat and was flooded with
questions regarding ACTA. (Note though that Kroes is not in charge of ACTA.
It is her colleague Karel De Gucht, responsible for international trade).
She said that ACTA would require no changes or new laws in the EU. It only
enables common standards across nations to make international cooperation
easier in fighting large-scale IPR infringements.

On a similar note, this article in Ars Tecnica gives a balanced view of
the bad and good reasons to counter ACTA
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/internet-awash-in-inaccurate-anti-acta-arguments.ars

FWIW, you can also find the official text of the ACTA treaty in 23
languages, including Spanish and French at http://bit.ly/xPDyNj  (redirects
to the EU Council web site)

As the Ars Tecnica article points out, many of the current reactions are
based on early drafts of the treaty, and the secrecy of the process, which
leads some people to think there are two treaties: the one we are given to
look at and a set of unpublished documents. I am not an adept of the
conspiracy theory, hence I only believe what I see. 

As Markus pointed out in a parallel e-mail, some provisions of the treaty
are very broad, and can be interpreted and translated in different ways in
local law. An example is article 27 which could mean anything, from
distributing information leaflets to deep packet inspection. 

Alejandro is right in suggesting that, beyond the treaty itself, there is
the spirit. I personally think that IPR infringment, as damageable as it
could be, have never killed anyone. Hence, considering this as crime
deserving long periods in jail, as the IP lobbyists do, is
disproportionate. 

The fact also that ACTA encourages extra-judicial processes is worrying.
Note though this is not new in the context of the Internet. UDRP and  URS,
in the domain name system have been widely accepted by the Internet
community. Consequently, the IPR community just took it one step further.
We should take the blame for accepting that in the first place.

We should also keep in mind our previous positions and not contradict
ourselves. We have advocated in the context of SOPA that international law
enforcement cooperation was a key to fight large scale IPR infringements.
ACTA is a treaty that makes it (among others) possible. The issue at stake
for parliaments is that a treaty, they either "take it or leave it". It
cannot be amended, like a draft law could be.  One of our axis for
countering ACTA should be this: whatever acceptable provisions there are in
the treaty, others are unacceptable, but you are hands-tied to the whole
treaty if you approve it. 

