The world's major economic powers are considering whether to involve ISPs in their fight against copyright infringement and how to stop pirated material crossing borders, according to documents released by the US Government.

Thirty-seven countries are negotiating a new worldwide trade deal that aims to reduce counterfeiting and copyright infringement, but details have until now been kept secret.

Called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the putative deal has been kept under wraps, but as part of US President Barack Obama's commitment to transparency in government, details of the negotiations have been published.

ACTA is considering what measures to implement to stop material from crossing borders. Fears had emerged that the countries involved were considering ordering border searches of computers and MP3 players to identify and possibly take action over pirated material on personal players. The outline of ACTA activity discounts that, making it clear that it is concerned only with industrial-scale importing and exporting of counterfeit material.

Cross-border trade in counterfeit and pirated goods is a growing global problem that often involves organized criminal networks, said the note. It said that ACTA might include: a de minimis exception that could permit travellers to bring in goods for personal use.

The document also outlines the debate of what the limits of civil and criminal enforcement would be; and how the national authorities would co-operate and share information.

We have reason to believe you may be concealing a pirate mp3 up your arse!

We've been covering the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) for two years now, and in that entire 24 month period no official text of the agreement has been released.

That all changed as the countries behind ACTA have finally released a consolidated draft text (PDF) of the agreement. Though billed as a trade agreement about counterfeiting, ACTA is much more than that: it's an intellectual property treaty in disguise.

Tucked inside the draft are provisions that will prevent people from bypassing digital locks on the items they buy, that will force ISPs to shoulder more of the burden in the fight against online piracy, and that bring US-style notice-and-takedown rules to the world.

The text is not final—that is due to happen later this year—so if you want to see changes made, the time to act is now. After a year of partial leaks and finally complete leaks, ACTA's basic outlines are familiar.

iPod-scanning border guards?

Early ACTA commentators often complained that the agreement might give customs officials the right to rifle through your bags and search your iPod, confiscating it if they determined that it contained any infringing songs. Border guards might become copyright cops, turning out the bags of anyone who has visited China, say, to see if they might be bringing home any illicit copies of movies or software.

This was always a strange idea; ACTA's backers are hunting bigger game than iPods. The draft text contains a de minimis provision that allows countries to exclude from ACTA enforcement Small quantities of goods of a noncommercial nature contained in travelers' personal luggage.

...Read full article

Update: Criminalisation

27th June 2010. Based on article from boingboing.net

More leaks from behind the scenes at the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations: the EU is pushing for criminal sanctions for non-commercial copyright infringement. That means putting kids in jail for trading music with one another.

The ACTA agreement, by its opacity and undemocratic nature, allows criminal sanctions to be simply negotiated. The leaked document shows that the EU Member States are willing to impose prison sanctions for non-commercial usages of copyrighted works on the Internet as well as for 'inciting and aiding', a notion so broad that it could cover any Internet service or speech questioning copyright policies.

EU citizens should interrogate their governments about their support to policies that obviously attack freedom of speech, privacy and innovation. Around the next round of negotiations and beyond, ACTA should be restlessly combatted and opposed worldwide. concludes Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net.

Following revelations from a leaked ACTA document that participating countries would be expected to bring in a system of monetary fines and jail sentences for those who share files without authorization, the UK has ruled out such a response.

The UK government has announced that it feels such penalties are inappropriate for dealing with minor copyright infringers.

A leaked ACTA document published by citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net revealed the intention to introduce criminal sanctions into the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) for file-sharing offenses.

The ACTA Chapter 2 Criminal Provisions document (.pdf) stated that each party shall provide for effective proportionate and dissuasive penalties to include imprisonment and monetary fines.

Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net said: The leaked document shows that the EU Member States are willing to impose prison sanctions for non-commercial usages of copyrighted works on the Internet as well as for 'inciting and aiding', a notion so broad that it could cover any Internet service or speech questioning copyright policies.

As noted by Zimmermann, the ACTA text includes proposals to apply criminal sanctions to infringements that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain. There are suggestions that financial gain could simply be obtaining anything without paying.

However, it seems that at least one country is showing a reluctance to go along with suggestions that file-sharers should feel the full weight of a criminal court. The UK Government has now said that it feels that criminal sanctions are an inappropriate way to deal with this type of copyright infringement.

Acta should not introduce new intellectual property laws or offences. Instead, it should provide a framework to better enforce existing laws, a UK Intellectual Property Office representative told ComputerActive.

The degree of secrecy surrounding the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has reached a worrying new height. Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom saw himself forced to leave a meeting with ACTA negotiators in the European Parliament after he was forbidden from sharing information with the public.

ACTA is an international agreement that aims to target piracy and counterfeiting globally. The secrecy surrounding the negotiations is astonishing. It became clear that even elected representatives at the European Parliament are not allowed to share ACTA-related information with their voters.

Following the latest round of ACTA negotiations in Lucerne, Switzerland, the Commission's negotiators came to the European Parliament to give an update on ACTA's progress. True to the secrecy surrounding most ACTA meetings, the gathering was closed to the public.

Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom was also invited to join, and at the meeting he asked if this secret setup also meant that he wasn't allowed to share any of the information with the public.

At first the Commission seemed unwilling to answer this question with a straight yes or no, but after I had repeated the question a number of times, they finally came out and said that I would not be allowed to spread the information given, Engstrom explained.

Like many others, Engstrom fails to see the benefit of keeping information from the public. There is no sensible reason why the ACTA negotiations should be carried out in secret, or why Members of the European Parliament should not be allowed to discuss information about ACTA with their constituents. In a democracy, new laws should be made by the elected representatives after an open public debate. They should not be negotiated behind closed doors by unelected officials at the Commission, in an attempt to keep the citizens out of the process until it is too late.

That is disgraceful, Engstrom concludes.

A High Court has ruled that devices that allow gamers to play pirated video games are illegal in the UK.

The ruling specifically targets a range of popular devices which can be used to store and play copied games on the Nintedo DS handheld console.

The ruling says game copiers are illegal to import, advertise and sell in the UK.

The defendants - Playables Limited and Wai Dat Chan - had argued that they allow gamers to play home-made games.

The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence, read the ruling by Justice Floyd. Related stories

Nintendo said it was pleased that the court was not persuaded by the defendant's arguments, claiming that game copiers are lawful, as they allow for the play of 'homebrew' applications. The court affirmed that game copiers first circumvent Nintendo's security systems before any non-infringing application can be played on Nintendo's handheld products, it said in a statement.

Game copiers are designed to fit into the game cartridge of Nintendo's DS. Games can then be loaded from memory cards. The chips circumvent the protection measures Nintendo has built into its DS consoles, enabling illegally pirated games to be downloaded online and stored on a chip. Other gamers use them to store and load homemade games or, as they can hold multiple games, to store their entire collection of titles in a portable format.