ACTA: Improving but problems remain
The ACTA treaty negotiation process is still going strong. The participants apparently feel pressured to finalise the agreement before the end of the year and have agreed to an extra negotiating round in Washington next week to help hurry things up.
The most recent leaked text shows that progress is being made on the details while some major disagreements (mainly around the scope of the agreement - should an anti-counterfeiting agreement also include patents and geographic indications) are yet to be resolved.
In our last summary article about ACTA we raised five issues where we thought that the treaty was a threat to justice and civil liberties.
Here we revisit them and find significant improvement in three of those issues and minor improvements in the other two.
Internet filtering – time to let it go?
It's been over 3 years since the Department of Internal Affairs started their internet censorship trials in New Zealand. Since then (data from June 29th 2010):
Sky’s Takedown Notices – Justice or Intimidation?
It's a pretty scary thing to receive a legal letter from the law firm of a large corporate, especially when they claim that you're in breach of their rights and then make a series of demands. Going to court is very expensive and even if you're in the right, do you have enough money to be a test case? If you lose you might end up not only having to pay your own costs but those of the company who sued you. The threat of legal action is pretty intimidating for most people.
Sky TV is currently sending such letters to a number of people (see an example here). These are their own paying customers, who just want to watch Sky TV on their home-made entertainment systems. So why is Sky doing it? Before we can answer that question we'll have to explain a little bit about electronic program guides.
ACTA: Say hello to statutory damages
Update: After further analysis and discussion with NZ officials we believe that the current draft of the ACTA agreement would allow New Zealand to maintain its current damages scheme as represented by the (c) option in the agreement (additional punitive damages are decided by the judge). This means that New Zealand would not have to adopt a statutory damages regime to comply with ACTA.
Original article follows:
There's a new ACTA draft leak out, thanks to La Quardature. And does it contain a shocker when comparing the new and last leaked texts.
Flowcharts for the new Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Bill
Chris Esther has created some useful flowcharts that help explain some of the processes included in the new Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Bill. He has very kindly allowed us to repost them here.
Privacy and Technology
A Tech Liberty representative spent two half days at a group discussion about privacy and technology.
Here are some of the things that were discussed:
Technology unveils past secrets
You're probably aware that Google has been mapping the location of everyone's wireless network access points. You may not be aware that other companies, such as Skyhook, have been doing the same thing for quite a while. They both use the information to help work out where you are so that their mapping applications work faster and more accurately.
ACTA: Bad for Civil Liberties
We've been writing about the ACTA (Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) treaty for a while. We believe that copyright law and enforcement will need to change but also believe that everyone should participate in creating new laws, not just big business and their proxies. As such, we strongly objected to the secrecy around the negotiations and called for New Zealand to withdraw. We also made a submission to the Ministry of Economic Development about the digital enforcement provisions section.
The secrecy around ACTA caused problems for critics because, while much of the contents had been leaked, it was difficult to analyse the draft treaty without solid information. This all changed after the last meeting in Wellington, where global public pressure forced them to release the current draft (pdf) of the treaty.
Now we have the text to look at, were our fears justified? In this article we concentrate on some of the ways that the draft ACTA treaty encroaches on our civil liberties.
FAQ : Trans Pacific Partnership
New Zealand is one of the four original members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement. Other countries (Australia, the USA, Peru and Vietnam) are now interested in joining the agreement. The renegotiation process has now begun and it is expected that the USA will try to add their standard treaty terms around intellectual property.
This FAQ answers some of the frequently asked questions about the TPP. It was last updated on 24th May 2010.
Surveillance: current law
The Search and Surveillance Bill is an attempt to rewrite New Zealand's laws around search and surveillance.
One thing that has become clear in the debate around the bill is that many people are not fully aware of the existing powers that government agencies have to pry into our personal affairs. It's not uncommon for someone to decry a 'new' power in the Search and Surveillance Bill, only to be told that it is already in existing law.
This article lists, to the best of our knowledge, the current ways that the government can use to watch us. We will expand/correct it as additional knowledge comes to light.
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Recent Posts
- Submission: Search & Surveillance Bill
- Dissent, the internet and freedom
- ACTA: Improving but problems remain
- Internet filtering – time to let it go?
- Sky Television: A takedown conversation
- Sky’s Takedown Notices – Justice or Intimidation?
- ACTA: Say hello to statutory damages
- Report on public talk: Open Connectivity, Open Data
- Flowcharts for the new Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Bill
- Privacy and Technology
- Submission – Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Bill
- Technology unveils past secrets