Patrick Vande Walle



On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:38:17 +0000, "Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch"
<apisan at unam.mx> wrote:
> Dear Frederic, all,
> 
> thanks for the mention on the Mexican part of the ACTA story. 
> 
> Briefly what we managed to do was to cooperate with many organizations
but
> particularly with individuals. Blogs and tweets were our main
communicaiton
> tools. Articles and blog entries by myself. Leon Felipe Sanchez (our
> delegate to INET, introducer of Creative Commons to Mexico), and others,
in
> loose coordination, were touchstones. The spectrum runs from Pirate
Party
> activists to pretty conventional intellectual-property lawyers who saw
the
> anti-constitucional aspects, the technical follies, and the procedural
and
> secrecy problems. 
> 
> One way things backfired globally is that opposition to specifics made
the
> ACTA negotiators remove those specifics so now you have less of a target
> (things like 3-strikes etc. are gone; you only have a couple clauses in,
I
> think, Article 27, which invite governments to put ISPs in undue roles
and
> otherwise short-circuit due process; these were the ones the Senators
held
> to.)
> 
> The ISPs are unhappy with this kind of provisions so again, we had loose
> coordination with industry. We totally refused to be seen as their
pawns.
> We managed to produce a Senate decision to form a Plural Technical
Working
> Group on ACTA which held sessions with all parties. Some got heated.
They
> are all on record (in Spanish) if you want them. 
> 
> One must not go after ACTA-the-Agreement only but also address secondary
> laws and all that countries (and in your case, the EU and EP) can do
> without ACTA. HADOPI and Ley Sinde are examples. We have confronted
> (successfully) a digital-levy and a 3-strikes initiatives and are
> confronting two new initiatives right now. One is ***expliicitly*** put
> forward by the intellectual-property authorities as a substitute for
ACTA. 
> 
> The "ACTA spirit" is what we need to address. For ISOC I think it is
> inappropriate to become a kind of #OccupyACTA but the role of adamantly
> pointing out the troubles and demanding, proposing, and pioneering a
> global, comprrehensive reformulation of the issues, with ample room for
> innovation, is appropriate.
> 
> Glad to be of use to any of you. If interviews, papers, etc. can be
useful
> we can participate or find them for you. I'm sure our legislators will
> accept invitations to speak. We are not looking for a protagonistic role
of
> the chapter itself; self-effacement helped manage risks and keep the
high
> moral ground. Technical knowledge and loyalty to principles of the
> technical design of the Internet are where we start from and where we
end.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Alejandro Pisanty
> 
> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .
.
>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
> UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
> 
> Tels. +52-(1)-55-5105-6044, +52-(1)-55-5418-3732
> 
> *Mi blog/My blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
> *LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
> *Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn,
> http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
> *Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
> ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
>  Participa en ICANN, http://www.icann.org
> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 
. 
> .
> 
> ________________________________________
> Desde: chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org
> [chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] en nombre de Frederic Donck
> [donck at isoc.org]
> Enviado el: lunes, 30 de enero de 2012 08:34
> Hasta: European Chapters
> CC: Delegates Chapter; Vande Walle Patrick;
jozef.halbersztadt at gmail.com;
> Wilkinson Christopher; ISOC Chapter Support
> Asunto: Re: [Chapter-delegates] [European-chapters] Action needed:
voting 
>     on ACTA at the European Parliament
> 
> Dear All
> 
> Thanks for your mails re: ACTA in Europe, as well as the pointers which
> you have referred to and your many suggestions to engage collectively.
This
> is very timely and extremely useful.
> We totally agree and we too believe that a concerted action towards MEPs
> will prove very efficient at this stage as the EU Parliament will be at
the
> centre of this debate in Europe in the coming weeks.
> This said, the biggest challenge will also take place at *national*
level
> (as recently evidenced by the Polish situation, among others) and this
is
> where your engagement with local authorities will be instrumental as
well.
> So, this is the scenario which we would propose as a next step:
> 
> 1. In coordination with ISOC Policy team, we will draft an overall
message
> for the MEPs in advance of their many meetings in the coming weeks. And
we
> will share it with you all, on the European Chapters list with a view to
> finalize our global message.
> Action: ISOC to draft and circulate overall message to MEPs.
> 2. In the next coming days, the EU Bureau shall collect the list (names,
> addresses, committees, nationality, Party affiliation) of all the MEPs
who
> will be involved in the ACTA discussion in the coming weeks. We know
that
> the INTA (International Trade Cttee of the European Parliament) has the
> lead within the EP, but many other committees will be drafting their own
> opinion (Legal Affairs, Development, Civil Liberties and Industry) so
the
> objective will be to reach those MEPs as well.
> Action: The EU Bureau shall circulate a list which can be easily used by
> each of us, i.e. broken a.o. by nationality so that each chapter can
easily
> reach their own national representatives within the EP, in their own
> language, on top of our global message. This should maximize the impact
of
> our global engagement at both EU and national level.
> 3. The EU Bureau shall obtain clarification on a complete timeschedule,
in
> particular the deadlines for the EP committess' opinion and will
circulate
> it on this list.
> 4. We will monitor the EU situation and invite you to do it as well at
> national level and exchange on this list, going forward. Many chapters
have
> already engaged at local level in Europe (Slovenia, Luxembourg, UK,
Poland,
> etc.) and we would of course benefit from everybody's feedback. For
sure,
> we would also benefit from chapters experience outside of Europe and
this
> is why I have opened the current list to the global chapters delegates
list
> (sorry the redundancy) I have in mind, among many others, the very
> important role which Alejandro and other members of ISOC Mexico have
played
> in informing the Mexican Senate re: ACTA. So, any advise re: their
> successful local engagement is highly welcome.
> 5. Last but not least, the EU Bureau is in the process to organise a F2F
> meeting in March where ISOC (Policy and Bureau) will be meeting with the
> Danish Presidency and some key stakeholders in Brussels (incl. relevant
> MEPs). I shall keep you informed of the progress re: this meeting in due
> course.
> 
> I hope this scenario works for you all and, in the meantime, we will
need
> to keep each of us informed at all stage of the process going forward
and
> we welcome any further suggestions.
> Thanks again for your engagement and we look forward to engaging in the
> next steps with you all
> 
> Best Regards
> Frederic
> 
> Frederic Donck
> Director European Regional Bureau
> Internet Society
> 
> www.isoc.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Le 28 janv. 2012 à 11:57, Patrick Vande Walle a écrit :
> 
>> Hello to all, and especially Frédéric,
>>
>> Does ISOC, together with the European chapters plan to alert the MEPs
on
>> the danger of the ACTA treaty ?
>>
>> I think the potential to see this blocked by the EP is real. Many MEPs
>> are unhappy with the way have been excluded from the discussion. The
>> rapporteur from the Parliament has resigned in protest.
>> What still needs to be done is to convince the unaware or skeptic MEPs
>> that ACTA is a real danger both for Net neutrality and for freedom of
>> expression.
>>
>> I am sure lawyers will be able to demonstrate that some provisions in
>> the treaty are incompatible with the European charter on fundamental
>> rights. Still, there is room for ISOC to make its voice heard. We have
>> been very successful on SOPA/PIPA lately in the US. I trust we can do
the
>> same on ACTA in Europe.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Patrick