SUCCESS AGAINST SECRECY
June 2, 2010 12:00 AM
Negotiations behind closed doors on an international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are to be made public following pressure from MEPs including North East Liberal Democrat MEP Fiona Hall .
ACTA is a trade agreement which is currently being drawn up with the aim of tightening international counterfeiting laws. The European Commission, negotiating on behalf of EU member states, had come under fire from Euro-MPs for not publishing information to the public about the progress of the negotiations.
ACTA has came under scrutiny from the digital community after fears that some aspects of the agreement would be a step too far, creating new laws that would be expensive to implement, limit human rights and allow governments to cut internet use.
Fiona said:
"Details of what countries are planning to do about intellectual property crime need to be publicly available, as it is vital that our fundamental rights like freedom of expression are not curtailed.
"Publishing the information has put people's minds at rest, because now it can be seen that ACTA is in line with people's rights."
World-wide, intellectual property rights are infringed by piracy and counterfeiting which account for £250bn or 7% of all world trade.
Fiona added:
"Piracy and counterfeiting are not victimless crimes. The UK economy has lost over £6.4bn over 10 years because of them.
"In the North East, police are finding Aladdin's caves of counterfeit goods and recently seized thousands of pirated CDs in County Durham. So getting a fair and soundly-based international agreement on combating counterfeiting is very important."
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