Summary: Preliminary analyses of the impact of the ACTA (still a secret draft)

NOW that ACTA drafts are out there for people to read and assess, we know for a fact that patents too are included. Digital Majority took a look and highlighted the required proof.

Wikileaks has published some drafts of the secret ACTA treaty, which aims to give better guns to Patent Trolls. The draft mentions that it covers all the rights covered by TRIPS, so it will cover also patents.

Glyn Moody, who watched the ACTA very closely, has just published: "Goodbye WIPO, Hello ACTA?"

What is really remarkable about this is that Greve can even be asking WIPO to consider free software and open standards: a few years ago, such a thing would have amounted to blasphemy. Sadly, there is another sign that WIPO is becoming more accommodating to the ideas behind free software: the fact that there seems to be a move to come up with an alternative forum for promoting intellectual monopolies where it will not be so easy to participate.

Cory Doctorow, whose interests are slightly different, focuses on the fact that "ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and activists." He cites Michael Geist, whose expertise seems to include open access, DMCA, copyrights, and other such territories.

Michael Geist sez, "The World Intellectual Property Organization may be best known for the Internet treaties that led to the DMCA, but in recent years groups like EFF, KEI, and Public Knowledge has helped to open things up and move toward a Development Agenda that better balances international intellectual property policy. That progress may be threatened by the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which officials now acknowledge is designed to exclude WIPO, developing countries, and NGOs."

Unsurprisingly, TorrentFreak focuses on the impact on file sharing.

Leaked ACTA Draft: More Power to the RIAA

A recent draft of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) surfaced on Wikileaks this weekend. Among other things, the draft aims to strengthen the power and rights of the entertainment industry and other copyright holders, by letting them choose how they want to be compensated for copyright infringements.

Obama and Biden have already put at least 5 RIAA lawyers in charge. Moreover, Obama refuses to granted people access to the ACTA (never mind if it inevitably leaks anyway). ⬆