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ACTA was rejected by European Parliament on July 4th, 2012.


As citizens we must urge our representatives to reject ACTA.


ACTA is an international trade agreement negotiated by the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Morocco, Singapore as well as a few other countries, whose aim is to enforce copyright and tackle counterfeited goods (hence its acronym: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Please Download and read the final version of the text.(2011)


Which countries already signed ACTA?

October 2011: Japan and United States, who crafted the treaty, together with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.

July 2012: México.

January 2012: European Commission, in charge of negotiations, together with non elected representatives from 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech republic, Denmark,Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.

The signature of ACTA by European countries does not mean the deal is done, needs to be ratified by the European Parliament.

They will vote no later than june 2012 to either ratify or reject ACTA. Please read more how to act and call your MEPs, tell them to vote against ratification.

Procedure on the European Parliament

Contact your MEP at the:

          - INTA Committee on International Trade
           - JURI Committee on Legal Affairs
           - LIBE Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
           - ITRE Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
           - DEVE Committee on Development


The International Trade (INTA) Committee of the European Parliament is the main committee working on ACTA.

The Legal Affairs (JURI), Development (DEVE), Civil Liberties (LIBE) and the Industry (ITRE) committees will first vote on their opinions after holding “exchange of views” on draft reports in the coming weeks.

Opinions will then be sent to INTA to influence its final report, which will recommend the EU Parliament as a whole to reject or accept ACTA.

The final, plenary vote by the EU Parliament on ACTA should be held no sooner than June.

Read the Counter-arguments vs ACTA to help you debunk the EU Commission's lies about ACTA, which are also relayed by pro-ACTA members of the EU Parliament.

Get the fact-sheet in PDF.

ACTA In Depth

Essential Readings

          - May 2011 Final Version of ACTA

          - La Quadrature du Net Dossier

          - FFII ACTA Blog

          - Opinion of European Academics on ACTA

          - INTA European Parliament Study on ACTA

          - ACTA and Access to Medicines

          - ACTA Compatibility with EU Convention on Human Rights

          - EDRI´s: What´s wrong with ACTA?

Since Spring 2007, 39 countries (27 member states of the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, México as well as a few other countries) negotiated in secret a trade agreement aimed at enforcing copyright and tackling counterfeited goods: ACTA. Leaked documents show that one of the major goal of the treaty is to force signatory countries into implementing anti file-sharing policies under the form of strong criminal sanctions.

ACTA is one more offensive against the sharing of culture on the Internet negotiated by a small "club" of like-minded countries. Negotiated instead of being democratically debated, ACTA bypasses parliaments and international organizations to dictate a repressive logic dictated by the entertainment industries.

At a time when important debates are taking place on the need to adapt copyright to the digital age, this treaty would bypass democratic processes in order to enforce a fundamentally irrelevant regulatory regime. It would profoundly alter the very nature of the Internet as we know it by by putting legal and monetary pressure on Internet service providers (in a most subtler way than in previous versions of the text), ACTA will give the music and movie industries a legal weapon to force ISPs to police their networks and users themselves.

Please read the final analysis of the text signed by non elected representatives and why we need to defeat it together.

Help STOP ACTA

Act on ACTA

          - La Quadrature: How to Act Against ACTA

          - Access Now Petition: SAY NO TO ACTA

          - Fight for the Future KILL ACTA

          - Avaaz ACTA Petition

          - Call Your MEPS. --> Be nice.

          - Tweet your MEPS. --->OFC, be nice and don´t spam.

          - Visit stoppacta.protest.info --->For specific info about demos.

INFORM ABOUT ACTA

*Contact your elected representatives to inform them about ACTA, and advise them to oppose this circumvention of their powers and competency.

*Contact journalists and bloggers and ask them to write and research about it.

*Blog about ACTA, link to websites talking about it and analyse its content.

Attend and support demos in your city

*Here is a NO ACTA flyer in 10 languages for you and your friends! PDF

Call the Members of the INTA Commitee

*Ask that their report on ACTA recommend the Parliament to reject it and tell them about the dangers of ACTA: Who to contact.

Resources

Selected Articles

          - WSJ:ACTA is Useless… and a Threat, Says Ex-EU Lead Negotiator

          - The Economist: ACTA up

          - Techdirt on ACTA

          - Glyn Moody on ACTA

          - MEP Kader Arif Blog: "I will not take part in this masquerade"

          - Wikileaks:WikiLeaks Cables Shine Light on ACTA History

          - Español:Nación Red y ALT1040

ACTA has been closely followed by many organizations in Europe and internationally during the whole process of negotiation. There is a lot of information that we recommend to check out in the pages dedicated to ACTA of:

*Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure(FFII)

*Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF)

*Public Knowledge

*Knowledge Ecology International(KEI)

*Infojustice

*Article 19

*Open Rights Group

*European Digital Rights (EDRI)

*Professor Michael Geist

QUOTES

"That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.” *Kader Arif, ex-ACTA Negotiator of the European Parliament.

ACCESS TO MEDICINE

“A trade agenda that limits the legitimate movement of cheap generic medicines will hit the poorest people in developing countries unfairly hard.” - Rohit Malpani, OXFAM - press release on the potential impact of ACTA.

Human Rights

"The EU should reject ACTA in its current form – implementing the agreement could open a Pandora's box of potential human rights violations." - Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International urging the European Union to reject ACTA.

Privacy and Data Protection

"Intellectual property must be protected, but it should not be placed above individuals' rights to privacy and data protection." - Peter Hustinx, European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), issued a report on ACTA, claiming that it could prove unworkable under current European Union data protection laws.

Democracy and Transparency

"It is extremely regrettable that democratic debate has been eliminated from talks that could have a major impact on such a fundamental freedom as free expression. - Reporters without Borders European Parliament Sakharov Prize Winners

Internet service providers liability

"EuroISPA calls again on European institutions to ensure that no measures could be proposed that could lead to graduated response, criminal sanctions, US-style notice and take down and, indirectly, generalized monitoring of Internet traffic and services. - European association of European Internet Services Providers:EuroISPA

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