The European Union signs treaty ACTA

Treaty ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) was signed yesterday by the European Union. It envisages to reinforce the tools for fight against the counterfeit, in particular on Internet. He is highly denounced by the defense organizations of digital freedoms. It is in Tokyo that the European Union ratified this treaty already signed by eight country at the beginning of October: Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco, the United States and Singapore. Among its goals the reinforcement and the harmonization of the legal tools appear making it possible to fight against the illegal downloading and the sale of counterfeit on line. Having the right will be able to thus obtain Internet access providers (FAI) information on people suspected of counterfeit. Negotiated since its beginnings in the greatest secrecy, the text however was edulcorated as its versions. It hoped for example to impose on the FAI the installation of a monitoring of their network; this measurement was since abandoned.

The European Parliament must still validate it.

But several disputes arrive of the defenders of freedoms on Internet as well on its contents as on the way in which it was negotiated. Never the parts concerned for example gave an account of their work to the European elected officials. The world of medicine was also moved by a possibility of seeing the production of generic drugs made more difficult because of this text. To be definitively adopted, the text will have however to be voted by the European Parliament. Generally this one lines up in the opinion of the charged commissions to examine this kind of treaty.