ACTA

ACTA in trouble in Australia

The Age is reporting that a Parliamentary committee has “struck down” Australia’s signing of ACTA.

As it turns out, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has unanimously recommended that Australia should not ratify ACTA at this time. Recommendation 8 states:

That the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement not be ratified by Australia until the:

  • Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has received and considered the independent and transparent assessment of the economic and social benefits and costs of the Agreement referred to in Recommendation 2;
  • Australian Law Reform Commission has reported on its Inquiry into Copyright and the Digital Economy; and
  • the Australian Government has issued notices of clarification in relation to the terms of the Agreement as recommended in the other recommendations of this report.

Recommendation 9 goes on to exhort any future Committee on Treaties to take into account what is happening with ACTA in other jurisdictions including the EU and the USA.

Recommendations 3 to 7 relate to more specific matters such as, for example, a need to clarify the meanings of ‘aiding and abetting’ and ‘commercial scale’.

Apart from specific matters of particular detail, the Joint Standing Committee seems to have had two main concerns about ratification:

First, the Treaty was tabled in Parliament with a National Interest Assessment  (NIA). However, the NIA did not include an analysis of the economic impact that ratifying ACTA would have on Australia.

One reason why there was no economic analysis feeds into the Joint Standing Committee’s second major concern: the NIA stated that ACTA would not require any changes to existing Australian law. The benefit of ratifying ACTA (early) was that it would give Australia influence:

2.13 The NIA encourages the early ratification of ACTA, so as to enable Australia to play an influential role in the ACTA Committee, which will consider, inter alia, rules and procedures for reviewing the implementation and operations of ACTA.

In the absence of an economic assessment, however, the Joint Standing Committee noted there was an absence of reliable evidence that there is a “problem” that needs to be addressed. See [3.6] and reference to the concerns expressed, amongst others, by the US Government Accountability Office.

Secondly, the Joint Standing Committee received a number of submissions which challenged the view that no changes would be required to Australian law. For example, what does “aid and abet” or “commercial scale” mean? To what extent, if at all, are patents caught up in what is counterfeit?

How valid those concerns are may require further investigation but, as As. Prof. Weatherall pointed out, the ACTA Committee will have a role in developing more detailed enforcement mechanisms. The Joint Standing Committee also noted in several places that ACTA does not include the defences or exceptions expressed in TRIPS.

So far as I can work out (it is a long time since I studied constitutional law so let me know if you know better), the Joint Standing Committee has not in fact “struck down” ACTA or Australia ratifying it. The Committee’s recommendations do not constitute a resolution of a House of Parliament and ACTA is not a legislative instrument subject to disallowance on such a resolution.

As a treaty, ACTA would become part of our domestic law only if Parliament passed a statute to implement it. The Government could still ratify ACTA but the Joint Standing Committee’s recommendations are the unanimous recommendations of a cross-party committee so they plainly reflect a level of disquiet with ACTA within Parliament at a high level: a level of disquiet which appears to be felt even within the EU (one of the IP-exporting parts of the world one might think likely to support such a regime).

Download copies of the Committee’s report from here (pdf).

ACTA in trouble in Australia Read More »

Australia signed up to ACTA

Last Saturday, while half of us were trying not to watch Meat Loaf earn a reported $500,ooo (here, here or here) or tweeting, the Minister for Trade travelled to Japan to sign ACTA (the Department’s home page currently has a photograph of the actual signing).

According to the Minister’s Press Release:

The implementation of ACTA will not require legislative changes in Australia. Rather, trading partners will adapt their laws to the high standards of IP enforcement that already apply in Australia.

According to the USTR, no changes would be required to US law either.

The Minister for Trade’s Press Release states that Australia is one of 10 countries attending the signing + the EU. Howard Knopf reports that those signing included Australia, Canada,  Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, (South) Korea & USA, but the EU didn’t. According to ZDNet, the EU still working on it. So this may be a bit “optimistic”.

According to the USTR, the EU, Mexico and Switzerland did attend and “confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the Agreement as soon as practicable”.

Lid dip @howardknopf

Australia signed up to ACTA Read More »

ACTA now finalised

ACTA now finalised Read More »

DFAT ACTA information sessions

DFAT ACTA information sessions Read More »

A fairly close look at ACTA

Terry Hart embarks on a fairly detailed comparison of (what was known about the draft) ACTA and US copyright law to see how much would need to change “ACTA: Thought for FUD” in 4 parts

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

One might well be very sceptical about something being negotiated “in private”. Nonetheless, if you get past the reliance on proposed art. 1.2 as “not requiring new laws”, it is definitely worth a read. If nothing else, you will come away very much better informed.

Lid dip: Ben Sheffner

A fairly close look at ACTA Read More »

DFAT ACTA consultations

DFAT (the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) will be holding “whole of government” consultations on the draft ACTA text on 11 June 2010 in Canberra, commencing at 10.00a.m.

If you’re a stakeholder wanting to be consulted, register by COB 9 June.

For the contact “co-ordinates”, here.

For the draft ACTA text and other interesting ACTA-tidbits, here.

DFAT ACTA consultations Read More »

Draft ACTA text released

Draft ACTA text released Read More »

ACTA coming a little bit more out of the shadows

ACTA coming a little bit more out of the shadows Read More »

Selected microblog posts (w/e 11/09/09)

Selected microblog posts from the past week:

  • RT @VogeleLaw: Found: Mary Beth Peter’s testimony (via @cathygellis – thanks!) http://bit.ly/Cijau #gbs_hearing [US Copyright Register opposes Google Book Settlement]
  • Google Book in the EU? http://ff.im/-7OYfA
  • RT @MegLG: A Billion Dollar Test of the DMCA Safe Harbors in Viacom v YouTube http://ow.ly/om66 via Cyberlaw Cases
  • RT @michaelgeist: Microsoft wins stay of injunction on Word. Case arises from patent claim by Toronto’s i4i.http://bit.ly/oDmLU
  • IP Think Tank Blog looks at i4i v Microsofthttp://ff.im/-7zfKp
  • AAR on UWA v Gray – Universities and their employees: who owns developed IP? http://ff.im/-7RmgI
  • Hannahland: Ph D candidate on UWA v Gray http://ff.im/-7WcoR

Selected microblog posts (w/e 11/09/09) Read More »

ACTA

ACTA Read More »