Information society, ACTA and copyright legislation

Here they are, in all their glory, the 22 language versions of ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. But, as we soon find out, the European Union and its Member States, Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Mexican States, the Kingdom of Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Singapore, the Swiss Confederation and the United States of America did not limit their ambitions to anti-counterfeiting.

If you look at the proposal, you soon find out that the aim of ACTA is ”to effectively combat the infringement of intellectual property rights (IPR)” in general, including by ”provisions on civil, criminal, border and digital environment enforcement measures, robust cooperation mechanisms among ACTA Parties to assist in their enforcement efforts, and the establishment of best practices for effective IPR enforcement”.

Intellectual property in ACTA refers to all categories of intellectual property that are the subject of Sections 1 through 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement, including copyright.


Troubling questions

How should governments and parliaments legislate for the information society, where they easily seem to end up defending outdated models and particular interests against the digital natives (who are also citizens) and, perhaps, the general interest?

How important is trust and interaction between governments and the governed? Legitimacy?

When does legislation drive innovation, and when does it drive it away?


Infosoc roundup

These questions have cropped up in my latest blog posts, written in Finnish (FI), Swedish (SV) and English (EN).

Grahnlaw (EN): ACTA update (in part)

Grahnlaw (EN): ACTA in European Parliament committees: International Trade and Development

Grahnlaw (EN): ACTA in European Parliament committees: Legal Affairs (JURI)

Grahnblawg (SV): Framtiden online i Riksdagen

Eurooppaoikeus (FI): Tekijänoikeustoimikunta verkkopiratismia vastaan

Grahnlaw (EN): Information society, online media and Bloggingportal.eu

Grahnlblawg (SV): Upphovsrättskommissionen i Finland angriper nätpiratismen

Grahnlaw (EN): A communication disaster called ACTA

Grahnlaw (EN): ACTA signatures and content

Eurooppaoikeus (FI): ACTA ja fakta

Grahnblawg (SV): Lagstifta för den digitala världen, inte gårdagen – ACTA?

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Getting the facts straight and the arguments based on evidence would help meeting the challenges of our common digital agenda.



Ralf Grahn


P.S. Bloggingportal.eu, the multilingual aggregator of euroblogs, joins the national and thematical blogospheres at the European level.