India Gearing Up To Fight ACTA; Seeking Other, Like-Minded, Countries

Copyright

from the good-for-india dept

While the various governments supporting ACTA continue to insist there’s nothing wrong with it, clearly more and more people are realizing that there are some massive problems with it, and we’re not talking about the usual group of activists. It seems that India — which is in the middle of reviewing its own copyright law — is quite worried about ACTA. It’s looking to team up with “like-minded countries” to oppose ACTA and to hold talks with countries who agree to ACTA to explain why they’re worried about it. India’s main concern appears to be over some of the proposals that would continue to allow the seizure of legal generic drugs passing through other countries, something that has been a huge problem for the Indian healthcare system.

Meanwhile, others elsewhere are seeing problems as well. Ray Dowd, a copyright litigator who writes an excellent blog on copyright issues, is getting himself up to speed on ACTA and seems horrified by what he’s reading. He admits that he expected that the scare stories online that he’d been reading would prove to be exaggerations, but he now thinks that people aren’t concerned enough about ACTA:

So when I finally got around to reading the text of ACTA, I thought that I would find the concerns I’d seen floating around the internet to be a little overblown.

In fact, I think that the concerns of the EFF are understated. I am not so concerned about confidential negotiations to give trade representatives some time to brainstorm. But the text appears to be so one-sided as to appear to have been spoonfed by certain aggressive Hollywood rights-holders who don’t think anyone can make fun of Mickey Mouse and that anyone crossing a border should be frisked for a fake Louis Vuitton handbag.

I am surprised that ISP’s and technology users seem to have had so little input into the process.

He notes that he’s all for a true anti-counterfeiting agreement, but he’s surprised that the government is using this to shoehorn in all sorts of things that have nothing to do with copyright:

What is counterfeiting? In my humble estimation, it is knowingly making large quantities of exact copies of a trademarked, patented, or copyrighted good with the intention of selling such large quantities to defraud consumers and the rights holders.

Thus, any anti-counterfeiting treaty would have the elements:

1. exact copies or copies intended to be so similar that a consumer could not tell the difference;
2. protected goods;
3. large quantities (500?) (2,000?);
4. intent to defraud consumers and rights holders.

Some kid copying stuff to his Ipod is not counterfeiting. Even 2,000 songs.

So anyone labeling a treaty “anti-counterfeiting” and that does not have the foregoing elements is trying to pull a scam on me.

His conclusion sums up what many of us have been saying for quite some time:

ACTA appears to be an attempt to tie Congress’s hands in terms of domestic copyright legislation, rather than a legitmate attempt to pursue counterfeiting.

But, of course, according to various folks at the USTR and the Copyright Office, now that ACTA’s been released, it’s proven that all the “fears” from online sources were misguided. Right?

Filed Under: acta, copyright, counterfeiting, india